User Manual - Steuber Studios
Contents
1. User Manual Version 1 0 MyTrivia was created and developed by Steuber Studios For more information visit us online at www steuberstudios com 2006 All rights reserved Table of Contents User Manual 1 History of MyTrivia 3 File Structure 4 Game Interface 8 Keyboard Mappings 9 Creating aGame 10 Preferences 11 Options 12 Editing Questions 13 Question Editor Features 15 Playing Your Game 17 History of MyTrivia Several years ago my brother and built a custom trivia game based on our childhood memories We finished it in time for the holidays and shared it with our rather large family nine kids in all Our experience has become your opportunity We had such a great time playing the game that we decided to create a brand new type of trivia game where anyone could add their own content to create a much more personal and enjoyable game experience The result of several years of effort has resulted in MyTrivia a trivia game where you supply your own questions graphics and even sound effects We hope that you enjoy playing MyTrivia as much as we have enjoyed creating it The rest of this manual is devoted to helping you get the most out of the game with tips and ideas on how you can get your very own trivia game up and running Tip When creating a background image darker images with lesser contrast usually work best If there is too much contrast your game might look cluttered MyBackgrounds Background images2. Sa Lehe ity i i aiiai Shih i e Hithitiyp rer Bitty Chane poer D ky Labor fay Thatand hil Gates Tha Pellorship of the Ring Search Results Tip The generated html file is very convenient for recording the questions and answers Tip It might be more efficient for you to record the question and answers together then split it into two pieces with your recording software From the search results window you have several options You can scroll through your results list you can do another search by following the same directions you can go directly to a specific question or you can create an html file of your list To go directly to a specific question enter the question number you want in the field to the left of the Go button and then click Go To create a report click the Generate html button which will create a html page A dialog box will tell you that the file has been saved in your MyTrivia folder Finally you can click Cancel to exit the search results window Then click Exit to exit the Question Editor and return to the Main Edit Menu Recording Your Questions You have the option to record yourself or someone else reading your questions and answers in the game You will need to make two recordings for each question One recording for the question and one for the answers If you don t have an audio file for your question or answer the question and answers will
3. categories is that you must have at least three categories You can have a different category for each question that may hint at what type of question it might be For instance you might have a category called What s Up Doc The question might then be related to Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes or Mel Blanc This is where you can get really creative Either way you must use categories and you must have at least three Question This is easy It s your question What you see is what you get The Category Question and Answer boxes represent what you will see on the game screen Make sure your text fits inside these boxes or they will not display properly Answers You need to enter four possible answers in the answer box After you ve done that click the button to the left of the correct answer it will highlight green Okay let s edit your first question To get started let s first edit the sample question supplied with the idit is game Click the Edit button My Trivia Game Edit When you click the Edit button the fields are opened and What nice horns you have my dee you can type in your category question and answer fields Use What is the only type of deer whose female the Tab key to move to the different fields Click the button next to the correct answer and then click the Save button If you South American Whitetail edit a question and wish to abort Wilderbeast Re
4. digital hedshot of each player Player and Booth Selection On these screens participants will select booths and players The booths come from the MyBooth folder and the player icons come from the MyPlayers folder Buttons 1 and 2 change your booth and buttons 3 and 4 change your player Press Go after you ve made your selections Obviously Player One selects first then Player Two then Player Three 2 First select your booth a J Then select your player at a Then press GO Player and Booth Selection Tip Player icons are the quickest way to customize your game all you need is a digital hedshot of each player Category Screen Remember the Category field in the Question Editor Geography Players are given a selection of 3 categories to choose from The program does not allow duplicate categories in this screen You set will always get 3 distinct choices Listen to the audio it will tell you which player gets siderably to choose the category The player who answered the previous question correctly gets to choose the category Press button 17 27 or 3 Question Transition After the category is selected there is a question transition screen This is where the slide selections you made on the Options Screen come in to play You can elect to skip these transition screens on the Preferences screen These Category Screen tran
