Want to learn the tips and tricks to turn a Google Slides slideshow into an interactive narrative video game?  Check out the information below!

Wehrley:    Home        Learn More        Standards        Inspiration        About the Author

How-Tos

Want to get your students making narrative-based video games quickly and with the shortest learning curve possible?  Try using the Google Slides computer program!

Google Slides has many benefits.  For starters, many schools already use the Google Apps for Education Suite.  This means:
  • Most students are already familiar with how to use the program
  • Students already have access to the program
  • The program integrates nicely with other Google Computer programs and resources, such as Google Drive and Google Classroom

While Google Slides is a surprisingly versatile technology tool, it wasn't built as a tool for making video games.  In order to make the program work for creating interactive narrative games, we're going to have to "bend" and exploit some of the program's features.  The features we will focus on will be adding sound, linking to other slides in the slideshow, and creating animations.  Check out the following tutorials and work samples to see these features in action!
Intro Tutorial: What is a game?  Game Mechanics and Story Elements
This lesson slideshow is used to define what a game is and introduce students to the essential elements of a game.

Concepts include:
  • Definitions of a Game
  • How a game is similar to text-only story
  • How a game is different than a text-only story
  • Relevant game-making vocabulary
Tutorial 01: Game-Making Tips: Story Map/Flowchart
This lesson slideshow is used to provide students with a way to visualize and plan out the structure of their game/story.  The story map gives the students a guide to follow and helps reduce the chance that they will got lost or confused when ordering their slides in their interactive narrative game.

Concepts include:
  • Making a Story Map/Flowchart
Tutorial 02: Game-Making Tips: Assets
This lesson slideshow is used to help students determine what images, sounds, text, and other elements they will need for their game.  Finding and creating assets takes time, and this step helps to reduce the amount of time students might waste looking for assets that they will not actually use in their game.

Concepts include:
  • Determining essential Assets
  • Creating, Finding, and Reusing Assets
Tutorial 03: Game-Making Tips: Game Mechanics
This lesson slideshow is used to introduce students to the 4 essential elements that make their slideshows interactive.  These elements are what turn a Google Slideshow from a presentation into a game!
​
Concepts include:
  • Linking to Other Slides in a slideshow
  • Adding Audio to a slideshow
  • Creating Animations
  • Using slide Transitions

Image and Sound Assets

One of the more difficult and time consuming aspects of creating a game is finding the images and sound files for the games.  Here are a few of the resources that students can use to get started:
Visual Assets:
  • 8bit Photo Lab, Retro Effects: This app turns photos into pixel art/8-bit retro style images (like old school video games)
  • Bitmoji: Create icons/characters
  • Creative Commons: Students can search for images to use in their projects.  May require credit/attribution
  • Unsplash: Students can search for images to use in their projects.  May require credit/attribution
  • Pixabay: Students can search for images to use in their projects.  May require credit/attribution
Audio Assets:
  • Adobe Free Sound Effects Library: Download free cartoon sound FX, video game sound FX, and more on the bottom half of the page.  May have some copyright limitations.
  • Adobe Other Sound FX: more audio files from Adobe.  I always remind students to only look for what they need.  I tell them not to fall down the rabbit hole.  May have some copyright limitations.
  • YouTube Audio Library: I have never used this, but it looks like you can download MP3 files of music to use in videos

Work Samples​

For a better idea of what students can actually create with Google Slides, check out the work sample below.  The audio files have been removed, so you won't have the full experience that the creator intended.  However, this should give you a better idea of how an interactive narrative game made with Google Slides works.

Directions:
1. Make sure the slideshow is in presentation mode
2. Follow the on-screen instructions for how to move from slide to slide.

WARNING: The story has multiple paths, and the slides do not always move in order, so make sure to always follow the on-screen instructions.  If you just click through the presentation like a regular slideshow, the slides may show up out of order, and then the story will not make sense and the game will need to be restarted from the beginning.
Picture
Lessons
Picture
References
Picture
Assessment
Picture
Back to Learn More
Sample 01:
Here is an amazing game created by one of my 11th grade students.  The story revolves around an undercover FBI agent and the impact that the experience has on the agent and his family.  This student did an amazing and thorough job, and the slideshow file has over 100 slides.  However, most student games will be smaller than this.