Randomizing in Captivate

Intro

Randomizing exists in some limited situations in Captivate:

  • Question pools allow to add randomized quiz slides to a project.
  • Shuffle feature for several question types can be seen as randomizing.

However in all other situations you need to use JavaScript to get a randomized number (or text). This short blog is meant as an answer to a user request in the eLearning community, to be found under this link. In my blog you will find multiple examples of randomizing for games. This is a very simple example since the user only wants to have a random card chosen from a deck on clicking the deck. A second click on the deck needs to flip back to the cover of the cards.

Example file

There is only one slide in this project besides the Title slide. The three (tarot) decks are identical, have 14 cards. Try it out. You may get some ideas how to use this workflow for games. In the future I will post more examples of this workflow in a bigger tutorial project. 

This example can be watched below (fixed size) or you can click this link for a rescalable version.


Step-by-step workflow

The timeline of the tarot slide shows the three decks. Each deck has a Click box on top of the deck, which will trigger an advanced action with embedded JavaScript. I hear you exclamations! Why not use the deck itself (PNG image) as interactive object. It is impossible because JS is used to change the state of the object, and it is impossible in that case to use the image itself as button. Of course that is annoying, because a responsive project with Fluid Boxes will not allow stacking of the click box with the multistate object in the same location. You would need a button in another location. For a non-responsive project (like this example) it is not a problem.

Multistate object (deck)

Decks are multistate objects with 15 states. The Normal state shows the cover. Due to the script the labeling is important for the other custom states. They are all labeled Cardx  where x is a number corresponding with the rank of the card. The three decks in the example are identical, but you can have decks with a different number of cards, just use the same logic for the numbering. Look at the Object state panel for Deck1:

Variables

In Captivate I need only one variable for each deck to follow up the status: is it showing the cover, or a random card? Two possibilities means that I can use a Boolean variable. When the cover is visible, the variable has the value 0, for a random card it has the value 1.

Advanced Actions

Click boxes trigger a conditional advanced action. Here is the action for the first click box (CB_1) over Deck1:

The Boolean variable v_1 is checked. If it has the value 0, a random card needs to be shown which is done by a JS script (see below), and the variable is toggled to 1. If it has the value 1, the cover (which is the Normal state) is shown. 

For the second and third deck, the variable and the name of the deck need to be edited.

Javascript

The used trick is to create the name of the state by concatenation of two strings:

  • First string is always 'Deck1'.
  • Second string is a random number between 1 and 14, converted to string.

I have explained in depth the use of Math.floor(Math.random()*(max-min))+min) in an older blog post:

Playing-with-numbers-part-1

That random number is converted to a string with a JS method. Result of the concatenation is the name of one of the states in the deck multistate object. 

For the second and third deck, the deck name need to be changed in this script. If you do have more or less cards in those decks you need to edit the maximum number (here set at 15).

More ideas?

This basic example may have ignited your creativeness? What about creation of a jackpot game? A funny mathematics exercise for your kids? A board game where you use a dice? 

For this use case it is impossible to create a shared action. One of my long-standing feature requests for actions is the possibility to generate a command using concatenation. A second one: being able to change a state based on a variable.






Memory game setup - version 2021

Intro

As new year's blog I offered a simple memory game in this portal

Let 's Play and Dream

The setup however is not explained in the blog. Since another user asked about the creation of such a memory game, this blog will explain shortly the workflow. It will be limited to the game itself, not to the consequences of having succeeded it.

Setup slide

Besides the use of ONE shared action and ONE advanced reset action, all is based on using multistate objects, groups and variables. It can easily be extended to more than 6 pairs as in the example file. The background image, which in this case is only a static image of all the small images, can be replaced by another image (or a random image if you use JS), which can be included in the game itself. To see what I mean, I have to refer to my first version of this game, 10 years ago: 

Concentration game created exclusively with Captivate

If you want to play that old game, I warn that it is a SWF.

Timeline

Have a look at the timeline of the game slide

The two buttons with the same back image are in a group. There are 12 buttons, so you end up with 6 groups. The buttons themselves indicate where they are. The expanded group Gr_6 has the second button on the third row and the fourth button on the second row.  However you can set up labels as you want.

Each button is a multistate object. Normal state is the symbol for the virus, the Back state has the image. 

Variables

Each group has a tracking variable: v_1 - v_6. Their default value is 0.