5. My New Game folder found inside the MyTrivia folder to the MyGames folder Be sure to duplicate Main Menu the folder don t just move it you need to keep the original for creating more games later The next time you launch MyTrivia My New Game will show up in your list of games and you can change the name of the game Changing the Game Name To change the name of the game click the small Edit button in the top right corner of the menu screen Type in the name you want and click Save or click Cancel to return to the previous name This operation simply changes the name of the folder under your MyGames folder This operation MUST be done through the interface to avoid potential problems Do not change the folder names outside of the application Customizing Your Game From the Main Menu press the spacebar to edit and customize a game This will take you to the Main Edit Menu On this menu you will see a scrollable game list window with a list of your games Above the game list window is the name of the current loaded game To the right of the game list window are four buttons Play Editor Options and Preferences Play will take you back to the opening screen Tip It s a good idea to reduce the amount of points for each attempt this encourages players to buzz in early and keeps the pace of the game moving Preferences 3 Number of questions in the pame Let s set the global preference
6. Pics folder and the files in the Tunes list come from your MyTunes folder When you ve made all your selections click the Save amp Exit button on the bottom of the screen Once again you re back to the Main Edit Screen Now it s time to build the questions for your game From the Main Edit screen click on the Editor button Tip Don t limit yourself to specific categories It s fine if each question has it s very own category Note You must have at least three different categories for any game Editing Questions My Trivia Game The Questin Editor is where most of Geography ae i your game building time will take place A trivia game is only as good 3 i J as the questions it contains That s gy What s the capital of Nevada why we let you build them First let me describe the three parts to the T l Carson City questions kaa Vodas Reno Category The Category gives you Salt Lake City the opportunity to group similar x 7 IE Ore bl bl or topical questions together For instance you could have a general Oueston tator game with the following categories Entertainment Sports Science Geography Literature etc Or you could have a sports game with these categories Baseball Basketball Football Soccer Hockey etc When you play the game one player will get to choose a category from a list of three unique categories So the only rule about
7. Players This folder contains your player headshots Three are provided with MyTrivia but you can add more These graphics or pictures must be sized to 150 x 150 at 72 dpi in JPG format The name of the graphic file will be the name of the player in the game For example if the graphic you put in this folder was named Bill jpg then Bill would be the player name used in the game Once you ve added the graphics to the MyPlayers folder these players will be available to select from at the beginning of the game MyPresets This folder contains two subfolders SoundEffects and Timers which contain game sound effects and game timers You can replace any file in the SoundEffects folder with a recording of your own even your own voice The file must retain the same file name and must be in mp3 format Sound effects include game background Tip When creating mp3 files for the MyTunes folder be sure to keep them short and sweet Otherwise your audience may loose interest music emcee comments and miscellaneous game sound effects Feel free to experiment but make sure the name of the file remains exactly the same and as always be sure to backup your files before making changes Timers DO NOT edit the files in the Timers folder These files control the timing of events in the game My Tunes The files in this folder work in conjunction with the files in the MyPics folder During the question interlude the appropriate gra
8. a G aA me folders under the MyTrivia main folder Due to the complexity of some of the Press 1 to select a R fame then pre database files some customization is 1 at eras a ei GO to play controlled by the game interface The interface is also used to select and apply the custom files you added outside the Press the space bar to edit and customize games interface to your game Then when the Press the esc key to close the program game is played your selections are part of the game Let s take a look at the menus and how you navigate through Entry Screen them to create your first trivia game Note If you have only one Entry Screen l When you launch MyTrivia you will come to a simple menu with four options to choose from we call this the game in the MyGames folder there will be no EA GEEN other games to select from and pressing the Select Press 1 to tab through the games in your MyGames folder 1 key will appear to Play Press the Go button Enter on keyboard to play the game selected do nothing Once you Edit Games Press the space bar on your keyboard to edit and customize games This selection puts you in speed ad mow edit mode which is where you will build your game games the 1 key will Escape Press the Esc escape key to close the program If the Esc key is pressed at any point while in edit tab through each game mode or while playing the game the program w
