The Game Layer
I built Rilla’s game system from 0 to 1: streaks, freezes, XP, leagues, profiles, and the interactions that made coaching feel rewarding.
The result: 2× more managers coaching daily, with competition extending into the weekend for the first time.
Sales teams were already playing a game
Leaderboards, competitions, and prizes were already part of sales culture.
The opportunity was not to gamify work. It was to bring a game they already loved into Rilla.
Turn one daily action into a habit
Managers extend their streak by completing one ride-along each day.
The first one triggers a celebration, with milestone animations getting increasingly special as the streak grows.
Make the goal something you choose
After starting a streak, managers choose how long they want to keep it going.
That small commitment turns an implicit goal into one they actively opted into.
Weekends kept breaking the streak
Managers coached consistently during the week, then disappeared on weekends.
So I designed streak freezes. Miss a day and, if you have one, it automatically protects your streak.
Create urgency without opening the app
As midnight approaches, the streak follows managers onto their lock screen.
The state escalates from warning to urgent through color, countdown, and Rilla’s expression.
Turn the streak into a glanceable system
For v2, I expanded the same logic into a widget covering every streak state, from signed out to extended.
Color and character do most of the communication.
A widget only works once it is on the home screen, so onboarding walks managers through adding one.
Make the whole system legible in one place
The streak calendar brings together coaching history, freezes, perfect weeks, commitment progress, and what needs to happen next.
Reward the behavior we actually wanted
Every ride-along earns XP based on the manager’s best comment, rather than comment volume.
Higher-quality, self-written feedback earns the most, aligning the game with better coaching and better knowledge-base data.
Turn a solo habit into competition
XP gave us something to compete on.
Leagues put players into small weekly cohorts across companies, creating competition beyond the leaderboards they already had internally.
A league only exists once you have earned your way in, so the screen has to say where you stand before it can show a board.
Make moving up feel achievable
Players move through Bronze → Silver → Gold → Masters, with each league divided into promotion, neutral, and demotion zones.
Small cohorts keep the next rank within reach.
Competition finally broke the weekend problem
Rank-change notifications continue through Sunday, including the moment someone knocks you out of the top three.
For the first time, meaningful competition continued into the weekend.
Give your competitors a face
Once players were competing with strangers, identity mattered.
Profiles and avatars show who passed you, what they have won, and which company they represent.
Rilla grew beyond the product
Rilla started as the emotional layer of the game system, but eventually became part of the brand too.