Being successful in a study program doesn’t exclusively mean dealing professionally with the subject and contents but also presupposes that first-year students systematically need to deal with the organisational, cultural and normative requirements of higher education. Institutions of higher education are increasingly committed to helping students to acquire the ability to study, which enables students to focus on their subjects. This is where the gOPAL study assistance system comes in by providing low-threshold and motivational information and communication. The system bundles and delivers existing information and services via a digital infrastructure to first-year students. This approach is intended, among other things, to counteract information overload. The gOPAL study assistance system gives an insight into a gamified learning management system and an online support service. Users continuously receive helpful information for their studies and regional surroundings. Different game design principles and elements, such as storytelling, quests, achievements, various visual presentations, feedback and curiosity were embedded in the scenarios and scientifically investigated in order to stimulate a continuous usage. This paper describes the elements, presents the analysis of user data and shows the evaluation results to make clear, which (simple) methods help to gamify learning management systems and maintain the motivation for use.