The variable v_click starts with a default value of 0. It will track the button clicks (first or second).

The variable v_counter will track the number of correct paired images. It starts at 0, and the game is finished when reaching 6.

The variable v_first is needed to reset the slide, will store the frame number of the first slide frame. For more information check: Replay or Reset?

Shared action 'ButtonAct'

This action is triggered by the 12 buttons, and has only 3 parameters as you can see in the preview of the action:

You see 4 decisions:

Always  is a standard action, it shows the back state of the clicked button and disables it. The tracking variable for the group and v_click are both incremented by 1.

WrongAct (conditional) checks if this is a second click, and it didn't match the first click (because v_1 is equal to 1). In that case the Reset workflow is used. The advanced action 'EnterGame' (see below) will reset what is necessary.

CorrectAct (conditional) if both clicks pointed to the same image, the variable v_counter is incremented. The group with the two buttons will be hidden, to reveal the background image. 

Done: (conditional) checks the value of the variable v_counter and navigates to the conclusion slide if it reaches the value 6, which means the game has been completed successfully.

Advanced action EnterGame

This action is essentially resetting the slide. 

 Since buttons can have been disabled (see ButtonAct) all buttons need to be enabled. A group tracking variable can have a value 1, needs to be reset to 0. The variable v_click needs to be reset to 0 as well. The only variable keeping its value is v_counter.

Extension tips?

More possibilities will not need a lot of work. If you want to reuse the workflow in more projects a shared action has a lot of advantages.  If you import that action in a new project, the variables v_counter, v_first and v_click will be created automatically including their default value and description. Personally I would use the present advanced action ‘EnterGame’ to create a new shared action, keeping only the variables to reset, not the buttons. If you import that new shared actions at the same time as the first shared action, you don’t have to create the group tracking variables neither. You only have to set up the multistate objects and the groups in the slide.

Want less or more groups? 

It is logical that you’ll need to edit the EnterGame action. What about the Shared action ButtonAct?  Since I wanted to make the workflow simple, I kept the literal ‘6’ for the number of groups. Two possibilities for editing:

Use the Shared action to create an advanced action. Delete the shared action in the Library. Edit the literal to the wanted number, and recreate the shared action. You can even use the same original name.

If you want to reuse this action in multiple projects, replace the literal by a variable (v_max) which you can edit in the variables dialog, or by adding an Assign command on a slide preceding the game slide. 

Background image can be replaced, as I mentioned above.

It is also possible to create a more complicated game, maybe with groups of 3 buttons to match. 

Have fun!

Let's Play and Dream

Intro

I want to try to keep the tradition to offer a special blog at the start of a new year. Like last year it is a game, hiding my greetings card. There is some nostalgia here as you will read.

On my personal blog you can still find the very first game I every created exclusively with Captivate: no Javascript, no use of widgets nor other applications. That was almost a decade ago. Since that  game used Captivate 5 , it took me quite a number of hours to get a satisfactory result. If you still have a browser with Flash Player plugin enabled, you can even watch the embedded game in this post:

http://blog.lilybiri.com/concentration-game-created-exclusively-with-c

With version 11.5, all interactive learning interactions were taken out (lack of use), including the games. You will recognize the former ‘Memory game’ in this game which I offer as an interactive Greetings card for 2021. Last year I also offered a game for the Chinese New Year.

Using version 11.5,  this version took me only about 20% of the time I spent in 2011 for the original version. This game uses only one shared action with 3 parameters, one advanced action for reset (and another one to restart the game). It is also much more flexible than the original game. Creating another game with more or less pairs will be a breeze due to the shared action. Finding or creating the images will take lot longer than adding the actions. It is possible to create 'pairs' that are not identical images: for language learning you can pair an image with a word (and maybe even audio), you could pair words in different languages, acronyms with their description etc...

Personally I would have used CpExtra to reduce the statement lines in the Advanced actions, because that wonderful widget allows to Assign, Show, Hide, Disable multiple objects in one statement. However, for the sake of consistency I have created the advanced actions  in the default way.

Have fun in 2021!

Game

As usual, I provide both a link to a rescalable version, and an embedded one with a fixed resolution.



Invite

I want to organize a webinar about this topic:

‘Remodeling Advanced actions to flexible Shared actions‘

This would be for developers with some experience about variables and  Advanced actions. If you are interested, please add a comment. From exploring Shared actions I learned to use a different mindset and could offer practical tips. You can even send me an advanced action you estimate to be appropriate to convert to a shared action.


