Professor Game Podcast

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Victoria Ichizli-Bartels, author of fourteen books on gameful living and coiner of the term "self-gamification," explores how the role of the tabletop RPG game master maps onto the inner conversation we have with ourselves. She walks through Jill Bolte Taylor's "brain huddle" concept (a 90-second pause that resolves inner conflict by letting the 12 different players in our heads come to the table), three diagnostic questions for stressful moments ("what is happening inside myself," "who is talking," and "what is the goal of this person"), and a Justin Alexander hack borrowed from RPG handbooks: instead of treating a stressful thought as a crisis, respond with "yes, this can happen, now what do you do?" Listeners come away with practical reframes for daily self-management and a clearer way to spot which inner player is driving a given thought.

About the Host

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Key Takeaways

• Jill Bolte Taylor's "brain huddle" concept proposes that 90 seconds of pause is enough to resolve inner conflict, by letting the different characters in our heads (which Victoria counts as roughly 12 distinct players, including self-leader, self-coach, game designer, and game master) come together and find an appropriate response.
• The single most useful diagnostic question for a stressful moment is "what is happening inside myself," followed by "who is talking" and "what is the goal of this person" — the third one usually reveals that the inner voice is trying to protect or train you, not sabotage you.
• Justin Alexander's RPG game master hack, "yes, this can happen, now what do you do?", reframes intrusive or stressful thoughts (like "I want to quit my job") from a crisis into an exploration, which usually reveals you don't want the extreme outcome — you want a smaller change.
• RPG handbook rules ("respect your co-players, be patient, be curious, be open-minded") map directly onto self-talk. Open-mindedness toward your own impulses is the rule most people break without noticing.
• Victoria connects RPG engagement to Core Drive 7 (Unpredictability and Curiosity): players love active play and surprise inside games but resent it in life, even though the underlying motivator is identical. Recognizing this changes how you experience unexpected events.
• The strategic-game metaphor of map exploration ("the land becomes lighter as you pay attention") and cool-down phases (planting crops after taking a castle) gives a concrete vocabulary for energy management between high-output and recovery days.

Topics Covered

• 0:00 — Opening hook on RPG surprise
• 0:25 — Welcome and guest reintroduction
• 1:51 — 14 books in and still surprised
• 4:06 — Writing about TTRPGs without playing them
• 6:47 — The game master inside your head
• 9:48 — Why RPGs are collaborative storytelling
• 12:22 — Is there a map of the mind
• 16:47 — Rules of the inner RPG
• 18:29 — The 12 players inside us
• 19:05 — The 90-second brain huddle
• 23:30 — Self-care hacks from RPG handbooks
• 25:37 — The yes-this-can-happen reframe
• 26:56 — Closing thoughts and what is next

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

About Victoria Ichizli-Bartels

Victoria Ichizli-Bartels is a writer, coach, and consultant with a background in semiconductor physics, electronic engineering (Ph.D.), information technology, and business development. While not a traditional gamer, Victoria coined the term "self-gamification," a gameful, playful approach to self-care and self-help that combines anthropology, kaizen, and gamification to enhance quality of life. With over a decade of experience living gamefully, she is the author of fourteen books and the instructor of two online courses on turning life into fun games. Victoria grew up in Moldova, lived in Germany for twelve years, and since 2008 has been based in Aalborg, Denmark, with her husband and two children.

Find the Guest Online

• Website: https://www.victoriaichizlibartels.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriaichizlibartels/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/optimistwriter
• Substack: https://selfgamificationclub.substack.com/

Mentioned in This Episode

• Be Your Best Game Master by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels (the book this conversation is built around)
• So You Want to Be a Game Master by Justin Alexander
• Whole Brain Living by Jill Bolte Taylor (the "brain huddle" concept and the four-characters model)
• The 5-Minute Perseverance Game by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels (her first book, published 10 years ago)
• Actual Real Life Role-Playing Games by Victoria Ichizli-Bartels
• 10,000 Hours of Play by Yu-kai Chou
• A.J. Jacobs and his life-as-experiment / puzzler books
• Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and tabletop RPGs in general
• Story Cubes (the dice-and-pictures storytelling game)
• Core Drive 7 — Unpredictability & Curiosity (Octalysis)

Free Resources and Get in Touch

• Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide
• Get Daily Value on Your Email
• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

Episode Summary

Tetiana Kobzar, product designer with 18 years of experience and creator of the Comportance Framework, joins Rob to share how behavioral design turns clinical and educational software into products people actually want to use. She walks through the seven steps of Comportance (goal, baseline, emotion, hypothesis, minimum validation, cadence, and iteration) and shows how it shaped a gamified speech therapy app for Alder Hey Children's Hospital and a mini-game replacement for 27 cognitive assessment tests. The conversation covers why founders overload products with functionality, why Duolingo's Black Hat motivation works for some users and burns out others, and how Octalysis fits inside a wider behavioral design practice. Listeners leave with a practical structure for designing engagement and a sharper read on when game-based beats gamified.

