My name is Csaba, and I’ve worked as a teacher in public education for around a decade. Gamification has been my thing ever since my university years, though back then I didn’t know it was called like that.

I was a practical guy, so when it came to writing my thesis, I decided not to dive in the books but in the world of classroom practice. I was sitting by my laptop and playing MMORPGs, thinking how to make learning more enjoyable for my students and easier for myself. Then it hit me – I love videogames, students love videogames, why not use this in the classroom too? So, I started observing how my favourite games worked and how those dynamics could be used in my teaching practice. One thing led to another, and I came up with a number of tasks and methods, the research of which became my university thesis.

Since I knew that my students liked my gamified practices and I myself had fun implementing them, it didn’t even cross my mind to abandon the system after graduation. So, I started teaching, first in primary, then in secondary schools, and kept on developing the framework, trying out new ideas, incorporating more game elements in the system. Luckily, a very dear colleague of mine got interested too. He applied the system himself and helped me improving it with ideas and viewpoints I had never thought of. Certain students got so enthusiastic too that they offered their help, so a tiny community was formed around the development of the system. And it worked.

This went on for 8 years straight, but while in the beginning the new elements made the system better, after a while the development stalled. However, I knew there was more to it, so I didn’t give up. I slowly realised that the reason why I couldn’t reach the true potential of the system was the lack of theoretical knowledge. It took almost a decade, but, ultimately, my university-time lack of interest in theory backfired.

So, I hit the books, and hit them hard. Found all the articles and books in the topic and spent over a year arming myself with knowledge. I spent all my free time studying the works of great minds in gamification, motivation and engagement, and consulted with professors of PhD programmes. Luckily, all this research was not in vain, because I gradually discovered the white spots and dead ends of my system. During these 18 months the framework developed more rapidly than it had in the previous few years, and as a consequence, it reached its present form.

The creation of this system was my hobby horse, so of course I was talking about it with everyone. One of them, a childhood friend who had became a programmer, fancied the idea pretty much, and suggested creating an application to make it run easier. After a few beers we set the basis of the app, and the work begun. My friend invited some of his colleagues in the process, and around a year later the application was ready to rumble.

One of the programmers had an old friend who worked as a graphic designer. This guy got interested in the project as well, and created the visual part of the framework. This is how the designs of the Classes, Magic Items, the Map, Manna Angels, Fortresses and everything were born, making the system complete.

All in all, Caerusia is the product of much enthusiasm, some creativity, loads of theoretical knowledge, and also some huge portion of luck, because I was fortunate enough to have friends and colleagues who helped me achieve my goal. I must say I’m pretty proud that something so cool was born not in the laboratory of a multinational company, but in the backyard of some average Joes and Janes with a vision.