Our inaugural Learning Lab Live session focused on Category Quest, The Training Arcade's newest game that transforms traditional trivia into an engaging board game experience. We built a complete "Pop Culture Throwdown" game from scratch, covering the entire process from setup to publishing.
Category Quest brings the familiar board game concept into digital learning. Players spin a spinner, navigate a randomized board, and answer questions to collect different categories. The goal is to complete all categories and unlock a final capstone challenge to win.
What makes it engaging is the unpredictability—each playthrough features a different board layout, and players might land on power-up tiles that let them jump around or get re-rolls. It's like Trivial Pursuit meets video game mechanics.
The game supports three question types:
We created a game with three categories: Movies of the 2000s, TV shows of the 1990s, and fashion of the 80s, plus a capstone about video game movies. This mix showcased how different content types work within the same game framework.
The standout feature is the new bulk import template. Instead of entering questions individually, you prepare everything in Excel and upload it all at once.
The template has two tabs:
This pairs perfectly with AI tools. We used ChatGPT to generate trivia questions formatted for the template, then simply copied and pasted everything over. It's a massive time-saver that opens up rapid content development possibilities.
Category Quest uses The Training Arcade's new Game Builder, featuring intuitive stepper navigation and live visual previews. As you make changes to colors, upload images, or modify text, you immediately see how it looks to learners. No more guessing if your design choices work together.
The builder walks you through content creation, registration settings, theming, and advanced configuration in a logical sequence. You can craft rich pre-game introductions and detailed post-question content that reinforces learning.
Theming goes beyond basic branding. Choose from preset themes like "Art Class" or "Final Frontier," or create custom themes with:
During our build, we used a textured black background with blue for movies, purple for TV shows, and hot pink for 80s fashion. The live preview made it easy to see how these choices worked together.
Several options help tailor the experience:
Category completion thresholds let you require multiple correct answers before completing a category—useful when you have many questions and want comprehensive engagement.
Time bonuses add competitive elements by awarding extra points for quick responses.
Game seeds control board randomization. Normally, each player gets different layouts, but entering a seed value (like "apple") ensures everyone gets identical boards—helpful for assessments or consistent experiences.
Category Quest offers flexible distribution:
The analytics dashboard provides insights beyond standard SCORM reporting. You can track individual player journeys, see which questions cause struggles, and monitor how accuracy improves across attempts. During our session, we saw data showing players voluntarily replaying games multiple times with improving scores, which is rare in traditional training.
All data exports to Excel for deeper analysis or stakeholder reporting.
Through our building process, key practices emerged:
Mix question types strategically. Multiple choice for factual recall, multiple select for comprehensive checks, and text input for engaging "aha" moments.
Keep text responses concise. Short answers work better for game flow than lengthy explanations.
Use post-question content effectively. This is where real learning happens, reinforcing correct answers or explaining why incorrect choices don't work.
Design for replay value. Games succeed when learners want to return and improve their performance.
We built a complete, themed game in about 25 minutes during the live session. For production-ready games with rich content and polished visuals, plan on roughly an hour. The bulk import template significantly reduces development time for larger question sets.
Category Quest works best when you have clear learning categories that map to specific knowledge areas. The combination of AI-generated content and bulk import enables rapid prototyping and iteration based on learner feedback.
Unlike traditional courses, games benefit from replay engagement. The detailed analytics can inform not just game improvements but broader training strategy decisions.
Learning Lab LIVE is a monthly series that features hands-on demonstrations of ELB’s latest tools and techniques. See what’s next!
Interested in exploring Category Quest for your training programs? We'd love to show you how game-based learning can increase engagement and improve knowledge retention. Talk to an expert.