9. are 1024 x 768 pixels 72 dpi Jpg File Structure Because we wanted MyTrivia to be completely customizeable most of the game elements are stored outside of the main program There are various folders that contain content that you can change but be careful and be sure to make back ups This manual will take you on a tour of this content and describe how you can build your own game All of the files and folders of MyTrivia are located within the MyTrivia folder which you should place in the C drive on a Windows PC C MyTrivia or the Applications folder on a Macintosh Open that folder and let s look at the folders contained within MyBackgrounds This folder contains graphics used in the background of the game MyTrivia comes pre loaded with four backgrounds Blue Green Grey and Red Any graphic or picture you place in this folder will be available on the Options screen next time you launch MyTrivia Graphics or pictures should be JPG s with a resolution of 1024 x 768 Any other file type or size may produce undesired results Use family photos desktop wallpapers or any other cool graphics you ve collected over the years It s your game do as you wish fa Network Powerbook W MyTrivia HE Desktop Will 9 Documents amp Music Pictures ie MyBackgrounds B MyBooths T 9 Applications MyTrivia E MyTunes 15 items 20 09 GB available Tip You may purchase more booths fr
10. be displayed but only background music will play Your question and answer files need to be stored in the appropriate game folder found in the MyGames folder The format should be MP3 and the file name should be Q plus the number of the question it is associated with So if you are recording question 114 in your question set then you should save your recorded files as Q114 mp3 for the question and A114 mp3 for the answers That s it You re ready to play Make sure that you have created enough questions to go with the preferences you set in the Preferences screen If you chose a 21 question game with 7 bonus lightning questions then you need to have 28 questions prepared to play Questions will not repeat within a game So let s play Playing Your Game Now that you ve put all that hard work into your game let s play From the Main Menu press the Go button on your game console if you do not have How Many a game console see keyboard mappings Pl ayers D on p 9 How Many Players Choose the number of players you want in the game 1 2 or 3 If you are playing a 1 or 2 player game make sure your buzzers are plugged into the correct jacks For 1 player use the middle jack only For 2 players use the left and right jacks The How Many Players screen illustrates the correct configuration How Many Players Tip Player icons are the quickest way to customize your game all you need is a
11. g to a friend and they can quickly import your whole question set Tip MyPics contribute to the mood and design of your game Try to associate these images with your theme MyPics MyPics images are 640 x 480 pixels 72 dpi Jpg MyPlayers MyPlayers images are 150x 150 pixels 72 dpi Jpg Importing Questions If you wish to quickly add a batch of questions to your game the best way is to import a tab delimited file Be sure that the file is correctly formatted you should start with a file that was exported from MyTrivia When you click the import button you will be warned if you click yes MyTrivia will import the file named Questions txt located in the MyTrivia folder WARNING This will overwrite your current question set If you already have questions written be sure to export your set and back it up in a safe place MyPics This folder contains the pictures or graphics used for the question interlude The question interlude displays an image and plays a sound clip between each question You control which graphic is displayed with the associated game question 1 through 20 The default graphics are already loaded with the game but you can create your own by simply adding pictures or graphics to this folder just be sure that they are JPGs sized to 640 x 480 pixels at 72 dpi Once you ve added the graphics to the MyPics folder the names of those files will appear in the list on the Options screen My
12. ill be closed Be careful with this key in your list Keyboard Mappings If you purchased a custom MyTrivia game console you will not need your keyboard to play a game once the application is opened You will need to use your keyboard to edit games or make game option selections We have made it possible to play the game on a standard keyboard it s just not as fun When you are using a keyboard note that you need to use keys rather than mouse clicks for all of the screens that display number buttons General Play Game Console Keyboard Quit Button E Go Button Enter 1 Button 1 2 Button 2 3 Button 3 4 Button 4 Buzzing In Game Console Keyboard Player 1 Left Buzzer Q 3 Players Player 2 Middle Buzzer B Player 3 Right Buzzer P 2 Players Player 1 Left Buzzer Q Player 2 Right Buzzer P 1 Player Player 1 Middle Buzzer B Note When playing with two players Player 2 buzzes in with Buzzer 3 or keyboard key P Creating a Game My Trivia Game MyTrivia comes with a default game named My Trivia Game which you can play but it is really just meant to get you started The real fun is when you create your own game You can choose to add to this game re name it or just start a new game We will get back to play after we ve set up a game Creating a Brand New Game Cy e To create a new game first you need My Trivia a Do to copy the
