I stumbled across Chore Wars this weekend via The Avante Game blog. Chore Wars resembles an old school RPG. The idea is simple, create a character and invite your housemates or family to join your party. Then claim in game experience points and gold for completing real life tasks like cleaning the bathroom. Despite sounding naff I've rather enjoyed playing with it and have probably done more washing up than I have for a while. The thing I like about it is the perfect balance between simplicity and extensibility. You can get a new game up and running in minutes but you also have full control over the adventures available. For example, we don't have a garden (alas) so I removed the adventure 'mow the lawn' but we do drink a lot of coffee. So I added the 'make the coffee' task, complete with the chance to battle the 'espresso dragon' and the prospect of a rare 'magic coffee grinder'. OK, so I wasn't that imaginative but you do have room to express yourself. It would be great if you had a young family that you wanted to encourage to help you around the house. There's nothing to limit you to housework either. You could create a game for your workplace, complete with all the thankless tasks at work like working that Saturday shift. It almost goes without saying in this day and age that you can access an RSS feed of all your activity too. I like the way such a simple game blurs the boundaries between the in game and the outside worlds. I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually but it will be interesting to see who puts in the most housework at our house. It will also more interesting to see who puts in the most work trying to 'game' the game too.