Our first vocational game part two – designing the course material

The Xtrable platform games courses are essentially platformer games – think Mario or Sonic; the main difference being when you hit a block, instead of a mushroom popping out or some coins gathered, we launch some learning media.

We have many learning media types, including mini-games, videos, quizzes and more.

Our favourite block type for learning is our animated video feature; by simply entering the text and images we want to be presented, an animated video is generated with an AI presenter with a dynamic AI whiteboard with the pictures displayed.

Another great feature of the animated video is that the spoken words are displayed simultaneously and highlighted (a bit like a karaoke machine); this is part of our mission to keep adding features that improve the inclusivity of the platform.

For the PVL game, we wanted a good mix of company information, explanations of why PVL do what they do and, of course, some games that simulate aspects of the role, which are crucial to assessing the right set of skills and capabilities.

Armed with the excellent information gathered on my visit to PVL, their website and some great videos on the internet, we started to create the content to take the players through a high-level journey of PVL (www.pvluk.com).

We split the game into four levels:

• A little bit about PVL

• Vehicle graphics

• Chevrons

• Emergency service vehicles (ESV)

In the "A bit about PVL", we talk about the types of customers they have and what they do for them, such as creating livery kits for the emergency services.

We also discuss why livery from PVL makes emergency vehicles easy to spot.

In vehicles graphics, we introduce the learner to branding and why it is important:

We also have mini-games where the learner has to answer a question with A, B or C – only to answer; they have to shoot and destroy the right vehicle – a much more fun way to answer a question:

We also have some more traditional style quiz blocks for the users to interact with:

For chevrons, we explain why they are essential and how PVL creates these for many types of vehicles:

We also had some more mini-games to assess answers, such as the next space invaders game:

And for something a little different, our shark feeding game:

And finally, we covered emergency service vehicles and why it is so essential that they are quickly identified.

We also made some specific games to help identify students who have what it takes to join the PVL team; I will detail them in future posts.

We had some great feedback from the students, including that they felt they learned a great deal about PVL and why it is a great and important business.