Over the past few months, I have been pondering about how I can better support our Village – in a more meaningful way. This has been a concern of mine for at least 6 months, to be fair. A troubling niggle that, somehow, there was a better way to help support our community that would be a lot more beneficial to everyone involved.

From the very beginning, I wanted to create something different. Not ‘better’ – just different.

For a while, I have been feeling that there was an opportunity to bring a unique and different approach to spirituality that wasn’t being met or explored with more ‘mainstream’ outlets. Hence, why I originally created Greatest Good Tarot™: a way to bring some cheekiness and more relaxed / attainable approach to a meaningful subject. To (hopefully at least) create a more honest ‘every day’ path – without the gatekeeping and theatrics that some other outlets have decided to adopt.

And this has worked beautifully over the past few years. However, there has always been that niggle.

Not the “Am I doing this right?” or “Am I doing enough?” questions – but it is true I do have bouts of those thoughts from time to time. But more, “Surely, there must be a way that I can support people more?” or “There must be a way I can create something as a spiritual safety net?”.

On top of this, I have been troubled and concerned by the kinds of questions I have been getting over the past year or so. With so many of the village asking similar questions, from different angles or points of view. Now, I don’t want people getting concerned about me, as I believe I wouldn’t be a good ‘leader’ if I didn’t listen and reflect on these kinds of subjects.

However, after much reflection, I think I have boiled these questions down to two: “I am feeling lost/overwhelmed/burnt out [over a particular subject]” and “I don’t know if I am doing this whole spirituality thing right”.

And this, is why the game has become in to being.

Greatest Good Game™

The game has been (and still is, and I’m writing this) a massive undertaking. Put simply, I have had to completely pull apart and rebuild the website to hold all the functionality and future possibilities. At its core are the Greatest Good Tarot™ principles: to develop spiritual, mental health and general well-being. I genuinely believe that there is nothing else quite like this out there for these principles.

Like all scout-themed games, you start your journey with the Village Membership Badge – that teaches you the principles and how you achieve your goals and missions throughout your Game adventure.

Everything is based on this website, through your account – so this should be a nice and quick learning curve for you to undertake. Once you have achieved your membership badge, you are then free to literally choose your own spiritual adventure!

Activity Badges are where you learn a majority of the principles – with adventures and tasks designed to take you out of your comfort-zone. Some are easier than others to achieve – but that is kind of the point – no need to rush! The real goal is to give you the tools, knowledge and lessons to then apply them to your life… Just in a more fun and creative way.

There are badges on manifesting, journaling, mindfulness, self-love, magic, volunteering, tarot, cycling, exploring and adventures to name a few. Some involve writing up a few blog posts on the site talking about your adventures to pass the badge (as evidence). Other badges involve taking courses and quizzes. Some are a mixture. But all, at their core, are built to always come back to the Greatest Good Tarot™ principles.

As you continue to earn badges (and points – but that’s for another post), certain Activity Badges unlock Challenge Badges.

A Challenge Badge is a themed experience. They cannot be earned directly, only by completing the tasks and adventures within Activity Badges. Some Challenge Badges include: Mystical Challenge, Self Challenge, Adventurer Challenge and Community Challenge.

There are other badges such as Community and Workshop badges that can be achieved along your adventure, but that’s for another time. The real purpose of this post was to talk you through the reasons for me developing the game and the general overview about how it will work for you. As we begin 2023, this is just one method I have been designing to build you this ‘safety net’ we spoke about. A way to help you find the foundations of your own personal spiritual, mental health and general well-being. I genuinely hope it helps.