Start building your New Year resolutions with video games in Habit Kingdom

With the New Year upon, the offices of the world have erupted into that one question asked each January; what are your resolutions? You can have the best will in the world, but sticking to these elusive little buggers is incredibly difficult, however, Habit Kingdom is a new app aiming to fix this.

When I first scanned the title I misread it as Hobbit Kingdom and got excited for some good old Tolkien fun. After noticing my error, I was a little disappointed, but then it was replaced with great wonder. I struggle with sticking with these self-improvement things like eating right and walking, so could an app help?

Habit Kingdom aims to help its users stick to their schedules through the use of video games, the most positive force of all. The premise is simple; you create a task list in the game, tick it off when you are done, and then you are rewarded with some gameplay. Much better than a simple check box.

Your battles are done through a team of monsters, who hatch from Eggs. You get these by saving towns on your adventure, at which point you can hatch them using a Magic Star. This premium currency is obtained through completing achievements, finishing rare quests, or throwing your credit card at your phone.

After this, you hatch your Egg by finishing tasks such as ticking off a one-off task from your list, doing a regular task you have scheduled, or a combination of both. Completing tasks is also how you do attacks in battle. Habit Kingdom is not for those who need instant gratification. Much like building a habit, it will take time.

The biggest issue here is the Magic Stars, however. They are needed to hatch eggs and level your character, which directly impacts your monster level cap. You can only get a limited number of Stars in-game without paying, leading to the obvious threats of greed. Fingers crossed on that one.

Habit Kingdom is available to download from the App Store and Google Play.