Game techniques within Captivate

[paulolivetti]

I'm new to Captivate and wanted to know what technical tools people execute complex gamification within Captivate.  Can you program and call full Javascript games (so that you could do just about anything you want game-wise)?  Would you do a Javascript or Flash or HTML5 game on a URL and call the URL from within the Captivate project?   Do you need to do some other custom coding and call it through the Capitave project through some sort of API?

Or does Captivate really limit you because of its design and technical limitations in how creative and interesting you can get with gaming?

Just wondering how to do complex and interesting gamification in a Captivate project.

Thanks for any thoughts you might have!

Moderator: since the question is not about gamification but about games, I edited th title.

[Lilybiri]

Gamification is not the same as games (took a MOOC about gamification), but you are not the first to confuse both terms.

Yes, you can call JS from Captivate, there is a JS API for Captivate: Learn about the Common JavaScript interface for Adobe Captivate

Gamification is perfectly possible in Captivate, simple games can also be created in CP, using some JS functions. You can create HTML5 games and insert them into Captivate. You can connect to a webobject as well. I don't think it is a good idea to use Flash anymore...

[teamperform]

JavaScript (and it's libraries) is the way to go if you want to get creative with games and Captivate.  It allows you to move beyond the limiting dropdown-window programming  of advanced actions. It makes Captivate work like Flash, just clunkier.  You can reuse code, put the functions in an external file and call them when needed.  The JS interface is challenging to learn without a course on it.   Jim Leichliter (CaptivateDev) once offered an online course on Cp8 and JS using the Captivate JS interface.  If you can get access to that rare course, that will help.  The JS interface is also somewhat confining because you are restricted to the documented JS commands, but it is documented by the Captivate team.  It would add value if someone picked up where Jim left off (hint to IconLogic).

There is also the undocumented interface, which offers the creativity you may need.  David Crawford at TLC Media Designs knows the undocumented interface better than anyone I know.  https://www.tlcmediadesign.com/

There is also a course on Lynda.com that combines games and Captivate, a good introduction but is limited.

Note that JS for Captivate only runs in HTML5 .

I agree with Lilybiri's conclusion about Flash.  Sad.

[Jim_Leichliter]

Well... I'm back into the eLearning space after a two year reprieve.  I'll be offering a new JS course soon.  If you need access to the other JS courses, let me know.  -- Jim Leichliter (https://UpSkillYa.com)... still working on the website 🙂

[Lilybiri]

WHOW!!!!!

Welcome, Jim, we missed you so much. Fantastic news.

Lieve

[Jim_Leichliter]

Thanks Lieve!  Good to be back!

[Lilybiri]

You made my day, really

[Vico Eventuin]

Hi Jim, are you making progress on the new JS course?

Image already added

H

[paulolivetti]

Thanks very much!

[sdwarwick]

There have been a few questions lately on integration of javascript-based content (including UNITY/UNREAL )

 Integrating directly into captivate is certainly an attractive solution.  Folks seem to also be happy with the "web-object" approach, where the interaction is developed externally from Captivate and incorporated as an IFRAME on the page.   there are good ways to communicate between the embedded IFRAME and the captivate course through javascript, and the development process is actually faster if you keep the two as separate developments.

[Jim_Leichliter]

Hi sdwarwick... that's really sound advice.  I would totally agree about keeping development separate and using an IFRAME/Web object to accomplish that.  Thanks for sharing!

[DJKSan]

Hi,

I'm interested in gamification as well, with a keen distinction between game-based learning and principles of game theory.
Primarily, the concept of "leveling up", so that as a user succeeds on various challenges - their progress is tracked and milestones can be achieved.

It does not need to be tracked by an LMS (although I'm sure it would be a bonus if it could be) but simply tracked within the course itself as the user progresses.

[Lilybiri]

It is very simple, but here is an example of tracking results in a Math quiz

Playing with Numbers - part 1 - Captivate blog

Playing with Numbers - part 2 - Captivate blog