Team member Ellie explains how she used Near-Life to make a fun, interactive quiz – a Christmas Movie Quiz – that can be embedded on a website or shared directly.
Christmas quizzes are an essential part of Christmas culture these days. Whether it’s at school or college, with family or friends, we have likely all felt our competitive sides start to simmer when our Christmas knowledge has been put to the test. So I thought I’d create a Christmas Movie quiz, and get fully in the festive spirit while also trying out a completely new type of interactive video for me. Here’s how it went.
Planning the interactive quiz
Arguably the most important step when making a quiz, I first had to do my research. It’s easiest to make sure you’re using a reliable source for your information to save yourself time. You can use your own knowledge to make your questions, but it is still important to make sure it’s 100% accurate to save any later embarrassment. I recommend researching every answer just to be sure.
I went through each question and wrote out other options the user would have to pick between. To come up with these false answers, it can be nice to give them some kind of connection. For example, for the question “In Home Alone, what is the nickname for the pair of burglars trying to break into the McCallister’s home?”. The correct answer is the wet bandits, and the options I gave were: the flowerpot men, the slimy looters or the icey robbers. The last two are pretty much synonymous with the real answer. However, the first choice is a completely different television duo and perhaps slightly amusing to those who may remember them (though it might just be me on this one).
What makes an interactive quiz different from a regular interactive video?
Until this quiz, I’d only made branching videos. These videos had no right or wrong answers. So, for example, they may ask your foot size or favourite colour. Your answers to these questions would impact the final result or suggestion you receive at the end, but would not be scored.
However, in a quiz, the whole point is scoring. Each player would be asked the same questions and go through the exact same video regardless of their answers to the questions. The answers, however, would either be right or wrong. This meant putting the map together slightly differently. You need to choose to use scoring when you’re selecting the settings for your quiz after naming it. Also, decide whether to use feedback. This can be useful at the end because it can tell the user what the correct answers were. You also should set what you want a pass score to be. This is why it’s a good idea to work out how many questions you’re going to have and plan everything out before constructing the map (though you can go back and change the pass score later by clicking on settings).
In the end, I created all the media I’d need for my video in Canva. I then plotted out a straight line of nodes using hotspots with all my questions and media in.
Using scoring or inventory in Near-Life
There are different features in Near-Life when it comes to scoring that allow you to accomplish different things. If I was making a quiz, perhaps at a school, where you either pass or fail, I would simply use the scoring features on the platform. To do this, you go onto each node and click on the hotspot/button for the correct answer. Under ‘overlay properties’ you will see a section labelled ‘score’. Here, you can select how many points to award the user should they click on that answer. It will automatically be set to zero, so you only need to manually input the scoring for the correct answers.
However, I decided that a pass score wasn’t quite what I wanted. This is because I also chose to employ the new Near-Life feature ‘inventory’. The Near-Life team had suggested it would be a perfect tool to help take my quiz to the next level – and I was keen to try out yet another awesome feature of the platform. Essentially, inventory would help me give more personalised feedback to the users of my quiz. Picture it like a little bag you use to store and count up your points in the video. The platform can recall how many items are in the bag at any point in the game, and you can use this score to determine what the player sees. I used this feature later when I would deliver the score to the user.
How to add inventory to your interactive quiz
To employ inventory, simply go on your node and select the hotspot/button for your correct answer. Scroll down and select ‘advanced settings’. Under the subheading ‘text overlay achievements’, click the button saying “add achievement”. You can then name the inventory item and select a value to either add or subtract from the total inventory score. I named my inventory item “qcorrect” (you should use the same case for text throughout your map when referring to your inventory item). I selected to add a value of one when this answer is clicked. Then I did the same for all the correct answers on the game map.
How to use inventory
I used the inventory feature in collaboration with pieces of hotspotted text. The text would not default or take you anywhere if clicked, though. I created a piece of text using the hotspot text option for scores between 10 and 15, congratulating the user for their Elvish abilities in the Christmas Movie department. Then I selected the colour, font, size and position that I wanted the text to appear in. Next I scrolled down and clicked on ‘advanced settings’. Underneath ‘text overlay conditions’, I put in my inventory item’s name (‘qcorrect’). I then selected the operation ‘greater than’ and set the inventory value to 9. This meant that the text overlay would have a condition. The total of inventory items, ‘qcorrect’, would need to be higher than 10 for the text to appear.
Then I worked through the same process for the score of 0-5. I made a piece of corresponding text labelling the user a snowman. Next, I set the condition so the text would only appear if the value is lower than 5. For the text for scores between 5-10, I set one condition so it would only appear if inventory items were higher than 4. I then clicked the button to add another condition, where the score must also be less than 10. I also chose to combine the conditions with ‘AND’, not ‘OR’. This meant the score must be both above 4, AND less than 10 for this text to appear. You can choose when the text appears on the page by adjusting the time under ‘Media Countdown’.
Final touches
After setting up the inventory, I ran through my quiz and shared it with the Near-Life team for thoughts. They suggested that I may opt to not show the inventory while playing the game. This meant a briefcase in the top right corner would no longer appear, so the user would not be able to hover over it during the quiz to see how many correct answers they have, or reveal any other information about the inventory.
I made a couple of other adjustments, mostly regarding timings for each question. We decided to set the duration for each question to appear for 30 seconds, increasing from 15. This is because with a quiz it takes longer to read, process and think about the questions. Especially compared to when asked your favourite colour, for example. After getting the timings right for the questions, I was really chuffed with the quiz and keen for other people to try it out.
Interested in creating your own interactive quizzes?
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