30 Gamification Examples in Web Design – How They Win The Audience

It’s time for you to relax, have some fun and to present you with awesome gamification examples – a vastly growing trend in today’s web design and business overall. But what is gamification anyway? As simple as it can be described- adding game-like elements to your app or website with the (not-to-blame) intention of engaging the users with your business.

Want people to learn about your business and service? We learn best by playing, therefore – gamification is a natural choice.

Want people to spend more time on your website, which is also good for your SEO? Immerse them in some kind of a memorable experience, using gamification.

Seems like gamification is the gold mine which fills most of today’s pitfalls for a competitive website, respectively – business.

Let’s find out about 30 gamification examples in web design which will make you stop and pay attention. Play.

1. The Avenging Llama

A hilarious game, guiding you through a number of simple steps to send a mail… via a spitting llama… to a person who irritates you. You can personalize the llama’s look and even send it to your own mail – to test what your victim will see (and maybe get even more pleasure from your cruel vengeance). You can even pick a pre-made hateful (but funny!) sentence to go with your mail. Let’s admit – it saves you precious time that you don’t have and don’t want to spend on your “enemies”! E-mail marketing is still the Queen of King Content and here is a fun and memorable element added to this powerful marketing technique.

2. Defi Ingenieurs

Stunning illustrations and graphic elements form a futuristic world, which you can explore with the help of your desktop keyboard or smartphone. SNCF, France needed engineers to be creative and forward-thinking and to attract some young talents to become employees. Obviously they succeeded with their unconventional campaign, inviting 180 engineering schools to play a game and solve engineering problems. The result of “just playing”? A record-breaking number of students applied for jobs at the SNCF after playing the game. It was 10 times more efficient than other “high potential” recruitment campaigns- states the website.

3. TravelZoo

Travel Zoo came up with an educational game about UK’s literature. You can match a famous story’s location or identify the inspirational city of a writer’s book. Simple design, grab a cup of tea and learn something interesting, while playing.

4. Trump Donald

Trump is one of the most discussed political figures today, and the guys from Animal know how to take advantage of that, by creating a funny, viral little game. There is a simple TRUMPet blowing at Donald’s iconic haristyle from different directions. Funny sound and grumpy face are some cool details you wouldn’t want to miss. Press or hold your left mouse button, rotate the trumpet with your cursor – almost feels like being a virtual personal hairdresser for the US president.

5. Foodzy

One area where gamification in web design is certainly working and continously building larger audiences, is the realm of health and fitness improvement. The Foodzy app is a service that enables users to keep track of what and how much they eat over time, in order to provide them with insights on how to eat and live healthier, lose weight or simply- compare eating habits to your friends’. You can earn badges and keep the history of your meals, but it is for a limited period of time. Some of the extra features are paid. Well, sometimes good game experiences have a cost!

6. Nike+

Nike’s various apps help you to view all of your activities in one place, get personal coaching to help you reach your goals and connect/compete with your friends. The game and compete elements in the apps perfectly match Nike’s mission to inspire and encourage people/sportsmen to train harder and to challenge themselves. Check and try the apps yourself. Just do it. One of our favorite gamification examples in web design that can be beneficial for your health, too.

7. Deadliest Catch 360

Need to feed the soul of the explorer and adventurer in you? No problem, pick a historic ship and explore its interior, with 360 views, watch videos, read interesting facts about it. Looks a bit like a quest game and makes you want to learn more. We enjoyed the experience, quite sure you will too.

8. Timeshift 165

Like car racing or just driving exquisite vehicles? One of the gamification examples just made for you – from slowly revealing the beautiful car to driving in parallel worlds simultaneously – it is a challenge we know you will take. Like the red color of the car, the gamification here is powerful, addictive experience, giving you an adrenaline rush. Suddenly, you find yourself spending a lot of time on the website.