Game: using JavaScript in a Shared action

Intro

Last week I presented at the Adobe eLearning World 2020 “Deep dive into Captivate with Advanced and Shared actions’. I had prepared 3 different scenarios, to be ready for any audience. Due to the poll before the session I decided to go for the ‘newbie’ scenario because the majority was new to Shared actions, and a considerable amount of attendees even to Advanced actions. That means that intermediate and advanced users were perhaps disappointed. To remediate I plan some blogs and examples as illustration. This is the first one.

Javascript and Shared actions

It is possible to have the command ‘Execute Javascript’ embedded in a shared action. When talking about games, randomization is mostly used but not a ready-to-go feature in Captivate. In the session I showed a very simple board game where the tossing of a dice is simulated, and the board cursor advances based on the result of the dice toss. That was realized with one shared action.

This game uses random numbers as well. It is a memory game which can be used in many variations due to the flexibility of shared actions, variables and multistate objects.

Game

You will learn about the game rules in the game. There is an easy and a more complicated way to play the 3 games. Hope you don’t keep only the easy one if you are in for some memory training:

Play with the rescalable version using this link or with the embedded (fixed resolution) version:

Have fun!


Find the Twins - Game (Shared Actions)

Inttro

Looking back in my blog history, I remember very well the first Memory Game created 10 years ago (with version 5.5). It was quite an adventure, because I wanted to prove it to be possible without having to use ActionScript  (since only SWF output was available).

Now 10 years later, ActionScript has been replaced by JavaScript but  I still try to create games without having to use JS.  That is possible when randomness is not necessary as is the case for this game. However newer features like multistate objects, SVGs which can be used as buttons, and most important 'Shared Actions' make it a lot easier now. Kudos to the Captivate team!

Have fun with the embedded version (fixed size), or the rescalable version using this link



Extensions possible?

The structure of this game allows a lot of flexibility. The two challenges have a different total number of shapes. Shapes can be replaced by images to convert it into a kid's game. It is also possible to increment the number of pairs, or to make a search for trios instead of pairs.

SVGs  used as buttons have several advantages. You can limit the clickable area to the image, instead of to the bounding box. They remain crisp ion all devices, whatever the browser resolution.  Disadvantage is that they take a while to redraw, which you may have seen when the slide was reset. 

As you could read I used:

  • 3 shared actions.  one of them was used 30 times!  If you are not yet convinced about the value of Shared actions over Advanced actions, I will present about both on 24th of June in the  Adobe eLearnng World 2020 conference.
  • 2 advanced actions for the Reset action On Enter for the challenge slides
  • 4 variables




Game: test your logical mind!

If you have watched my course about Using Shared Actions, you'll already know that this is one of my favorite features. It makes it possible for newbies to create rather complicated tutorials without need of programming skills. 

I already uploaded a game recently, here is another one. You can use this link or play with the embedded one:


It was created with SVGs (thanks to Illustrator), one shared action, two advanced actions (which could be converted to shared actions as well), Drag&Drop features, multistate objects. The setup makes the game very flexible. In the example sequences were all with 6 shapes, but you can create them with any number of shapes. You would have to find a new indicator for the degressive score if you have more or less shapes. The adult version can be converted to a kid's game, by using easier sequences . Have fun!

Matchstick Game (Shared Actions)

Intro

A while ago, with Captivate version 8, I created a SWF version of this game. If you have a browser (such as Internet Explorer) supporting the Flash Player plugin, you can have a look using this link.  With that verrsion I could take advantage of the brand new Shared Actions, which allowed to have variables defined as parameters. In version  CP7 where shared actions were introduced, that was not yet possible.

Today HTML5 output is the standard. Moreover Captivate in recent versions has added some very useful features, which I would like to use to create a new version of this game:

  • Multistate objects, making the old Hide/Show workflows unnecessary, sparing time which was needed for resetting. Feature was added with CP9.
  • Guides and Rulers make setting up layout so much easier. Feature was added with second release of CP9.
  • New commands in Advanced actions: ‘Go to Next State’, ‘Go to Previous State’, ‘Delay Next actions by’  appeared in CP2017 with the new version of the dialog box)
  • Effects 2.0
  • Bitmap image used as button, new feature in CP2019,  release 11.5. I also used some design elements from the Quick Start Projects.

