How to Create Review Game Slideshows

Do you ever wonder how all of these review games are made? How do they link all the slides together? Where do you even start!? Well folks, you're in luck because today that's exactly what I plan on showing you.

1. Start by opening PowerPoint. I will be using PowerPoint 2010 for Windows, but the commands are virtually the same if you're using 2007.

2. Select your design.  I always do this first so I know how everything I set up will work. Click on the design tab and then pick your favorite. If you want to design a custom slideshow you can select your fonts under the design tab and your background by right clicking on the slide itself and selecting the file from your own computer.

3. Input your introductory information. This is pretty simple and no different from any other PowerPoint creation. 

4. Create your table. Now you can create your review game menu! Create a new slide and in the center area, click on the table icon. 

 This will bring up a dialogue box where you will select how many rows and columns you'd like. I'm selected four columns and five rows. This will create a four category, four question review game. If you'd like more categories, select more columns, if you'd like more questions, select more rows.

Your finalized table will look like this:

5. Input your categories and point values. This is simple insertion and is completely up to you and what you want your game to be about! I prefer my tables to be centered. Go to layout and then select the two centering tools.

Once I have my table set, I input the data I am going to hyperlink!

6. Add the number of slides you will need for your game. You will need two slides per question, one for the actual question and the other for the answer. I recommend labeling each slide as you go because it will make hyperlinking in the next step that much easier.

Once you have your slides set up, you're ready to hyperlink! Go back to your main menu slide and highlight the "100" for your first category. Once highlighted, go to the insert tab at the top of the program and hit "Hyperlink."

Once you've selected hyperlink a dialogue box will appear. You will need to select "Place in this document" and select the slide matching the game menu. For example, if you highlighted Weather 100 (like I did), you will want to make sure you select the Weather - 100 slide (this is why titling your slides in the previous step was so important).

After you've successfully hyperlinked your slide to the game menu, you will need to create a "back to menu" link as well. Go to the answer slide for the 100 question you just hyperlinked. Go back to insert and select text box. Draw your box in the bottom right corner of the slide and type in "Back to Menu." 

Repeat the hyperlinking process by highlighting the "Back to Menu" and select hyperlink, place in this document, and select the game menu slide.

7. Repeat for each slide. Repeat the hyperlinking process until you've reached the whole slideshow! A shortcut you can utilize is copying the text box "Back to Menu" and pasting it on the return slides. The hyperlink will stay in tact and it will save you a lot of time.

     See! It's that easy! If you're looking at these steps and thinking, "this is too much for me... I don't have enough time to do this" don't worry. I have review game templates in my store for four and six categories (with four questions per category).

Good luck with your creation!