Problems with creating an experimental game on Medialab (case 15598)

[Frustratedstudent]

Hi, I am making a simple game on MediaLab and have run into some difficulties. For my game, participants have to play in 5 trials. For each trial, the participant has to make a decision on how many zebras he/she wishes to keep and how many zebras he/she wishes to release. The total of the two (Keep/Release) responses must add up to 20. After making the decision, the participant moves on to the next trial, for which he/she has to make the same decision. Firstly, how do you create two separate response boxes, one for entering the Keep number and one for entering the Release number? I tried to make do with whatever I could, by using the mask parameters for the fill in the blank option (m**-**) such that participants fill in the Keep number in the right two boxes and Release number in the left two boxes. However, if there is a simpler way I would very much appreciate it. Secondly, I would like to have the Keep scores from the previous pages summed up and presented to the participant so that he/she knows how many zebras he/she has kept up to the current trial. Only the Keep scores. This doesn't seem possible with the mask parameters method I have been using up to now.
Thank you very much.

[jason_reed]

If you wish to display more than one fill in the blank box on a single screen, this is best accomplished with some html coding and the use a Custom Item type in your .que file. Take a look at this forum thread for some example htlml code: http://www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php/585-Multiple-fill-in-the-blank-windows?highlight=multiple+fill+blank. You can find more information and some examples of creating Custom items here in the MediaLab manual: http://www.empirisoft.com/medialab/help/custom_items.htm.

For displaying previous responses to participants in this setup, you will most likely need to use the responses.xls feature of MediaLab. It is an external Excel spreadsheet with which you can access the previous responses from items in your .que files and then use them to display back to participants. To get started, take a look a the Advanced Features section of the MediaLab manual: http://www.empirisoft.com/medialab/help/advanced_features.htm. You can also take a look at this forum thread about the same topic: http://www.empirisoft.com/support/showthread.php/808-Display-Previous-Response?highlight=multiple+fill+blank

Good luck!