10 Examples of Levels Used in Gamification

This post is part of a series on how gamification mechanics are used effectively in various types of consumer apps. You may find these gamification examples helpful if you are looking to incorporate gamification into your product strategy.

The Levels Feature and Its Role in Gamification

In gamification, "Levels" represent a player's progress, skill, or achievement within a system. They are interesting because they provide a clear visual indicator of advancement, offering a sense of accomplishment and motivating continued participation. Apps use levels to break down complex tasks into manageable stages, reward consistent engagement, unlock new features or content, and ultimately, increase user retention and add value by fostering a feeling of growth and mastery. Now, without further ado, here are 10 apps that use the levels mechanic to delight and retain users.

10 Examples of Levels Used in Gamification

Khan Academy

Khan Academy provides free educational resources and uses points, badges, and progress tracking to motivate users to learn various subjects.

The Khan Academy app uses a Levels system to encourage users to learn more and stick with the platform. As users complete exercises, watch videos, and master skills, they earn points that contribute to their overall Level. This provides a tangible sense of progress and accomplishment. Seeing their level increase motivates users to continue learning and explore new topics. The Levels system also adds value by unlocking new features and content. Higher levels might grant access to practice tests, advanced exercises, or even personalized recommendations. This creates a clear incentive for users to deepen their understanding and achieve mastery. By tying access to features to Levels, Khan Academy encourages consistent engagement and ensures users are adequately prepared before tackling more challenging material. In essence, the Levels system gamifies learning, making it more engaging and rewarding. It provides a clear path for users to follow, showing them how far they've come and what they need to do to progress. This structured approach promotes retention by keeping users motivated and demonstrating the value of continuous learning.

Simply Piano

Simply Piano offers personalized courses and uses gamified exercises to make learning piano fun and engaging. It provides instant feedback and adapts to your skill level.

Simply Piano leverages its Levels system as a core engagement and retention tool. Levels provide a clear, gamified structure for learning piano. Users progress through increasingly challenging exercises and songs, receiving immediate feedback on their performance. This sense of accomplishment as they "level up" motivates them to continue practicing. The Levels feature is not just about superficial progression; it also serves to add tangible value. Each level introduces new musical concepts, techniques, and songs, ensuring a structured learning path. This incremental approach prevents users from becoming overwhelmed, fostering confidence and building a solid foundation in piano playing. Furthermore, the Levels system allows for personalized learning. The app adapts to the user's pace and skill level, ensuring they are constantly challenged but not discouraged. This tailored experience contributes to higher user satisfaction and ultimately increases the likelihood of long-term engagement with the app.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow uses a reputation system and badges to encourage users to contribute to the community and provide helpful answers to programming questions.

The Stack Overflow app uses a levels system, a gamification strategy, to encourage user participation and retain active members. Users gain experience points by contributing meaningfully, such as asking good questions, providing helpful answers, and editing existing content. As users accumulate experience, they advance through different levels. Higher levels unlock privileges within the community, like the ability to vote on questions and answers, suggest edits, and eventually, even moderate content. These privileges provide increased influence and responsibility, fostering a sense of ownership and encouraging users to continue contributing. This level system adds value by recognizing expertise and rewarding helpful behavior. It motivates users to improve the quality of the site, fostering a collaborative environment. Progressing through levels provides a tangible sense of accomplishment, encouraging long-term engagement and making users feel more invested in the Stack Overflow community.

Untappd

Untappd is a social networking platform for beer enthusiasts. Users can rate and review beers, earn badges, and track their beer-drinking experiences.

Untappd's Levels feature is a core mechanic designed to keep users engaged and coming back to the app. As users check-in beers, they accumulate points that contribute to their overall Level. Reaching new Levels unlocks badges and grants bragging rights within the Untappd community. This creates a sense of progress and achievement, motivating users to continually explore new beers and log their experiences. The Levels system adds value by rewarding consistent app use. The more a user actively checks in beers, the higher their Level becomes, indicating their dedication to the platform and knowledge of the beer world. This perceived expertise can lead to increased interaction with other users, as their reviews and opinions might be seen as more credible. Furthermore, the Levels system encourages users to explore a wider variety of beers. While certain beers may be consistently enjoyed, leveling up often requires branching out and trying different styles and breweries. This exposure enhances the user's beer knowledge and keeps the app experience fresh and interesting, solidifying Untappd's position as a valuable tool for discovering new beers and connecting with fellow beer enthusiasts.

Yousician

Yousician is a music education platform that offers interactive lessons for guitar, piano, ukulele, bass, and singing. It uses gamification to track progress and motivate users.

Yousician utilizes a level-based progression system to keep users engaged and motivated. The Levels feature breaks down learning into manageable steps. Each level focuses on specific skills and concepts, providing a clear path for improvement. As users successfully complete exercises and songs within a level, they earn points and progress to the next one. This structured progression keeps users coming back. Completing levels provides a sense of accomplishment and tangible evidence of their progress. The app unlocks new songs and exercises as users advance, ensuring a steady stream of fresh content. This constant stream of challenges and rewards prevents boredom and encourages consistent practice. The Levels feature adds value by personalizing the learning experience. The difficulty of exercises and songs scales with the user's skill level. This adaptive approach ensures that users are consistently challenged but not overwhelmed. By tracking progress and providing feedback, Yousician helps users identify their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to focus their practice and achieve their musical goals more efficiently.