About the Host

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Key Takeaways

• The Comportance Framework runs seven steps in order: define the goal, set the baseline metrics, design the emotion (motivation and positioning), state one hypothesis, build the minimum validation, set the measurement cadence, and iterate. Most founders skip the goal and emotion steps and jump straight to functionality.
• Tetiana's team at Alder Hey Children's Hospital replaced weekly-only speech therapy with a gamified app where clinicians set tasks as mini games, letting kids practice pronunciation between sessions while the therapist tracks progress.
• A separate Tetiana project replaced 27 pen-and-paper cognitive assessment tests with mini games on tablets, capturing extra signal (timestamps, finger tremor, voice recordings) that paper tests cannot measure.
• Most products fail not because users are irrational but because founders treat them as rational agents. Behavioral biases and cognitive overload kill engagement faster than missing features.
• The Pareto trap in client work: founders spend 80% of their attention on the 20% of clients who complain, while the 80% of healthy clients who quietly bring most of the revenue get under-served. Reverse the ratio to protect recurring revenue.
• Duolingo's streak mechanic is heavy Black Hat motivation. It drives high retention but creates rage-quit risk: a user who loses a 4,000-day streak rarely returns. The near-miss has to threaten loss without delivering it.
• Game-based design (where the experience itself feels like a game) opens more creative options than gamification (points, badges, leaderboards bolted onto a non-game product), but both belong inside a wider behavioral design practice.

Topics Covered

• 0:00 — Why Duolingo's Black Hat motivation backfires
• 0:24 — Rob's intro and the Core Drives in the Wild guide
• 2:47 — Daily life after the acquisition
• 4:14 — Favorite fail: design for the end game
• 8:16 — Alder Hey speech therapy app and 27 cognitive tests as games
• 11:26 — Game-based versus gamified, and where the line blurs
• 15:44 — Where Octalysis fits inside the Comportance Framework
• 17:11 — The seven steps of Comportance, walked end to end
• 23:50 — Cognitive overload and treating users as humans
• 27:24 — Duolingo streaks, near-miss design, and rage-quit risk
• 31:42 — Book picks: Cialdini, Yu-kai Chou, Don Norman
• 33:29 — Civilization, board games with the kids, final advice

Get the free Core Drives in the Wild guide, behavioral design applied to real products: professorgame.com/WildCD

About Tetiana Kobzar

Tetiana Kobzar is a product strategist and behavioral designer with 18 years of experience building software for healthcare, wellness, and education. She is the creator of the Comportance Framework, a seven-step methodology that brings behavioral science structure to product design. Her recent work includes a gamified speech therapy app for Alder Hey Children's Hospital and a tablet-based replacement for 27 cognitive assessment tests, and she shares behavioral design ideas through her #BehaviouralDesignThursday LinkedIn series and industry talks.

Find the Guest Online

• LinkedIn
• Tetiana-kobzar.com
• Instagram
• TikTok

Mentioned in This Episode

• Proposed guest: someone from Duolingo
• Recommended book: Actionable Gamification by Yu-kai Chou
• Recommended book: Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
• Recommended book: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
• Favorite game: Civilization series
• Duolingo Is Not A Free Language Learning App, It Is... (The Octalysis Group)
• Alder Hey Children's Hospital speech therapy app (Tetiana's project)
• Comportance Framework (Tetiana's seven-step methodology)
• Octalysis Framework by Yu-kai Chou

Free Resources and Get in Touch

• Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Free Guide
• Get Daily Value on Your Email
• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD

Most apps lose 77% of their users within the first three days because they treat onboarding like a tax audit instead of a human journey. In this episode, Rob Alvarez breaks down why your "helpful" 15-step toolkit might actually be causing cognitive friction and driving users away. By moving from function-focused design to human-focused design, you can transform a bounce into a lifelong advocate. Rob explores the "Christmas Magic Mistake," the "Hello World" principle for instant wins, and the "Miyagi Method" of scaffolding to ensure your users actually want to come back for Day 2.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Links to episode mentions:

• Core Drives in the Wild Free Guide
• The Magic Doesn't Start Where You Think It Does (Christmas experience episode)

Lets's do stuff together!

• Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Guide
• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
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• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Identify the exact strategies Sharon and Rob discussed so you can start increasing engagement in your own projects today. Grab our Core Drives in the Wild guide for free professorgame.com/WildCD

What if the secret to solving real-world isolation or preventing misconduct wasn't more rules, but better play? Sharon Wood, a veteran gaming executive who helped launch the original Grand Theft Auto, joins us to discuss her shift from commercial hits to "Serious Games" with a scientific edge. We explore the neurological reality that the brain cannot distinguish between real and virtual experiences, making games a potent tool for building empathy and confidence. From memory care apps that reunite families to clinical trials in schools, this episode moves past the "points and badges" surface of gamification to show how progressive mastery actually changes lives.

Sharon Wood is a seasoned gaming executive with over four decades of experience spanning sports marketing, entertainment, media, and video game development. Her career began in the fast-paced world of sports and entertainment marketing before she entered the gaming industry in 1996 during PlayStation's early days, where she orchestrated groundbreaking partnerships between major brands like Pepsi and Frito-Lay and video games.

Most notably, Sharon launched the original Grand Theft Auto on a modest marketing budget. While defending the controversial title in the media, she consulted with psychologists and discovered something surprising: games could actually provide safe environments for exploring moral concepts rather than encouraging negative behaviors. This revelation changed everything. Inspired by gaming's positive potential, Sharon collaborated with a psychologist around 2012-2013 to create "Luminous," a game designed to help women and girls build self-confidence. Within months of launch, it became a top-five app in 34 countries.

This success led Sharon to found Happy People Games (HPG), a company dedicated to creating "serious games": interactive experiences that merge scientific evidence with engaging gameplay to deliver real-world benefits beyond entertainment. Unlike simple gamification with badges and points, HPG builds games that create progressive mastery experiences, harnessing the natural reward response from achievement and channeling it toward positive outcomes.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Guest Links and Info

• Websites:
  • happypeoplegames.com
  • thenewforevers.com
• Instagram: @thenewforevers

Links to episode mentions:

• Proposed guest: Christian Svensson
• Favorite game: Tekken

Lets's do stuff together!

• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD

Most companies treat user churn as a data problem, but looking at "where" someone leaves doesn't explain "why" they lost interest. We break down the "Engagement Leaks," a phenomenon where record-breaking marketing spend fails to fix a product that is effectively a sieve for users. By analyzing the high-touch onboarding of Superhuman, the "novelty hangover" of Robinhood's digital confetti, and the legendary community design of Harley-Davidson, this episode reveals how to use the Octalysis Framework to plug leaks in different stages of the user journey. A masterclass in transitioning from a product people merely start to one they actually stay with.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Links to episode mentions:

• Superhuman
• Robinhood
• Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.)
• The Octalysis Group

Lets's do stuff together!

• Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Guide
• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Exploring gamification for your product or org? Let's chat → professorgame.com/chat

We sit down with product leader and author Nesrine Changuel to explore the behavioral science of "Product Delight." Nesrine pulls from her extensive experience at tech giants like Google and Spotify to explain why emotional connection cannot be treated as an afterthought in product design. By distinguishing between purely functional requirements and deep emotional motivators, she reveals how features like Google Chrome's inactive tabs or Spotify's curated playlists solve core psychological needs rather than just technical problems. You can walk away with actionable frameworks for removing user friction, anticipating needs, and asking the ultimate design question: "If my product were a human, how would the experience be better?"

Nesrine is a product coach, trainer, speaker, and author the author of Product Delight Book. With a background in research and over a decade of product experience, she has built products used by millions like Google Chrome, Google Meet, Spotify, and Skype. Nesrine is known for her focus on emotional connection and user delight. Today, she helps teams create products people don't just use, but truly love.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Guest Links and Info

• Website: nesrine-changuel.com
• LinkedIn: Nnesrine Changuel
• Product Delight Book

Links to episode mentions:

• Proposed guest: Elena Verna
• Recommended book: Emotional Design by Don Norman
• Favorite game: DiXit

Lets's do stuff together!

• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Master the science of motivation and see how top experts do it right. Get the free 9-day "Core Drives in the Wild" email sequence here: professorgame.com/WildCD

We break down three massive gamification disasters from 3 huge companies to reveal exactly what happens when we ignore behavioral science. We explain how well-intentioned features like leaderboards and point systems can accidentally create toxic work environments or destroy thriving communities. By applying the Octalysis framework, we highlight the dangers of relying too heavily on Black Hat motivation and extrinsic rewards without balancing them correctly. You will learn how to design systems that drive genuine engagement rather than building expensive burnout traps.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Lets's do stuff together!

• Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Guide
• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Wondering if Octalysis fits your challenge? Quick intro chat → professorgame.com/chat

Most companies rely on traditional design thinking to build their products. That assumption is exactly why their retention rates flatline. In this episode, Rob Alvarez sits down with Joris Beerda, CEO of The Octalysis Group, to unpack the five-step Octalysis design process that drives engagement for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft and Porsche. They discuss the critical difference between human-centered and human-focused design, the mechanics of building a high-functioning loyalty loop, and how to prioritize features using the "Biggest Bang for the Buck" model. If you want to move beyond simple points and badges to build experiences users genuinely care about, this conversation lays out the exact blueprint.

Joris Beerda is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Octalysis Group. As a world-leading expert in Human-Focused Design and Octalysis Gamification, Joris' global career in creating engagement spans across 20 years, 15 countries and 7 languages. He has designed Human-Focused experiences for dozens of Fortune 500s as well as medium-sized companies. Joris is also a well known Keynote Speaker on Gamification in many renowned conferences throughout Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Guest Links and Info

• LinkedIn: Joris Beerda
• The Octalysis Group
• The Octalysis Group Case Studies

Links to episode mentions:

• Proposed guest: Daniel Kahneman or Richard Thaler
• Recommended book: Why Everyone Else is a Hypocrite by Robert Kurzban
• Favorite game: Heroes of the Storm

Lets's do stuff together!

• Let's chat about your gamification project
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• Ask a question

Don't experiment on your own revenue with broken game mechanics. Get our guide "Core Drives in the Wild" to learn how to apply real behavioral science to your product: professorgame.com/WildCD We dismantle the myth that simply adding points, badges, and leaderboards will fix a broken product. We explore why superficial rewards often lead to a 90% failure rate in corporate gamification and cause dangerous spikes followed by massive engagement crashes. By contrasting Google News's failed badge system with Wikipedia's intrinsic motivation model, we highlight the critical shift from transactional features to human-focused behavioral science. You can learn how to balance White Hat techniques like Epic Meaning with Black Hat mechanics like Scarcity to build long-term retention without burning out your user base. Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Links and resources Google News: https://news.google.com Wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com The Octalysis Group: https://octalysisgroup.com Lets's do stuff together! Core Drives in the Wild: Professor Game Guide Let's chat about your gamification project YouTube LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Start Your Community on Skool for Free Ask a question

Have a product challenge around retention? Quick intro chat → professorgame.com/chat

Leif Sorensen reveals why most corporate learning games fail. We discuss the "magic powder" fallacy, where companies try to cram too many behavioral frameworks into a single experience. Leif breaks down his process for building AI-generated learning games at Actee and explains why focusing on the transfer of learning is the real secret to changing behavior. The episode also explores the post-COVID failure of traditional LMS platforms and how facilitators can run better sessions by focusing on player engagement instead of memorizing game content.

Leif Sørensen is the founder and owner of Actee, a global platform using games to develop soft skills and support learning and change in organizations. He works closely with companies, consultants, and learning professionals to design engaging, research-based learning game experiences. Leif is a frequent speaker and podcast host, focusing on gamification, leadership, and how games can make complex topics easier to understand and act on.

Rob Alvarez is Head of Engagement Strategy, Europe at The Octalysis Group (TOG), a leading gamification and behavioral design consultancy. A globally recognized gamification strategist and TEDx speaker, he founded and hosts Professor Game, the #1 gamification podcast, and has interviewed hundreds of global experts. He designs evidence-based engagement systems that drive motivation, loyalty, and results, and teaches LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and gamification at top institutions including IE Business School, EFMD, and EBS University across Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Guest Links and Info

• Website: Actee.com
• LinkedIn: Leif Sorensen
• Instagram: @acteeglobal
• Spotify: The Learning Edge - Gamification and L&D

Links to episode mentions:

• Proposed guest: Sune Gudiksen
• Recommended book: Transfer of Learning by Robert E. Haskell
• Favorite game: Derby

Lets's do stuff together!

• Let's chat about your gamification project
• Start Your Community on Skool for Free
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Ask a question