Connect 4 Prototype

In a moment of madness I decided to construct a Connect 4 game as a personal challenge of my knowledge of triggers and variables. Why? I kept asking myself!

My biggest hurdles:

1. How to change the state of an object on one slide (the colour of the button) from an action on another slide (answering a quiz question) in combination with another choice (the colour of the team in play). The only solution I can think of is to have a 'team in play button' which is combined with the answer to the question to change a variable. The result of the variable changes the colour of the disc in the game.

2. How to select a random question if a question is revisited during the same 'game' session. I failed to resolve this so opted for a single slide with a free form question rather than using a quiz bank. The result is that the same question will appear if one team fails to answer it correctly. I would be interested in anyone who can make a question bank work without messing up the states on the game slide.

3. Checking the large number of variables and triggers in the project. This was really difficult within the project window and I would have liked a way to print all of my triggers and variables to check them on paper.

Lessons Learned:

1. Each question needed to be on a separate slide and these should be prepared first. It is difficult (but not impossible) to change questions after the triggers and variables have been constructed. My example uses a true/false question in all bar one instance but any type of question can be used. So, prepare all your question slides first.

2. Whilst slides can be copied, the triggers and variables on each slide must be adjusted. Having unique names for buttons and variables is really important. I found it easier to prepare all of my button and variable names before setting the triggers. This made copying and amending the triggers less complicated.

3. Resetting a variable to its default state when a slide timeline starts before a trigger adjusts is important and means that trigger sequencing (i.e. which trigger is 'activated' first) is important if you want to finish the project in a relatively sane state!

4. Resetting variables to zero before publication would have been nice simply for tidiness sake but resetting everything to zero is not critical for this game to work properly (he says with fingers crossed!).

If you want to look 'under the hood' I have attached the project file.

Things to note:

1. There is no restriction on revisiting a question that has already been answered. (Solution welcomed).

2. There is no restriction on which question can be answered (i.e. a question can be answered when there is no coloured disc below it). (Solution welcomed).

3. This is not a template where question slides can be changed without the need to alter and check the triggers and variables.

In the end, of course, an instructor could always use the real game and ask a series of questions thus remaining sane and with a full head of hair!