Ask the Magic 8 Ball

Thanks for your interest, KellOrding​! 

8-Ball Visual Design
I made a .png of an 8-Ball in Illustrator thinking I'd use it as-is, but after I animated it, the animation looked very flat, 2-D and unrealistic. I kept tweaking and ended up using the Donut Shape, adjusting and filling it with the .png so that the white circle and number were cut out. I also added a drop shadow in Storyline. A video clip from the library of a sort of purple misty swirl lies behind it to emulate the purple fluid in a Magic 8-Ball. The white circle with the 8 is a separate layer on top of it all that uses the Shake animation and fades away. 

20 Answers
Between the ball and video layer is a rounded triangle with text. This is where the magical responses appear. I grouped the text and triangle so stay together as the animated answer "floats" to the surface. The text layer has 21 states. Normal provides the instructions that "answers appear here." Each of the other 20 states is a standard Magic 8-Ball reply; the actual toy contains a 20-sided die. I created a variable to set the answer to a random number between 1 and 20. Then I created triggers to change the state of the text layer to the corresponding variable number. I created other variables to hold the question entered in the text field and the user's name. 

SSML
I used text to speech for the audio responses. I wanted Jonah to sound more excited on positive responses and a bit disappointed on negative responses, so I adjusted the pitch for each response audio clip to evoke those tones/feelings. 

Wishlist
Something I'd like to be able to accomplish is to record all of the questions and answers to show the user on the final screen. I'm thinking that would likely involve JavaScript, which I'd say I have a "Kindergarten" level knowledge with.