Ideas for millionare badges theme?

[amy]

We’re working on a set of badges that will award every time a player surpasses a new million point threshold. Looking for ideas for themes for this badge set!

To start, some stats:

• Of the top 100 players, 60 have less than 5M points
• 17 players have over 20 M points
• 207 players have over 1M points

We would need to be able to make 100 badges with the theme but the vast majority of players would only win the first five or ten.

Themes we’ve considered:

• stats/facts about the number (so for 3 we could say life on earth is 3.8 Billion years old – we will probably use this for Neo)
• words that rhyme with the number
• attributes of heroes (courage, bravery, etc)
• roman numerals
• great science quotes (but what visual to go with?)
• funny thoughtful quotes (^^)
• incrementing badges (but I think that would be boring since it’d be the same badge every time)

what else could we do?

[susi]

at first sight i tend to funny thoughthul quotes

update: At second sight i would go for some of the ideas of @Hawaiisunfun and @Annkri below

[hawaiisunfun]

I am all for the incrementing badges that are outside of the normal badges. Can’t people go on a journey? It would be distance or size (timelines might be boring) following a theme (neuron theme has an *) or not. I used to be on neopets, and would do neoquests, that’s why I bring it up. It would be educational too. Ideas:
DISTANCE

• stars from the Sun
• around the world, visiting different landmarks (kinda boring though)
• *travel around the brain
• Mario Bros style, where people go through regions, like desert, to forest, to underground…as they get to the end
  SIZE
• *processing power of supercomputers over time compared to the human brain
• *neurons - increment by size, usefulness, # in the body… - like a level 8 person’s an amacrine, whereas a level 15’s a horizontal (just examples, not accurate). This can actually use EW data for size (maybe if not size, # of cubes), which can use 1 neuron per 1M pts. Since there’s over 2000 already mapped, that allows for >2000 badges! This will help people learn more about the project and brain too. Win-win! Like level 1 (1M pts) is 200 cubes whereas level 40 is 800 cubes.
  NO THEME
• power bar or pyramid that gets filled (gradient color) to the top, where it says how much more to go (like ‘only 10M to go!’)
• Maybe people ‘level up’, where they’re a level 10 player if they reach 10M points. This is outside of roles and lightning levels - this can include them getting courage, bravery…as long as it increments, like bravery’s 25M
• Maybe people can get some store points to ‘buy’ a digital badge and other stuff <- I really don’t know, just aligns with the Mario Bros coin collecting style

Really anything visual that helps people understand where someone is (status-wise) when they look at a person’s profile and for the user themselves, how much they have left to get to their goal (only notified when they reach a goal) works. Anything boring, avoid

[annkri]

I really like some of the ideas from @hawaiisunfun.
If you use neuronstypes you could say something about when was it first discovered, what do it do (if we know), how big part of the retina/brain is it/ how many cubes is it normaly like 1000-1500 cubes. What is making it different from other cells, how many cells in this class have we discovered in the first 5 years of ew. has it been part of some papers (with link if possible)

I think it would be fun to have the journey with like you start as a amacrine explorer betwheen 1-5 million, gets bistratified pathfinder from 6-10 M and so on. You could even have one gap with different glial classes since i am sure a lot of the scouts/scythes are wondering what is this glial thing we are hearing about. With different catecories where you get more info on different cells for each million.

Where you are on the journey could be symbolised with a lvl/points column visible to all on your profile that get a new look for each milestone. Like green on 1-5 M, green with a red border from 5-10, green with blue and white border from 10- 25 etc or even gets new things like a crown, wings, a scythe etc. the counter will have to start on 0 for each milestone or you will see less of a progress
a quick example

you could even have competitions with total points earned pr class of players

[hawaiisunfun]

love it, this is how I visually conceptualized it (although I was thinking more like a bar where it changes colors, like levels 1-10 is purple, 20-30 blue…in a backwards rainbow (the blue shades are calmer, building up to the more anticipatory red shades). That provides a visual indicator, through the color, to determine where a person’s at for levels. I really do like the level-based competition idea too!

[amy]

These are great ideas @hawaiisunfun @annkri!

I love the journey idea and to make it a story! It could start with cells in the retina and then move Along the path of the axons to eventually get to cortex? Any ideas for what kind of images we could use?

We were thinking that the millionaire badge set itself would be a slow gradient, so as you move up the colors slowly change.

[susi]

I like your ideas.
Favorite theme for me neurons. Perhaps tell about history of neuroscience, would give information about what we do and same time can be put on a timetable. For example one million tells about Hippocrates, and 100 million about newest secret findings of eyewire Milestones like 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 75,100 could be correlated with milestones in neuroscience history. Batches could be named as to author https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/hist.html
and illustrated as with https://i.imgur.com/3uTgPfE.png

Power bar or pyramid in profile also good idea.There perhaps add last badge.

I also like the level-up idea at bigger milestones. Perhaps show higher levels in chat like special colors.

[susi]

update to my above ideas. Just now saw your entry.

If you are going with the journey along neurons: Perhaps include the whole neuron system, like from toe to cortex. We concentrate on eye, but using our eyes, we influence whole body.

Gives more possibilites to explain things and you get better possible range of pics.

[amy]

awesome! So I put together a list of retina-related cells and it’s roughly 25 items long. Only not posting bc I don’t want to give the badges away!

Maybe we could do retina neurons for the first 25 and then migrate to parasympatheric and sympathetic journey?

Then we could have a similar system with cortical cells for Neo?

@hawaiisunfun Also I really like the distance thing. We ended up not using it for Eyewire is because we want to have it in Neo!

[annkri]

I did think it was more cell types than 25 in the retina, but guess that is primary types?