Why didn’t I use SVGs i this case? The stock image which I used to create the different matchsticks, did lead to smaller file size for PNG than for SVG. I know that they may be blurry when upscaled. There is no problem with the clickable area being the bounding box, due to the shape of the matchsticks. That is often the reason why I prefer SVG, but not the case here.

Have some fun with either the scalable version using this link, or with the embedded version (rules are explained in the file):


Tip: have a look at the end of the blog for a suggestion...

Setup

The example file has 4 slides, using some design elements (and colors) from the Quick Start Project 'Wired':

  • Title slide with a 'Play' button, which triggers the default 'Go to Next Slide' command
  • Intro slide, explaining the Game rules and a Start button. The On Enter event of this slide has an advanced action. Slide has double action: explaining rules on first visit, dummy slide on next visits. Such a dummy slide is necessary for a Reset action/
  • Game slide: On enter event is also used as advanced action trigger. More details below.
  • End slide

Slide Game - Timeline and Layout

I set up a grid of guides fo-r the game slide. It will be very useful when adding a second game slide based on another word:

The timeline is used to have the Next button and the final set of matchsticks (with flames) appear when necessary. No Hide/Show actions were needed:

You see on this timeline: 

  1. Gr_Match has been expanded, with 15 multistate objects, the Matchsticks. They are labeled in a logical way: start with Mt _ (Match), followed by a number for the group (1-3) and second number for the matchsticks, starting from left to right, top to bottom. Example: Mt_12 is the top stick in the first group, Mt_25 is the bottom stick in the second group.
  1. All are PNGs used as buttons, their timeline ends ar 1.6secs and pausing point is at 1.5secs. The Rollover and Down states have been taken out, a custom state 'Burnt' has been added:

  2. Feedback: a multistate smart shape timed for the rest of the slide. Normal state is made invisible, Success, Late and Cheat state were added:

  3. SB_Reset: shape button timed for the rest of the slide, default setting (pausing point not really necessary), timed for the rest of the slide. It triggers the simple action 'Go to Previous Slide'.
  4. SB_Next: shape button, appearing at 2.5secs, pausing point at 0.7secs. This means that the button will be invisible while playing the game.
  5. Gr_End:  group with burning matchstick images. Timeline starts at 1.6 seconds, till the end of the slide. That group will also remain invisible to the learner during the game.

Variables

You'll need a whole bunch of variables (4+15):

v_correct: will track the number of correctly removed matchsticks; start value = 0

v_moves: wil track the number of removed matchsticks; start value = 0

v_max: fixed value, number of matches that may be removed; will be populated in EnterGame action

v_visit: to track the visits to slide Intro;  start value = 0

v_11, v_12....v_35: Boolean variables , one for each matchstick, start value = 0; they track if the matchstick has been removed (value = 1) or not. The labeling is using the same logic as for the Mt_ labels. That makes it easy wen defining parameters.

Events and Actions

EnterIntro

As the name tells, this advanced action is triggered by the On Enter event of the second slide 'Intro'. 

It is an easy to understand conditional action, based on the tracking variable v_visit. On first visit the slide is played normally, on following visits the slide is skipped immediately, and re-enters the Game slide. That is necessary to reset variables for that slide.

Because it is used only once, I didn't convert it into a shared action. Nevertheless, could be a useful conversion but that will be explained in another blog post.

EnterGame

Triggered by the On Enter event of the Game slide, is used to reset all the variables. 

Similar to EnterIntro, it could be interesting to convert to a shared action. Explanation in that same future blog post (or webinar?).

Match_NOK (shared action)

This action is triggered by the Success event of the matchstick buttons, for those who should NOT be removed (hence the N in the name of the action). Here are screenshots of the action with indication of the parameters, and the description of the parameters:

The action has three conditional decisions.

  1.  First decision 'Doing' checks the value of the tracking Boolean variable, because the matchstick can be clicked to remove it (v_xx == 0) or to restore it (v_cc ==1). The variable tracking the number of moves will be incremented or decremented.
  1. Second decision  'Checker' compares the number of moves with the allowed maximum, and shows a message (state) when that maximum has been reached. I used the Delay command, to have the message disappear after a while.

  2. Third decision 'Cheat'  will lead to another message (state) if more than the allowed removals have been done. Again Delay command was necessary, ;this time to create an automatic Reset by going to the Intro slide.

