SuperBetter: A multi-player approach to beating SA!

[mind_games]

Originally Posted by papaSmurf

Goodness gracious, here comes The Phantom! Glad to have such a fashion-forward individual joining the team (purple-and-black striped underwear? Yes please!) Whoever the Phantom teams up with, he is sure to provide excellent advice on what to wear. As the second brave soul to complete Mission #1 with his life intact, he's earned himself a golden "Caped Crusader" merit badge, to be air-dropped to the heart of his secret lair within 3-5 business days by Russian fighter jets. It might not be quite as cool as the platinum badge, but it's still worth it's weight in gold, literally. What's more, for sporting the absolute most revealing costume permissible under international law, he's also managed to score a svelte "Barely There" merit badge. It's sort of a mixed blessing.

<The Phantom tries to pin his most priced badge - the Barely There badge - to his uniform, but can't find any loose bits to pin it to. Ends up stabbing himself multiple times in his chest with the badge pin and faints at the first sign of blood ...>

Gah, I think I'll just keep these badges in my lair for now.

In his lair, the Skull Cave, the Phantom ponders over his latest dilemma - how to pin a badge to his skin tight uniform without creating any rips hmm .. :

[papaSmurf]

*bump*

Anyone who's looked at this thread and is still on the fence, feel free to ask any questions you might have right here! I'll also be putting up a quick and dirty explanation of how this thing works in the group relatively soon, that wall of text that is my first post in this thread seems a bit overwhelming looking back.

[TorLin]

i don't get it.

[papaSmurf]

No worries Tor, I probably haven't done the best job of describing it. Let me see if I can sum it up briefly here:

SuperBetter is a multi-player game that we're going to be playing over the SAS forums. The goal of the game is to make beating your SA less difficult and more fun. You move towards getting SuperBetter by completing a series of top secret missions designed to help you manage your anxiety, earning awesome badges for each successful mission as well as for various other achievements. The first 5 missions are the same for everybody, and help to get things started, but each mission after the 5th is personalized to provide appropriate challenges for your situation.

The first mission is to pick your super secret identity, which can basically be anything that makes you feel awesome, and then decide whether you want to be a hero or a sidekick.

The valiant heroes (and heroines) are the main players of SuperBetter: they receive and complete missions based upon their particular brand of SA, check in with their sidekicks briefly every day about their progress, and earn badges, bragging rights, and other neat things for their achievements. Playing SuperBetter as a hero (or heroine) also creates a record of all your successes, allowing you to look back and see just how far you've come.

No heroine worth her salt should be caught fighting her battles alone! Sidekicks help out the heroes by getting in touch with them (holding secret meetings) and taking about 5-10 minutes going over the events of the day, every day, and then using that info to assign new missions and dole out sweet merit badges. Heroes can have multiple allies of course, so no one sidekick should have to do all the work unless they want to. Sidekicks also keep a record of their hero's epic successes and other great deeds for posterity.

Over the course of Missions 2-5, the heroes/heroines team up with sidekicks, identify trigger behaviors and positive coping skills (bad guys and powerups, respecively), dream up a bunch of specific ways to challenge their anxiety (boss fights), and create a general to-do list of not-necessarily SA-related goals big and small that they'd like to achieve (sidequests). After the first 5 missions, heroes and their sidekicks take all this information and use it to build fun, safe, and rewarding challenges for the player.

Most importantly, SuperBetter is fun! It makes it easy to find a friendly and receptive support team, provides you with realistic goals, and rewards all your hard work by giving you bragging rights and making you feel awesome. You're under no pressure to get everything done all at once, as you only need to take out one bad guy at a time. Taking on a challenge that's too tough at the time is no big deal either, you simply make a grand escape, knowing you'll just come back when you're stronger and kick butt. Finally, getting a chance to punch SA in the face just feels good!

