I have a love/hate relationship with achievements. I find the majority of in-game achievements to be silly and a waste of time (Killed 10 rats)–some even patronizing (Congrats! You just jumped!)–but there are the few achievements that really make you feel like you’ve done something well. I also come from a generation of hard-core gamers and not today’s casual gaming crowd. I have a little bit of an OCD when it comes to achievements because I see them as a laundry list of things to complete. So, I’ve developed a blind spot for achievements. I’ll glance at them when they pop up, but otherwise don’t bother looking at the entire list, otherwise I’ll get sucked in and feel like I need to complete them.

Fruit Ninja (yeah, I know I’m late to the party) was a game I almost didn’t get, even though it was free, but when my sister asked, I went ahead and got it. This past weekend, we’ve been playing and at first I didn’t care much for the game until my sister told me about unlocking blades. Then, I started perking up. It’s a silly thing to get interested in, but I easily sank a couple of hours slicing up virtual fruit trying to unlock new blades and wallpapers. I think the reason is less about the aesthetics/unlocks and the general sense of achievement, and more of the camaraderie/bonding with my sister through playing this game.

Even though we played on our own separate devices, we kept a running conversation – did you unlock this blade? What did I do to unlock that blade – can you check for me? What about this wallpaper? Look at this new blade I got, it’s pretty cool! – and so on. I then realized these unlocks were more interesting than the achievement system built into the game. I never bought into the whole achievement list ala Steam and XBox Live – I thought it was a pointless way of bragging of how “good” you are. Yet, I always went through the achievements because they were things to do. I thought I began to understand the [social] point of achievements, or at least unlocks with Fruit Ninja, through this interaction with my sister.

Unfortunately, some of the achievements also detracted from the original intent of the game. I know I read an article somewhere about the proper way of implementing achievements and improper achievements can drastically change the focus of gameplay. I prefer my achievements to be tied back to the game rather than being a list of bragging rights. I think Fruit Ninja could have gone without the traditional in-game achievement list and just left the unlocks to be self-explanatory achievements. Yes, you can buy the unlocks, which would defeat the whole purpose of achievements, but suppose that capability were removed, then you’d be left with what are essentially trophies that have an effect in the game itself.

I also found that as I focused on unlocking something, my gameplay would adjust to try to meet that goal. The fundamental movement of swiping the screen still remained, but there is an extra layer of complexity when trying to meet various goals. For example, to unlock the Calligraphy Brush blade, you have to reach a score of at least 50 in Classic Mode without slicing two of the same fruits in a row. You’re still slicing up fruit, but now you have to keep track of what the last fruit you sliced was. My current goal is to score a combo after time runs out in Zen Mode for the Flaming blade – this is a timing challenge and is much harder than it sounds. These unlocks add an extra level of difficulty to an otherwise simple game and I find it very interesting how “simple” the solution is to making the game more interesting and retaining players. Of course, coming up with the right criteria for unlocks is a complex art in itself.

I never really felt a moment of bonding/camaraderie over achievements as I did with unlocks. When I was raiding in WoW, we did random achievements just because they were there to do. A lot of the bonding we had as a group was mainly when we took down a boss for the first time, “unlocking” the next part of the raid dungeon rather than for the achievement – the achievement was a freebie anyway, the real goal was to get to the next part of the dungeon. Achievements vs. unlocks bears more pondering.