This shared action has been used 9 times. Only the first two parameters have to be entered carefully, the other 4 are always the same.

Match_OK (shared action)

This action is triggered by the Success even of the matchstick buttons which need to be removed. Here are screenshots of the action with indication of the parameters,(2 extra compared with the previous shared action: Success state and the Gr_Match):

The first three decisions are similar to those of Match_NOK. Just one exception: this time the variable v_correct needs to be incremented/decremented within the first decision. A last decision 'End' was necessary for the Success situation, where v_max removals  (here 6) resulted in the correct word. 

More?

If you are pretty new to Variables, Advanced and Shared actions, this may seem very complicated. 

What if you want another slide with another word, maybe another number of maximal removals? 

You want to recreate such a game, maybe with other objects than matchsticks? 

It could be done without having to create any variable, just by using shared actions. Wished I could explain this in a workshop . Would you be interested? It is a very nice example of the way shared actions can allow you to create interactions WITHOUT PROGRAMMING SKILLS.   You don't have to believe me, of course... let me know if you want to participate  You can contact me using the mail address, or go to my website and fill in the contact form mentioning this invitation. 






Find the differences (game)

To all readers: best wishes for a healthy and enthralling 2020!

Have some fun with this small game, created from an Adobe Stock image, using Illustrator (for assets) and Captivate 11.5. Again SVGs are used extensively. You can play the embedded game (fixed resolution) but I recommend to play it from this link which is a rescalable version. It may be easier to find the differences, especially if you are using a big screen.


Lot of SVGs, some multistate objects, one shared action, two small advanced actions + two variables. If you follow me since a while you know that I had lot of fun with all my favourite Captivate tools.  I didn't use any Javascript directly (actions are converted to JS on runtime) but I’m sure this can be done with JS as well.

The usual white screen with grey arrow is replaced by a poster image. After the mysterious title slide game, game and end image are all on the second slide.

Setup

Objects and Timeline

SVGs reign as you can see in the screenshot of the Timeline panel of the game slide:

The stacking (z-order) of the objects is important. From bottom to top you see:

  • Two instances of the same image (SV_Correct to the left and SV_NOK to the right.
  • Two text containers which show the two titles (Tx_Correct and Tx_Difference).
  • A click box CB_Wrong: it is important that this click box is below all other interactive objects, and that its pausing point is at the same time as the other ones (here 1.5secs).
  • 7 SVGs functioning as buttons. Those are the correct hotspots (if you want to cheat... look at the labels). They need to be on top of the click box, but the stacking sequence of those SVGs is not important. The Rollover and Down states of those SVGs have been deleted. One custom state 'Down' has been added, which has the Chinese character for 'OK'.

  • A multistate object functioning as progress bar. The Normal state is invisible (Alpha set to 0), and you see all the states in this screenshot:

    Just a note: there are some display problems with SVGs in the present version, and that can make the previous screenshot bit confusing. Although the circles have the same size in all states, they seem to be smaller when more circles are present. Moreover something seems to be wrong with the C4 state: total width seems smaller than for the other states. Reason was that originally that state switched to 'Custom', instead of Original.
    In this case it is very important that the option 'Original' size is forced for each state.

  • A shape 'Cover', which is rectangular filled with Solid dark gray, with Alpha = 70%.
  • Final image 'SV_Eind' (sorry for the Dutch label). 

Variables 

Two user variables were created:

  • v_counter: with a start value of 0, will be incremented when a correct hotspot has been clicked.
  • v_hotspot: will be set to the number of hotspots minus 1; in this case it is set to 6 since there are 7 hotspots.

Advanced Actions

Two advanced actions are used:

EnterGame triggered by the On Enter event of the Game slide

As usual this standard action will prepare the correct situation for the slide:

WrongAct triggered by the Success event of the Click box CB_Wrong

Another rather simple standard action, to let some audio play and have effects with the cover:


Shared Action 'CorrectHotspot' triggered by the SVG buttons (Success event)

The most important script for this game. Several actions happen when a correct hotspot is clicked:

  • An effect is applied to emphasize the clicked SVG, in this example I used a ScaleTo effect.
  • Secondary an audio clip is played (sort of congratulation)
  • The hotspot needs to be disabled, to avoid having it clicked multiple times.
  • To track the number of discovered hotspots, the counter variable needs to be incremented.
  • Progress has to change in the indicator (yellow circles multistate object)
  • When all hotspots have been found, the final image has to appear (with an effect).