Hopefully that cleared things up a bit. Don't hesitate to ask more questions if there's something that still doesn't make sense. And if you're still on the fence, just go ahead and sign up! We still could use plenty more players. Top Secret Mission #1 only takes 5 minutes, and you'll be missing out on metric crap-tons of fun by not playing. Just getting better is boring, so let's get SuperBetter!

[papaSmurf]

.....bump

[LostPancake]

i think it's a really great idea - but i've been so busy with school and therapy and nanowrimo and various convos i haven't been able to make a character. maybe i'll incorporate it into my novel brainstorming. i might as well - i seem to be putting everything else into it.

anyway, i think it makes the idea of tackling certain issues in life a lot more FUN. and therefore, doable. because motivation is such a limiting factor.

[PlanetarySauce]

Living in a fantasy world is supposed to help me?
I already fantasize about having a normal life every day. More of it will not help me..

EDIT: on second read, I see this is more of a fun therapy session. Sounds fun actually and could help, but you'd really have to be motivated to work on those goals. I don't see imaginary badges as that motivation, however others sincerely congratulating me could work.
I think this would work a lot better in person though.

[JackTorrance]

You know, the funny thing about this social anxiety thing is that, you guys probably think you never have anything to talk about etc etc, but on this forum you all sound so talkative lol...

Also on this subject, I could never play this game lol, mostly I'd just feel pathetic doing "missions" like talking to people. I already feel pathetic just about the fact that I have problems talking to people.

[PlanetarySauce]

Originally Posted by JackTorrance

You know, the funny thing about this social anxiety thing is that, you guys probably think you never have anything to talk about etc etc, but on this forum you all sound so talkative lol...

Also on this subject, I could never play this game lol, mostly I'd just feel pathetic doing "missions" like talking to people. I already feel pathetic just about the fact that I have problems talking to people.

Lol yeah you're right.
But the thing is with typing, I can collect what I want to say in spurts, and post it as one whole message. I can't do that in person. Lots of awkward pauses. Story of my life haha.
True enough about talking to people being missions too. I'm trying to be normal. Feeling as though talking to someone is a mission, no matter how much the actual act of talking to others would help, would not make me feel like I'm on the right track of what I want to be happy.

[papaSmurf]

Originally Posted by PlanetarySauce

EDIT: on second read, I see this is more of a fun therapy session. Sounds fun actually and could help, but you'd really have to be motivated to work on those goals. I don't see imaginary badges as that motivation, however others sincerely congratulating me could work.
I think this would work a lot better in person though.

The idea for SuperBetter is for it to be more of a "fun, caring support network" than a therapy session, really, but you're not far off. Having a group of people who listen to you and want you to succeed can be a huge help! I totally understand what you are saying about the motivation factor, but quite honestly that's going to be a problem with any attempt to get the best of your SA. Motivation simply isn't easy to come by, but I feel that SuperBetter, by putting you in daily contact with people who care about you, understand your situation, challenge you, give you honest feedback, and congratulate you on your progress, could make for a pretty nifty motivational tool. It's the best thing I can think of for right now, in any case.

Like you say, the point of the merit badges isn't really the badges themselves. They're mostly just there to allow others to compliment you on your successes. They also help to remind you, when you're feeling down or doubtful or that everything is terrible, of how far you've already come, and that you have a huge team of people rooting for you every step of the way.

Obviously SuperBetter would work better in person or with close friends (feel free to play it that way!), but if I invited everyone from the forum over to my house it might get a bit crowded...... and everyone lives super far away from each other. The second part, especially, is a bit of a problem.

[PlanetarySauce]

lol, yeah I hear what you're saying.
Kudos for the idea for sure.
You're right though, if I try it I might find I like it!
I just think I need a little more motivation though to even start, otherwise nothing would ever get done and I'd just see how everyone else is progressing, making me feel even worse

[Breakfast0fChampions]

Originally Posted by LostPancake

i think it's a really great idea - but i've been so busy with school and therapy and nanowrimo and various convos i haven't been able to make a character.

This.

My semester ends in about three weeks, however. I'll try to get my character done before then but if not, that's when I'll come into the picture.