An interview simulator allows learners to experience the consequences of negative behavior, dangerous actions, and bad choices. It is axiomatic that games cannot teach learners to avoid a choice if the learner is never allowed to make that choice.
About the examples
The Crimescene Game teaches interviewing skills in the context of a police investigation. Learners are assigned the task of interviewing a witness to a bank robbery to elicit clues to the identity of the robber. The game provides the learner with choices that affect the course of the game. At any point learners can try to solve the mystery.
Most feedback is provided by events in the game because the events reveal whether the learner’s previous action was appropriate.
This version was created using PowerPoint. NeoSpeech synthesized voices, and figures built using Smith Micro’s Poser. Then, it was converted to HTML5 using iSpring Suite, from iSpring Solutions. When planning to use actors for a project, we often mock up the interaction with synthesized characters so that the script and other issues can be polished before spending money on studio time and talent.
This is the text versions of The Crimescene Game. After identifying a suspect as the bank robber, learners receive a score based on the efficiency with which they solved the mystery as well as a critique that recaps their actions.
Finally, here is the text version again. This time we converted the PowerPoint file to Adobe Acrobat PDF. Notice that all the slide-to-slide links have been preserved. This is a good solution when you do not have embedded voice or video.