Abstract
The motivation for this work came from the belief that our civilization is becoming more connected to the ”virtual” world, and that users are using virtual communication tools to be able to communicate, mostly without the need to communicate face to face. This leads to a more closed environment, where people exit their houses only when needed (get groceries, go to work, etc). By viewing positive effects of games on players, and using them in non-game contexts, gamification was created, and is already being used and researched with many approaches, but there is no research regarding its use on outdoor activities, as a motivator for people to exit their homes. For this purpose, we approached this topic and developed GeoChest as a possible solution. GeoChest combines Gamification and GeoCaching, an outdoor activity, in an attempt to understand which gamification techniques and game mechanics can bring a positive feedback from the users that use the application. In the end, we concluded that not only the application was well-designed, but also that most of the application’s game mechanics implemented were well-received by the users, ending this dissertation with the belief that we were able to bring some interesting contributions to Gamification research.