13. indeer O Elk the changes you made click the Revert button and all values will be restored Add To add questions click the Add button and you will get a new set of blank entry fields Type in your question If you don t Edit Button on the Question Editor Screen like what you ve entered you can click the Clear button to clear all the fields If you want to keep your question click Save That question will be saved and another blank entry will be presented When you re done entering questions click the Done Tip button to return to the Question Editor Main Menu Don t limit yourself to specific categories It s That s all there is to entering your questions Let s look at some more features of the Question Editor fine if each question has it s very own category Note The number of the question is not the order that they appear when playing the game Questions are drawn from the list at random Question Editor Features Question Browsing You can browse through your questions using the arrow buttons at the bottom of the question screen Scroll one at a time several at a time based on the value you set under the Preferences screen or scroll to the end or beginning of your question set If you see a question you want to change or remove simply click the Edit button and make your changes Note that you cannot delete a question but you can overwrite one Audio Previe
14. nts In this round you can buzz in as much as you want Points are not added to your score until after the round is over Point Tally After the lightning round points are tallied and a winner is declared Quit During the game if someone pushes the quit button a screen will come up asking if you really want to quit If so push Quit again If not push Go This is nota pause the game may continue Esc Once you re back at the Main Menu you can press Esc on your keyboard to exit the application Be careful with this key this will automatically quit the application Do you really want to Quit Press To go to the main menu Press To continue playing Quit Screen
15. om the MyTrivia Web site at www mytriviagame com MyBooths This folder contains the player booths used during game play MyTrivia comes with a small collection of booths of different colors These are highly specialized graphics we do not recommend that you attempt to change these graphics or add your own You can order new sets of booths off of the MyTrivia Web site at www mytriviagame com MyGames This folder contains the individual game folders which contain a question file MyQuestions txt a specific game options file MyOptions txt and a default question and answer audio file Q0 mp3 AO mp3 for your game The MyOptions txt file is edited only through the user interface accessed within the MyTrivia game DO NOT attempt to edit this file outside of the interface The question and answer audio files are created outside the application using your favorite voice recording software Please note that the names of the folders within the MyGames folder are the actual names of your games You can create as many games as you wish you can even share them with your friends See the section Creating a Game later in this manual Exporting Questions When you want to share your questions with another MyTrivia player you can use the export feature on the Question Editor Screen When you export a question set MyTrivia will write a file to the MyTrivia folder it will be named name of the game Questions txt Pass this alon
16. ou have made your selections click Save amp Exit Tip It s a good idea to reduce the amount of points for each attempt this encourages players to buzz in early and keeps the pace of the game moving Options Now that your global preferences are Set let s select the game specific options Click the Options button This takes you to a screen with 20 slides and several scrollable windows on the right Changing the game background The scroll window on the bottom right contains a list of the files in your MyBackgrounds folder Simply select one of the files and the background for you game will be changed The background you select will remain associated with the game you re editing until you change it All selections on this screen are game specific Options Screen Changing question pictures Before each question in the game there is a transition You can have up to 20 questions in a game therefore there are 20 possible transition pictures and tunes to associate with the 20 questions To change an association simply click on the slide you want to change The slide will highlight then select a picture from the Pictures file list and a tune from the Tunes file list These selections will replace the previous one on the slide You can preview the selected tune by clicking the musical note button on the bottom of the screen Notice that the files in the Pictures list come from your My