This is a Preview of a filled in action, where the 5 necessary parameters are marked in a color rectangle:

None of the candidate parameters need to be a parameter: the two variables (v_counter and v_hotspot) nor the literals. As I have emphasized many times, it can be tricky to define a literal as parameter. In this particular case it could have been possible to indicate the Delay time needed to listen to the audio clip being defined as parameter. That would be necessary if you want to use audio clips with very different lengths for the the individual hotspots. The parameters are visible in this screenshot:

Why shared action instead of duplicate advanced actions?

You can use exactly the same shared action if you have a different number of hotspots (differences). Just edit the action EnterGame to replace the value to be assigned to the variable v_hotspot. It is the reason I replaced the literal '6' by a variable v_hotspot. Several parameters are used multiple times in the shared action: the name of the progress bar, the hotspot, the audio clip. When using duplicate advanced actions you would have to edit quite a lot. 

One of the disadvantages is the fixed status of the applied Effects. If you want another effect, use the shared action as template for an advanced action, replace the effects and save it as a new Shared action. If you are new to shared actions: contrary to advanced actions it is perfectly possible to save a new action with the same name, provided the older one is no longer used.






Playing a dice game, using While loop

Intro

In a previous blog post I explained the ins and outs of the new Advanced Actions dialog box. If you feel confused about my terminology in this more practical blog post, please read that first article. A decision block of type 'While' is totally new in version 2017. It has some similarities with the Conditional decision block (IF, Then, Else) but offers new possibilities as you'll see in this simple game.  The While loop can be used to create a looping sequence of commands. That loop can be infinite, or limited in number of executions, based on one condition or a combination of conditions.  Mohana Das from the Adobe team published recently this article demonstrating the infinite While loop. Please read that article, for users familiar with advanced actions the used condition 'IF 1 is equal to 1' will be easily recognized, since this was the condition needed to create a mimicked standard action decision in older versions. It means that the sequence of commands will continue to be done, since that condition always results in True. In a future blog post, I will offer some tips about breaking such an infinite loop.

The present article  will focus on using the While loop, based on a condition which results in having the commands sequence repeated a limited number of times. It is a very simple game, every object was created within Captivate. One exception: the color shift in the Characters was achieved using roundtripping with Photoshop.

It is not a responsive project, to avoid a too long article (should have to explain setup in fluid boxes with logic of the variables and advanced actions). Maybe in a next article?

Play first!

Download this published folder (HTML5). Sorry, cannot embed it in this post (allows only SWF's and it is not playing well in Flash output). Unzip the folder, launch the index.html file to start playing.  It is a small game: when you click on the Play button, a dice will be rolled and you'll see one of the faces of the dice, indicating a (random) number. The girl is supposed to climb the stairs, she will go up as many steps as the number you won. The goal is to reach the top. When the girl reaches the top of the stairs, clicking on the Play button will result in another scenario, and a Reset button will appear. 
On entering the Game slide you'll see two looping animations, with added randomness and a possibility to stop the the looping. You'll see this action in Preview, but I will not provide details. 

Slide setup - preparations

Have a look at the timeline of the Game slide:

I created the stairs as a freeform shape. That was pretty easy with Guides (see Guides Rule) and Snapping to guides. Of course a better approach would be to create that shape in Illustrator with export to SVG, but it is always a challenge to use only the available Captivate tools.

Dice: this is a multistate object, the normal state is a square shape, for each of the sides circular shapes with a gradient fill are added. Look at  the Object state panel for this object. 

The 3D animated dice has also been created as a group from a lot of shapes.

Effects - Characters
Two custom motion effects were created for the climbing girl. Default effects couldn't be used in the advanced action, because the path had to be edited. Here are two screenshots of the custom effects: Impatience (before starting game) and StepUp  (during play).


The original Character (climbing the stairs) will disappear with a default Exit effect 'Zoom out'. when the top is reached.
The Sticky image that replaces the original one climbing the stairs, will get a default Entrance effect 'Drop in and Bounce'. The text panel in that image is covered with a click box, functioning as a Reset button.
Play button: is a simple transparent button. 

