Gamification is an emerging phenomenon that has been advocated for its potential to improve organisational outcomes. The present study aimed to examine the effect of gamification in a perceptual diagnosis task. Forty participants completed a 22-minute visual search task. To investigate the role of game mechanics participants were divided into four conditions resulting from the factorial combination of the narrative mechanic (narrative and control condition) and the points mechanic (Points and no-points control condition). Attention effort, motivation, and work engagement were measured through performance metrics, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and self-report questionnaires. The results revealed points significantly increased task performance while narrative significantly increased intrinsic motivation and prefrontal oxygenation. These findings may provide much needed contributions to the literature surrounding gamification. It was also revealed that fNIRS measures of frontal activation may be a reasonable objective indicator of initial cognitive effort. This presents significant real world applications for objectively measuring motivation.