9. Net+/Mixplus

Mixplus makes a lovely gesture to their clients by offering several virtual mixtapes with lovesongs on their website. The user can put his/her favorite in a virtual walkman and start enjoying the selection of heartrending tracks. Very warm “thank you” and acknowledging your audience – thumbs up for the team who created this simple, but one of the brilliant gamification examples on our list.

10. Spent

The game Spent creates awareness of homeless people in US and how hard it is to keep a job and your finances in order. You are challenged to make multiple decisions related to your living expenses and to see if you are going to get through the month. Because there is a personal and psychological element to the game, and you are constantly engaged with questions, the game really hits some sensitive areas within the user. Excellent society-focused, humanitarian gamification example. To be honest, we played the game, we got through the month, but at the cost of some difficult decisions. Can you make it?

11. Collapse

What would you do if a deadly virus hits your city? Collapse combined HTML5 and WebGL so that the experience could exist in a web browser. Rather than just using regular jpg background maps, particles are used to show the organic spread of the virus, as well as represent data. By relying on graphic cards (GPU) instead of regular processors (CPU), Collapse has become an extremely rich, immersive simulation, creating a new type of web experience.

12. Eyezen Challenge

Test your vision and reflexes with Eyezen Challenge. Cutting-edge eye-tracking technology allows the players to neutralize targets and harmful blue-violet lights that appear on the screen using just the eyes’ movements.

13. SyFy – “The Magicians”

Great storytelling achieved by visual narrative, games and tests – the user is immersed in a magical experience by drawing virtual spells in a book and by taking tests. The purpose of this site is to draw attention to the TV series and to offer their fans one more pleasure in being part of the story. We like it, the design deserves your admiration, check it out.

14. My Most Beautiful Nightmare

Beautifully illustrated stories where you can browse through several dark and mystic rooms and explore different dream stories. We love the pan and floating effects and the mystery, which invites you to find out more. The author, le Shka (Robin Gardeur), the mastermind behind several more experimental projects – certainly knows how to engage the audience. Enchanting is the keyword here.

15. God Of War

What better way to present your new game, than including gamification in your web design? What better example of how it’s done right than PlayStation? If you love vikings, beautiful concept art and storytelling – then make sure to check out the website of God Of War.

16. Kolmården Wildlife Park – Map

Beautiful interactive map of a park – explore different locations by clicking on the pins. The illustrations are colorful, 3 dimensional and there are small icons to press on and learn about the spots. Reminded us a bit our favorite strategy games, where you can build, plan and explore – this particular look adds excitement to the design and definitely will appeal to the main target audience – kids.

17. I’m Your Man

We are impressed by the illustrations and the style of the website, if you are a web design lover you will definitely appreciate every little detail. Want to learn some boxing moves, by watching and imitating the professionals? We tried it, it is easy to follow. The narrator encourages you to keep improving – that’s a fighting spirit and real support team!

18. Playkot, Supercity

Playkot have a small preview of the games they have created at their website. No matter if you want to become part of the team or use their services, you are immediately invited to test their creations. In Supercity, you can build your own house. The isometric views and animations are candy for the eye. One of the gamification examples used to highlight the company’s skills and talent. We are impressed, almost as much as the 17,000,000 players enjoying the games.

19. Moments of Happiness

Moments of Happiness is a side project made by EPIC Agency. A series of WebGL experiments developed to make you smile (and spin your fans) using Three.js and GSAP Library. Use your mouse to pan, click and interact with the cute animal characters. We spent some time chilling the lion, by rotating a fan around his mane. Yes. We did that, so tempting. Catchy melody running on the background and even more catchy gamification element. Try it! Who knows – while chilling the lion, you can chill a bit too.

20. We Are Slim

One of the specialties of the Slim team is motion and visual design and they show off their skills with an interactive rollercoaster, taking you on a trip around a colorful, low-poly island with popping colors. Hop in for the adventure!

21. Go! Eat! Bomb!

Simple browser arcade game with fun characters. It’s a top example of simplicity and user-friendly navigation. We all know simplicity is hard to achieve, so thumbs up for these guys!

