I don't understand the point of variables if they won't work.

I just cannot, for the life of me, figure out why Articulate would waste our time with variables when they won't work as they are supposed to. I've tried every way I can think of to get this slide and others to work with variables, and it will not work. I have the following example:

When the timeline starts on this slide (Don't bother wasting your time telling me to change it to "when the timeline ends," because I've done that too. That's another idiotic design flaw, but I digress):

-Set state of Button 1 "I'm Finished Here" to Normal

 If Star1Checkmark = value True

 and Star2Checkmark = value True

 and Star3Checkmark = value True

 and Star4Checkmark = value True

 

Triggers are:

When the user clicks Star 1 Hostpot

Set Star1 Checkmark to value True

Jump to *slide*

 

When the user clicks Star 2 Hotspot

Set Star2Checkmark to value True

Jump to *slide*

 

When the user clicks Star 3 Hotspot

Set Star3Checkmark to value True

Jump to *slide*

 

When the user clicks Star 4 Hotspot

Set Star4Checkmark to value True

Jump to *slide*

 

I know that it is changing the variable because I also have this variable set up to show a checkmark over each hotspot star when they click on it, and they are showing up.

 

Yet, when I preview and end up back at this page (by design) after they have visited all stars (and the corresponding slides), the "I'm finished here" button is not visible. I was under the impression that variables work throughout the whole project and it doesn't matter where you go after a variable is adjusted, it will stay at that value. I've had this problem with multiple variables and had to end up just using triggers with other objects being visible to get the button to show up.  

 

Extremely annoyed that I have spent 2 hours today on these variables that should work as designed, but do not. I'm ready to uninstall this program and never think about it again.