creating a point system from scratch

hi!

i'm getting started with articulate storyline and i was wondering if there is an easy (...) way to create a point system from scratch. picture this: i have a sort of "who's who" activity in which you pick a character (based name + story) out of six and then you have to find out (based on pictures + help questions [gender; hair color; wears glasses]) who's the character. i want the player to lose points when clicking the wrong character and when using help questions; so i created a numeric variable (standart value=0) for each character (which has its own scene with multiple slides)  and created triggers to adjust the variable when the player clicks certain objects. then i added a result slide in which i simply inserted a text box with a reference linked to the respective variable. all well in theory, but i tested it on preview and i got the wrong points, at least from what i expected based on the definitions i set.

so i was wondering if there's a more simple way to do this - if anyone has ideas, feel free to share! thanks in advance.