17. phic in the MyPics folder will be displayed and the sound byte from the MyTunes folder will be played Again you can use any mp3 sound file you want including voice recordings or song clips Be careful to keep these short as the game will not continue until the complete clip is finished playing Miscellaneous Files Under the parent directory MyTrivia there are several system files that should not be manipulated The MyPreferences txt file is a general game preference file that is updated through the game interface The MyTrivia exe file PC or MyTrivia MAC is the compiled program that you run by double clicking it or doublle clicking a shortcut that is linked to it Final Thoughts on Files and Folders We have given you extensive file information because we want you to be aware of the options you have in your game Because we had the desire to create a very customizable trivia game it was necessary to allow you to have free access to many files normally inaccessable to a user This gives you a great deal of control over your game which also increases the risk of causing undesireable results If you follow the instructions above and stick to changing only the files we ve outlined you won t have any trouble Game Interface As discussed previously some of the amp amp v a ae customization takes place outside of NARA TERS TSS the game interface by simply adding graphics pictures or sound bytes to the My Trivi
18. s by clicking on the 4 Number of questions in the bonus round 1 Preferences button These preferences apply to all games T Point value for each question in thn game mmy J00 nem 5D The 20 Number of questions in the game Set the Skip question Seanst te aaa cums number of questions you would like to have in L Fast forward raerind in quaation editor 26 your game You can have up to twenty standard questions in a game Number of questions in the bonus round This sets the number of questions in the Bonus Lightning l an Preferences Round There is no limit as long as you have enough questions loaded in your game to cover your standard questions and your bonus questions Point value for each question in the game You can set the point value for the questions based on the first second and third attempts You can make each attempt worth the same amount or you can reduce the value These values are also used in the Bonus Lightning Round Skip question transitions As mentioned before there is a transition or interlude between questions during the game If you would like to skip these click the Yes button Skipping the transitions will make for a faster paced game Fast forward rewind in question editor As your games get bigger you may find it useful to browse through your questions to get to a particular spot quicker This option lets you specify the rate at which you skip from question to question After y
19. sitions give a break to the players and you can get creative with your content here Once the audio has completely played another screen will pop up Note Once you buzz in you have a limited time in which to answer the question so be ready Question Screen This is the screen where the question is read and players can buzz in The answers appear after the question is read The first player to buzz in gets to make an attempt at choosing the correct answer The light above the player who buzzed in first will turn bright green that s your cue to pick an answer The player who buzzed in first chooses an answer using the buttons 1 4 If they are correct their booth and the answer are outlined with a bright green light If they are wrong it s a bright red Question Screen light and the other players geta chance to answer at the Second try point value Any player who answers incorrectly on a question will not have an opportunity to answer again during that question After the question is answered correctly or all players have tried and failed to answer the question or nobody buzzes in play continues to the next question Lightning Bonus Round After the last standard question has been displayed the Lightning round will begin In this section of the game a question is displayed and one by one the possible answers are displayed on the screen The player who buzzes in first when the correct answer appears gets the poi
20. w If the speaker icon in the lower right hand portion of the screen displays waves coming from it then an audio file has been recorded for the question You can preview the audio by clicking the icon Click it again to stop the audio Question Search To search for a question with a specific word in it type the word in the lower left hand text box and then click the magnifying glass button You will get a list of all questions that contain the search word To get a list of all your questions leave the text box blank and click the magnifying glass Gaagr etry Fnbariainmmri Fister Liter itun Casi Sporn gr bry Fried athena het s thee cta of eedt Sad aaa iha lash Rairi anol iaurmimarrtain reani gt Fhe reared hii 8 any diidhange ar Maed N 19607 he eet Willian Shak piparit i eis Wha Ba eeertiitional nadie dcd sord fist Lan heer BF et holiday io Che Endiacig clie Sek run on Bhs country io Ehe Dalai Lacie es poles in Aha wad dhe only ihg fn ji be dhe hinge of tha mairi there wio Orcs in Beem Sire and coca im the 0I Aha mde Wha Pied Liesl Ci in ho hilnnare H What s We iiid ioak in AAi Tahsini Lumi af the Risg wingy Blood ii Thidher than sibie Hos masdi dai Gee Ti a Aare gnl Fools Cap i Singa pris Enik ka E abis The Habba 2 Urea Felt G ur kai pa Gerald Fari anna Hiisi Haw Gaia Purple Poole Cater Hagh Hafi
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search