Variables (for game only - more are needed for the start animation)

I created 5 user variables:  
  • v_dice: starts with an empty value, will get a random number between 1 and 6 (using JavaScript, see Playing with Numbers)
  • v_counter: starts with a value=0 and will be used in the condition for the While loop to fix the number of repetitions to match the random number in v_dice
  • v_stair: is a second counter, that will be used to keep track of the total number of steps done. It is needed to know when top is reached. The staircase has 16 steps. It also starts with a value=0.
  • v_null: empty variable (see...) used to reset the v_dice variable after each use of the Play button
  • v_roll: starts with a value=0, will track the number of dice rolls needed to complete the steps; that number appears after the top of the stairs is reached. It is a third counter.

For the EnterGame action a 6th variable v_anim is used.


Events and actions

The three used events for the game are:
  1. Success event of the Play button, it will trigger an advanced action PlayAct
  2. Success event of the Click box (Reset) it will trigger the advanced action ResetAct
  3. On Enter event of the Game slide, which triggers the animations: EnterGame

ResetAct triggered by Click Box

I couldn't use Scenario 2 of the Replay Slide blog post.  There are a couple of reasons, one being that the Game slide was originally the only slide. It is never a good idea to start a project with a complicated On Enter action (as is necessary for the looping animation). The workaround is to have a short dummy slide (mine is 0,2 secs) before the game slide and use this Reset action:

Due to the command 'Continue', the On Enter action of the game slide (second slide) is always executed. At this moment for HTML5 output this is not the case when using micronavigation (as in the blog post about Replay slide).

PlayAct triggered by Play Button

The PlayAct has 3 decision blocks, one of each type: the first decision is a standard action (sequence of commands), the second is a While loop based on a condition and the last decision is an IF condition, in previous versions labeled as a conditional action. Here is the Preview:

Decision 1 'Random'  (standard action)

With this sequence, the 3D dice (animated On Enter) will be hidden and replaced by the static dice in its Normal state.
The one line JavaScript will generate a random number between 1 and 6
  window.cpAPIInterface.setVariableValue("v_dice",Math.floor(Math.random()*(7-1))+1);
I explained the construction of this line in detail in this blog post

The variable v_counter is reset to 0. It is important that this is done before the While loop in the third decision.

Decision 2 'EndCheck' (conditional IF action)

This decision checks if the character has reached the top by comparing the user variable v_stair with the total number of steps (16). Contrary to v_counter, v_stair is only reset to 0 when re-entering the Game slide (using ResetAct).

The Play button is hidden (to avoid disturbing the rest of the sequence) and the static multistate dice.

The original character disappears, is replaced by a group (character + click box + text balloon) with some default effects.

If the condition is not fulfilled (ELSE), which means the top has not yet been reached, the variable v_roll is incremented by 1. 

Decision 3 'ShowNumber' (While loop)

The condition used to limit the execution of the commands in this loop, is a combination of these two (AND):
  1. The number of steps taken by the image cannot go beyond the random number stored in v_dice (see first decision) and
  2. The total number of steps done, stored in v_stair, cannot be greater than 16, number of steps in this staircase.

The commands to be done while that AND combination results in True are:

  • Switching the static dice to the next state (see image of the Object states for this static dice above)
  • Character gets on the next step (using custom effect StepUp, but that name has been changed by Captivate to the name of the effect it was based on 'RightToLeft'.
  • The variable v_counter is incremented, it is this variable which is used in the first condition
  • The variable v_stair is incremented; that variable is not reset by clicking on the Play button, is necessary to check if the top is reached (decision 2 'EndCheck').

EnterGame triggered by the On Enter event

Here is the Preview, let me know if you need more details

Questions?

Fire away. Creating this game was a lot of fun, 'while' exploring 'while' loops. Let your creative juices surge!

Matchstick Game - shared actions

Update: new version of this game, with HTML5 output and using images as buttons to be found under this link


Intro

This post is inspired by a question on the Captivate forum, have a look at this thread: 'Advanced actions for a Matchstick Game'. After reading the question, I accepted the challenge. Some advanced actions are used, mostly to reset the game, but the two 
most important actions are shared actions. It is also a good example for a lot of tips I have offered in this blog:
  • Setup of a labeling system that makes it easier to choose parameters when applying a shared action.
  • Sequence of statements and decisions in a conditional action is very important because Captivate will always evaluate each statement and decision in sequence.
  • Choice of optional parameters for a shared action.
  • Using On Enter Slide events to reset variables and objects.
  • Using groups to simplify advanced/shared actions.

