Inventive Reward Schedule Entices Players

Temple Run 2 is an incredibly enjoyable game with simple game mechanics.  However, that isn’t what makes the player want to continue to play the game.  Instead, an inventive reward schedule entices the player to continue playing until the next power up, reward, or challenge is attained. 

Abilities

Maximized Abilities

In addition to collecting coins and bonus items (that help you collect more coins) while running through the board, there are characters and abilities that can be purchased.  Abilities that can be purchased trigger power ups within the game.  Incremental improvements in duration of reward are also available for each ability.  Abilities are initially inexpensive to purchase, growing more expensive as the game progresses.  As abilities are purchased, more coins are collected during each run, making them only slightly more difficult to earn.

Objectives

For each stage of the game, objectives provide direction to help the player develop his abilities.  Initially simple objectives such as run 500m (approximately 30 seconds of work) and collecting 100 coins (attainable within 2 minutes of gameplay) progress to complex and lengthy objectives such as collecting 5 gems in a single run (can take 12 minutes or more of continuous gameplay).  The combination of objectives and abilities result in a game that is continuously rewarding the player, or tempting them to the next challenge by playing just a few more games.

Daily and Weekly Challenges

Weekly Challenges

As if the reward schedule discussed above, the game also features daily and weekly challenges.  Similar to the objectives, they range from simple distance requirements to challenges that require collecting items across multiple runs.  These unique challenges keep players coming back day after day to play the game – even after all other objectives have been met and abilities have been maximized.

To go one step further, the daily challenges earn coins or gems based on how many consecutive daily challenges have been met.  Once five consecutive challenges have been met, the player maximizes his rewards earned for each daily challenge.  Missing a single day resets the clock, requiring the player to play five consecutive days in order to get back to the earning potential they had lost. 

This reward schedule is particularly clever as it provides incentive for the player to ensure they meet the challenge every day.  Should a day be missed, a requirement of five days isn’t such an insurmountable amount that the player is overwhelmed with the prospect of needing to earn their way back up and gives up with the game.

Overall

Overall, the combination of upgradable abilities, gameplay objectives, and daily challenges provide an enjoyable enticement to keep players coming back.  Dangling multiple carrots, along with a stick if daily challenges aren’t met, provides the extrinsic motivation a player needs to keep playing the game, day after day.