Nike Run Club

Nike Run Club tracks runs and provides challenges, badges, and leaderboards to encourage users to achieve their fitness goals and compete with friends.

Nike Run Club (NRC) uses Levels as a core engagement tool. As runners log miles with the app, they accumulate points and advance through different Levels: Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple, Black. Each Level unlocks badges, achievements, and sometimes exclusive Nike products or experiences. This progression system motivates users to run more often and track their runs consistently using the app. The Levels feature adds value to users by providing a clear visual representation of their progress and commitment to running. It establishes a sense of accomplishment and encourages continued use of the app. It transforms running into a game, promoting a competitive spirit (against oneself and other runners) and creating a personalized fitness journey. Beyond personal achievement, Levels foster a sense of community. Users can share their level progress on social media, inviting interaction and friendly competition among friends. This element turns individual runs into shared experiences, strengthening the connection between runners and the NRC app. In essence, Levels incentivize engagement and retention by making running more rewarding and social.

Playground Sessions

Playground Sessions teaches piano using interactive lessons and real-time feedback, turning practice into a game. It features courses designed with Harry Connick, Jr.

Playground Sessions uses a Levels system to gamify the piano learning experience and keep users engaged. As users complete lessons and practice songs, they earn points and progress through different Levels. This provides a clear sense of accomplishment and visual representation of their progress, motivating them to continue learning. The higher the level, the more challenging and rewarding the content becomes, preventing stagnation and encouraging users to stick with the program. Furthermore, Levels are tied to access and features. Higher Levels unlock new songs, lessons, and even advanced functionalities within the app. This creates a sense of aspiration; users are driven to reach higher Levels to unlock more content and features, fostering a continuous cycle of learning and engagement. This incentivizes regular practice and solidifies their commitment to the program. In essence, the Levels system within Playground Sessions is a core element of its retention strategy. By providing tangible rewards, clear progress markers, and access to new content, Levels give users a constant feeling of growth and accomplishment. This makes learning the piano more fun and engaging, ultimately helping users stick with the program longer and reach their musical goals.

Scratch

Scratch is a visual programming language that allows users to create interactive stories, games, and animations. It is designed for young learners.

Scratch doesn't technically have a built-in "Levels" feature in the way you might see in a game or learning platform with specific milestones and unlocks. However, the Scratch platform inherently fosters a sense of progression and mastery that acts similarly to a level-based system, which contributes to engagement and retention. This sense of progression comes from the increasing complexity of projects users create. New users often start with simple animations or games, following tutorials and experimenting with basic blocks. As they gain experience, they learn to combine blocks in more sophisticated ways, implement variables and logic, and even create their own custom blocks. This organic growth motivates users to keep learning and pushing their skills, mimicking the feeling of "leveling up" as they become more proficient coders. Furthermore, the Scratch community plays a significant role in reinforcing this progression. Receiving positive feedback, remixes of their projects, and recognition from other Scratchers encourages users to continue creating and sharing. This feedback loop validates their effort, motivates them to improve, and fosters a sense of belonging within the community, ultimately leading to increased engagement and long-term retention as they see their skills grow and their contributions valued.

Todoist

Todoist is a task management app that rewards users with points and levels for completing tasks and staying organized.

Todoist's Levels feature is a gamified system designed to increase user engagement and long-term retention. Users earn points by completing tasks, using various features, and achieving goals within the app. These points contribute to climbing through different levels, starting at Beginner and progressing to higher tiers. This levelling system provides a clear visual representation of progress and accomplishment. As users complete tasks, they feel a sense of satisfaction and see tangible results in the form of increased points and a move towards the next level. This motivates them to continue using Todoist and remain productive. Beyond a visual progress bar, higher levels often unlock small rewards or perks, like new themes or karma streak bonuses. These rewards add value by personalizing the user experience and further incentivizing consistent Todoist usage. Ultimately, the Levels feature makes task management more engaging and helps users build a positive habit around using the app, driving both engagement and long-term retention.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor is a travel platform that allows users to plan and book trips. It uses badges and rankings to reward users for contributing reviews and photos.

TripAdvisor uses a Levels feature to encourage users to actively contribute content to the platform. Every time a user writes a review, posts a photo, adds a travel list, or participates in the forum, they earn points. These points accumulate, and the user advances to higher levels, represented by different badges. This gamification strategy motivates users to provide more content. As users progress through the levels, they gain a sense of accomplishment and recognition within the TripAdvisor community. The higher their level, the more their contributions are perceived as valuable and trustworthy by other users, which can influence travel decisions. The Levels system ultimately benefits TripAdvisor by generating more user-generated content, enriching the platform's database, and increasing the app's usefulness for all users. It also fosters a sense of community and loyalty among contributors, leading to improved user retention and a more active and engaged user base.

Conclusion

These are just a few examples of how levels can be used as a gamification mechanic to improve consumer apps and platforms. We hope you found these examples inspiring and that they help you think about how you can incorporate gamification into your own product strategy.

If you're looking to build gamification into your app or platform, we encourage you to check out Trophy, a set of APIs and tools that make it easy.