When i visualized this idea i was thinking along badges with a picture/drawing of the cell in question to show what you was talking about, but perhaps a better idea to give a link to the museum for that cell type/ or a full scale picture?

Another idea to badges is what do the cells do, detect movement then you have a something with speed stripes after it. anything to do with colour get you a rainbow, sharp vision or side vision give a eye with small or broad light from it etc are you in the parasympatic or sympatic nerves you get something to do with the affected organ.

In my option if you really want to make it a journey you would need some kind of bar to use as a countdown visible in profile for everyone to see and a class name like in my picture would be nice . My first thought was just using different colours like @hawaii said, but i started to wonder will this be enough difference that everyone can see that red is better than blue? But if you have new things like borders or even a statue of grim as the bar, being drawn from just a outline until it got more depth with arms, hood, glowing eyes, scythe etc, it would be very instinctive although it would perhaps crash a bit with the general theme on ew?

[hawaiisunfun]

Yes, we can journey as light enters the eye. A pre-trainee (see ) could start outside the eye, then a trainee (see ) could go through the eye to the retina, and then level 1 starts at the cells in the retina. Looking at this picture, the levels (going up, don’t know the range yet) would be (with always showing the direction of light, only have individual cells at this point):

• pigment epithelium
• rods, cones (maybe we can randomize who goes to which one, you can only go one path, gives ppl a story to talk about)
• outer plexiform layers
• horizontal cells
• bipolar cells
• amacarine cells
• inner plexiform layers
• ganglion cells
• nerve fiber layer

Like, for light, cince we are in cyberspace, we can have like a journey transition, where it’s light to digital or something. Like

or with cubes (like EW) like

. Anything that merges realms with transitions, like playing EW, anatomy, or reality (like light coming in) is a plus!

That should wrap up 100M, then to 200M would be the optic nerve to cortex (it’s a beast of its own): 1, 2 (journey view). Then inside the cortex would round out 300M, as it’s also its own, with different cells (like pyramidal). Another part to consider is other parts of the brain, for vision processing, like the parietal lobe.

Of course, there’d still be a bar and stuff in the profile, but what I talked about is for the journey itself

[hawaiisunfun]

Nice, extensive list. Like maybe people can take side turns (like an extra or hidden passage/level), or have surprise level pop ups (it would be randomized). Like maybe a wise sage (a famous person in neuroscience), would pop up at a random level, like Level 37 or something and say like a famous quote of theirs and then a either motivation, tip, or how many levels left (like “3 more till the next level up!”).

I was also thinking (and like the famous people, could be pop ups at random times too), would be neurological diseases. It helps people put things into perspective by showing one of the purposes to map neurons, like to help understand diseases better for treatment.

A third would be advancements (like technological) in neuroscience. So random pop-ups for famous people, diseases, and tech progress.

[hawaiisunfun]

It’s ok to have it in EW too if people are going the long distance, especially after a point threshold (idk when, 1M, 10M, 100M?). That way, people can still help with EW, because they have a choice between EW and Neo. It could even be 2 different stories, so when people switch in between, they take up in the journey where they left off!

[susi]

I have other idea as to batches: Also give incremental birthday- and anniversary badge?

[amy]

Wow amazing! Y’all’s ideas are so good and so helpful!

Here’s a look at one of the neuron journey designs

[annkri]

I like your hidden passage lvl idea if you are thinking you could actually do something new. but if you are only thinking about some badge that is out of the chosen theme i am not so sure that is a good idea,

But It would be fun if you could get for inctance your own little cell to play/reap and named after you when you get x millions, Where other scythes are only allowed to correct mistakes and complete when finished.
Or on lower lvls you could get a trial period on to the next promolvl for eveything betwheen 2 hour- one week even if not qualified. This could perhaps make more people get promoted?

[hawaiisunfun]

Love it! Reminds me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, so many options, which path does it go? The badge would be perfect as the intro badge for the neuro (or ‘nurro’) journey imo!

[hawaiisunfun]

Seriously, the hidden level being a cell that one person works on (maybe they phone a friend if needed) and get to name themselves: wow, a dream come true! Yes, please. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the badge’s symbol is a rendering of the finished cell? It would be a bonus to the 100 badges.

[hawaiisunfun]

I was also thinking (an off-topic tangent), maybe if people get coins or something along the way, here are my ideas for what to ‘buy’:
*sage advice from neuro-philosophers (like tips from users on how to do better on EW or history of scientists and technology)
*level up or extra round
*really cool: extra features that people create on tampermonkey. Maybe people can have extra colors to trace with, or extra brushes. Oh, the possibilities! A bonus, maybe the people who make them on tampermonkey get the coins for what they create as an incentive to creating it. Then they can also use the coins to buy stuff too! This really would progress EW quicker than ever with developments, and might even attract newcomers as well.

This all might be complicated, but it’s awesome to think about!

[hawaiisunfun]

I guess getting back to the badges (I think I veered a little off-track, but not without merit), people can go on a journey with the badges, like my picture on reaching a certain level. So it would be a badge per level reached, going along a neural journey in the body. This is from the perspective of light, people will pretend to be light going through the body and getting processed. Maybe nurro can be the companion guide on this light-directed neuron journey. So the 1st badge is like being outside the body, then the next is going through the lens, then reaching the retina, then the outer cells, then the rods/cones, neurons, optic nerve, pathway to the occipital lobe, occipital lobe, then maybe the parietal lobe. So each of these would be a badge. A description of them would be what is going on (with the light or processing). An example is: “Level #: Retina”, “light coming in creates an upside down image that needs to be flipped in the brain”. Optional: magnification 1x, museum link (@annkri 's idea). Example badge (rudimentary, made in Paint):
, modeled from this picture.