22. Team Alpine Matmut

You are challenged to car race and compete with fellow enthusiasts. One of the gamification examples immersing the fans in the experience of racing. Because it is all about adrenaline, passion and competition, and the team behind the games knows that, you are encouraged to share your results on social media. Are you going to be a proud pilot?

23. Mail Gamer

MailGamer is an application that allows you to play simple games like Tic Tac Toe or Sea Battleship using email messages. We love the animation on the landing page, explaining the concept. Emailing is an inseparable part of our everyday lives and why not make it fun and bond with your team/colleagues? Cool idea, we might try it as well.

24. Ouigo Let’s Play

Ouigo is a train company which puts a lot of effort into building a strong social media presence and engaging the customers with their services. It’s hard to miss the happy testimonials and instagram pictures of people on their website. They’ve taken things one step further by using gamification to entertain people with a pinball game. Beautiful candy world of travelling and a train waiting for you to hop on board. Well, we don’t think a trip with the train will ever again be boring and dull!

25. Help Santa

Panic studio has an unsual (original) way of wishing happy holidays to their customers – of course, with gamification in web design and it’s hilarious. Can’t promise you will be able to help Santa, but you can try… anyway. Sometimes gamification is used solely to satisfy your curiousity, to relax and do something just for fun. This little game is an excellent example of this.

26. Penahligon’s

Let us start with sharing our appreciation for the feminine, delicate design of the website. The illustrations are gorgeous, with subtle overlaying effects and plenty of white space, allowing you to focus on the central part – choosing a beautiful bouquet for your dear ones. Wondering how gamification examples and elements can be used in a flower shop’s website? The answer is – very delicately, by telling a story about the flowers you pick for your custom bouquet order. Did you know that flowers have different symbolic meanings, assigned to them? If you learn the language of flowers, you can send a beautiful message with your present. We just love the interaction with this website.

27. Swiss Army Man

The welcoming page says that Manny is here to help you, but by the looks of it, he needs some help. Find out why! We guarantee a memorable experience and  some fun (at someone else’s expense!). Anyway, a great way to draw attention to the movie, or let fans play with their favorite character. Certainly one of the funniest gamification examples.

28. Go Places Heineken

We can hardly think of any other gamification examples that have such a strong focus on the YOU. You are invited to a virtual interview, where an interviewer asks you questions with 2 options. You are immersed into video sequences, giving off the feel of “being there” and “doing things in the now”. Based on your answers, you can learn about your beer taste, your personality and find out who your like-minded buddies are. One of our team members took the test – yep, she is a real investigator. What about you? What did you get?

29. Step Inside Asia

Step Inside Asia creates beautiful interactive maps of their travel destinations and decorates them with small animations and simple effects. By clicking on different landmarks, you can explore 360 degree views of the places and get some basic info about them. While exploring the maps, you are invited to plan your trip and mark the places you are interested in visiting – very clever! Here is a beautiful snapshot of a 360 view from Vietnam:

30. Land Lines

A chrome experiment powered by Google team. The user is invited to draw a line on your screen and Google finds different Google Earth satellite images, which resemble the same shape/line you’ve drawn. A fun way to explore places you’ve never seen before. Machine learning and line detection algorithms were used to preprocess all images and identify the dominant lines. This enabled the analysis of brushstrokes and retrieval of the matching image efficiently without the need for a server. There are many Chrome Experiments to explore and play with – just… Google it!

Other gamification examples in web design?

Share with us! We’d be glad to include them in this list. Have you considered including gamification in web design in your own projects? What could be the pros and cons of such a decision? Suddenly, we are thinking of our htmlBurger and cooking up some gamification examples ourselves! Maybe in the near future… We are quite hooked on the idea, so let’s see what the Future brings.

We’d love to hear from you, don’t be shy and say hi!

Still hungry for more website inspiration with creative layouts, animations and cool effects? Then, you might also like our article on extremely creative web layouts.

See you next time,

htmlBurger team