This post is full of joy 🙂 It is no secret that GameMap is my absolute favorite among the H5P content types that I have developed. I like the concept, the content type turned out to be quite nice, and despite a couple of smaller issues I am even quite pleased with my own source code. Sugar on top: Hochschule Hannover sponsored further improvements!
No background image
One user requested to remove the requirement for a background image. I assume that the intention was to use the content type for something different than a game, but why not … If this is your use case, GameMap has you covered. It now allows to set a background color.
Special stage
GameMap was supposed to be self-contained, but it became clear to me that people wanted to be able to link it to external ressources. You can now put a special stage onto the map and set a URL – and that’s where a click onto the stage will take you.
Sounds
GameMaps can get really exciting if you add background music and sound effects. User may like one, but not the other. So far, they could only toggle both on or off together. Now users can change the volume of the background music and of the sound effects separately. The “option” overlay that I introduced for this feature is a little sparsely filled, currently, but maybe more user options will be added in the future.
Speaking of sound effects: The sounds for wrong or correct answers only played for the main content, but not for possible subcontents. In other words: If you had a Course Presentation with Multiple Choice questions inside, the sounds would play for the Course Presentation as a whole when you reached the summary slide, but not when answering the Multiple Choice questions. That has been changed.
Column?
Until now, a stage in GameMap could only consist of one H5P content. People wondered why I had not simply used Column like Interactive Book does. Following that path would have meant too many compromises. Column does not feature all the subcontents that I wanted to include, and H5P Group unfortunately is a bottleneck for getting new ones in there. Mixing both, Column along other content types, also would not have resolved all issues. Column would have dictated (=limited) the version of single contents that could be used. And mixing both might have been a little confusing.
Long story short: I have essentially done the same thing that Column does, but natively inside GameMap. You can now put multiple exercises into a stage.
Better overview over scores
GameMap tells the user the total score in the top bar. But what about the scores of stages? If the scenario is linear and you must complete a stage in order to continue, then you probably don’t care much. But otherwise? You do not want to revisit each stage just to check if you achieved full score already.
GameMap can now optionally display three little stars on top of each stage. The more points you collect, the more stars will shine. You can easily find stages that may need revisiting. And the stars look quite nice, too.
Path styling
There were requests to allow paths to have individual styling. No, you still cannot draw them, but if the global defaults do not suit your needs, then you can now override them for each path individually.
More restrictions – or is it less?
Until now, you could only restrict the access to stages based on the total score that the user has achieved. There now is a complete “system” for setting and even combining restrictions very much like you can set content restrictions in moodle. You can now restrict access by total score, the score for a particular stage, the stage progress (unstarted vs. opened vs. completed vs completed successfully) or the date and time. Stages will unlock once your set of restrictions is fulfilled, stages that have not been opened yet will lock once your set of restrictions is not fulfilled anymore. Lead the user through your map as you please …
Oh, and I forgot
I did not only add new things, but I also changed some things that nobody (including myself) was too happy with. Stage restrictions now apply even in free roaming mode. That leaves authors more freedom when designing maps. Along that change, the some other things have been tweaked: Feel free to explore 😀
You want this?!
I requested H5P Group to update GameMap on the H5P Hub to the latest version, but it usually takes a while until that happens.
If you want to use the content type right away, look for the Reuse button underneath the content. Use that button to download the demo content, and then upload the .h5p file onto your H5P enabled platform. Please note that you will need to have permission to install H5P libraries. Otherwise, you cannot install the content type this way. In that case, your system admin will need to assist you.
For Lumi users: When writing these lines, Lumi has still not been updated to support H5P’s latest version (1.27), so it will not run GameMap 1.4. But the update should be out any day now, so maybe this message could already be removed when you read it.