Game - rules

You can play the game:
  • goal is to create a word from the initial set of matchsticks by removing some of them;
  • clicking on a matchstick will remove it and a ghost image will appear instead of the original matchstick
  • you can reset the matchstick by clicking on the ghost image
  • maximum number to be removed is 6; you will be warned when you reach that number
  • you can try to remove a seventh matchstick, but I consider that as cheating :)
  • you have a Restart button

Objects - Labeling

The game is on one slide after the intro-slide. This is the Timeline panel:

From bottom to top you see:

  1. Gr_Match: group with the images of the matchsticks. For labeling I divided them in 3 groups. I_MS_11 is the most left matchstick of the first group, I_MS_22 is the upper matchstick of the second group, I_MS_35 is the bottom one in the third group, etc. Those numbers will also be in the names of the Outlines, the Click boxes and the associated variables. This group is initially visible.

  2. Gr_Outline: group with the grey ghost images (outlines). Same labeling discipline: I_OL_11, I_OL_22, I_OL_35,...This group is initially invisible
  3. Gr_Txt: which is expanded on the screenshot has the three messages that are used in the game. This group is initially invisible.
  4. Gr_CB: group with click boxes over the matchstick images+outlines. They follow same labeling system: CB_11, CB_22, CB_35...
  5. Bt_Restart:  the button to restart, reset everything
  6. Tx_Task: the title

  7. Tx_Rules: the explanation

Variables

To track the status of each matchstick, I created a boolean variable with initial value of 0 for each of them. Labeling is similar to those for the images, outlines and click boxes: 

  • v_11, v_12, v_13, v_14, v_15   for the first group

  • v_21, v_22, v_23, v_24, v_25   for the second group

  • v_31, v_32, v_33, v_34, v_35   for the first group

Three extra variables were needed:

  • v_moves: will track the number of removed matchsticks

  • v_correct: will track the number of correctly removed matchsticks

  • v_visit: needed to track if the intro slide is visited for the first time; a jump to that slide is used in an advanced action to reset the game

Actions

Advanced actions

I will not explain the simple and the 2 advanced actions, article would be too long. In a planned cookbook for shared actions I will explain everything in depth:
  • EnterIntro: conditional advanced action with two decisions that is triggered by the On Enter Slide event for the first slide 'Intro'. It will check the value of the variable v_visit and jump to the second 'Game' slide if it is not a first visit. 
  • ResetGame: a standard advanced action is triggered by the Restart button Success event, and by the On Enter Slide event for the second slide 'Game'. It will reset all the variables and restore the initial view of this slide (no outlines, only images).

  • Simple action 'Go to Previous Slide' is triggered by the On Exit event of the second slide 'Game'.

Shared Actions

Two shared actions are used:
  1. MatchStickNOK: to be triggered by a click box over a matchstick that should NOT be removed. This shared action is used  9 times. It is a conditional action with 3 decisions: 'Doing', 'Checking' and 'Cheating'. In the screenshot you'll see this action, with as an example parameters are set to the '11' matchstick. That is a matchstick that should in this case trigger the second shared action.

    This shared action has 6 parameters. The only optional parameter is highlighted in this screenshot, it is the tracking variable v_x associated with the matchstick. No need to define the other variables (v_moves, v_correct) nor the literals as a parameter.



  2. MatchStickOK: to be triggered by a click box over a matchstick that should be removed. This shared action is used 6 times in this particular example. The first three decisions 'Doing', 'Checking', 'Cheating' are pretty much the same as for the previous shared action, with one exception: increment or decrement for the variable v_correct. This shared action has a fourth decision 'End' that will display a Success message if all correct matchsticks are removed. Since this can only happen when the user removes a correct matchstick, this decision was superfluous for MatchStickNOK action. The sequence of decisions is very important: the condition 'IF v_moves is equal to 6' (decision 'Checking') will also be True if 6 correct matchsticks have been removed, but the commands in 'End' will override those of 'Checking' because of the sequence. There are two screenshots here:


    This shared actions has 7 parameters since the Success Message has to be added. Only optional parameter that was upgraded to a real parameter is again v_x, the tracking variable associated with the matchstick.


Enhancements

I hear you! How will it be possible to use those shared actions for a Matchstick Game with another setup? I have some ideas, what about you? Please post your suggestions in a comment.