Freezing game after too quick mouse clicking!

Im new here and this is my first query post. 
I’m in the midst of creating an escape room type game and have been discovering all sorts of tricks, I have one current problem I’m not sure how to solve. I’ve created a puzzle where 8 daggers have to be clicked in the right sequence to open a secret passage using triggers and basic animation.( I’ve no experience of macros or coding, yet. Everything works fine when I test but when my son tried, it froze mid way repeatedly. I think maybe  because he was multi mouse clicking wildly in true gamer style. Is this just PowerPoint getting confused by too quick a click?
Any thoughts? Could it be I’m using old PowerPoint 2010 on windows 10 and I’m just expecting too much? It’s served me faithfully elsewhere.
Maybe I’ve answered my own question, if so is there an answer? I tried adding an invisible mask that ‘appears’ with dagger move covering whole slide then fading after a few seconds to try and slow down the clicking actually triggering anything. 
Hope this makes sense.

This is probably just an odd coincidence, but I kept 2010 on my machine after I got 365 because it always seemed more robust and didn't let a ton of animations slow it down like it does on 365. But...the other day I wanted to test something on 2010, and some of the hyperlinks froze.

I'm wondering if the regular Windows 10 updates are having an effect and slowly waving goodbye to 2010?!

If you want to post the slide you've got to the forum (or email it to me) I can take a look and see what happens on 365.

Thanks for the prompt reply John and that’s a thought about Windows updates. Being a dinosaur in the world has its drawbacks I guess.I certainly know that feeling.
I’ll try and upload the sequence later today. I may well have created a mega complicated Heath Robinson means to an end as I’ve been using trial and error and adding things to solve problems as gleaned from you tube etc.I’m excited to possibly learn a whole bag of new tricks too from the good folks here and maybe even begin to understand more of the ‘how it works’ process.who knows I might inadvertently bring something new to the table!

I would avoid using 2010 because there is a known issue with a specific code in VBA, and I'm wondering if this may be related somehow. The issue that I know has to do with using a timer code and not allowing the user to do anything while inside the loop until the code can exit out of the loop itself. This becomes a huge problem if you have something like a timer that counts up that keeps track of how long it takes you to do a certain task (click a button.) But if the game won't allow you to click the button to stop the timer, you are now in an infinite loop and you have just frozen PowerPoint! Now I know you're not familiar with VBA so you're not having to work around loops in 2010, but I wonder if 2010 has other issues that have been addressed in future versions from 2013 and onward? I would strongly recommend getting a more recent version of PPT. 365 would be ideal since that's where everyone's heading towards nowadays. I'm use the 2019 version and previously used 2013.

Thanks for that, yes I've been thinking I should update powerpoint for a while now. It also looks like VBA is something I need to learn about, any hints on where to start as in a Dumbies style guide?
I have absolutely zero coding experience. 
Oh and thanks for the PM, I need to post a few more times before I can respond there!

Whats the best format to upload slides to the forum share what I'm working on?
Ive read the guide to posting via links with Dropbox,etc but just not sure on file type.

You can share any file format. If you want people to only see a  playable version, then a PPSX file will do that. However, if you are ok with people looking into how something has been made, and maybe identifying problems or potential alternatives, then the PPTX file would be best.

Speaking of PowerPoint freezing, I noticed about a month ago that it did so in my Wrestle Camp 2 game if a match between either-Dr.-Cutler-or-Dr.-George and Brandy Johnson got too rapidly intense.  However, it never occurred whilst playing as Adrianna Combas.  Adrianna's the middle-fighter in the first three-on-one tournament in the game, and she's also the story-driver, changing the ending-sequence that plays-out once the match has been won by Dr. George.  So, if anyone, SHOULD, freeze the game, you'd think it'd be her.

I thought it was my old laptop causing the issue, but I just got a brand new MSI Ge76 Raider (2022-model), and once I downloaded the game to it from across my network, I noticed the same bug occurred.  I'm on PowerPoint 2021, which, minus the omition of the newest features like AI and such, appears to function better than I've seen people experience on 365, so age isn't the issue here.

I also never noticed the Dr. George freeze on my old machine, but I did only on my new one.

Unfortunately, the build of the game I'm using for my tests is newer than the one on Game Jolt, thus, available for download here, too; and because it's a company-members-exclusive release, I can't share it with you yet, as there are unfinished features that could confuse or mislead new players regarding the game's story.

I do love that suggestion about Windows-updates, though.  Like, what the heck, Microsoft; stop breaking your own ProDucts!  Am I right, everybody!?

Drewsco62 wrote:Im new here and this is my first query post. 
I’m in the midst of creating an escape room type game and have been discovering all sorts of tricks, I have one current problem I’m not sure how to solve. I’ve created a puzzle where 8 daggers have to be clicked in the right sequence to open a secret passage using triggers and basic animation.( I’ve no experience of macros or coding, yet. Everything works fine when I test but when my son tried, it froze mid way repeatedly. I think maybe  because he was multi mouse clicking wildly in true gamer style. Is this just PowerPoint getting confused by too quick a click?
Any thoughts? Could it be I’m using old PowerPoint 2010 on windows 10 and I’m just expecting too much? It’s served me faithfully elsewhere.
Maybe I’ve answered my own question, if so is there an answer? I tried adding an invisible mask that ‘appears’ with dagger move covering whole slide then fading after a few seconds to try and slow down the clicking actually triggering anything. 
Hope this makes sense.

I've experienced this issue in quite a few of the projects I've made over the years. I've used PPT from the 90's to now, and I've personally witnessed it in multiple versions so it's definitely not a 2010-specific issue.

In my experience, putting a non-clickable layer over the clickable layer doesn't work. The best solution (though still not perfect) is to make the clickable layer disappear the instant it gets clicked. If you need to visually stay then you can create a copy of it that appears at the same time.

The issue is that, depending on a few settings (hardware acceleration, single-core CPU performance, etc.), PowerPoint will adjust it's slideshow framerate on-the-fly. It has a sort of "simulation speed" which is capped at different speeds for different systems (animations are capped at 30, for instance). When PowerPoint decides to adjust the simulation speed (which can happen for a variety of reasons not always outside of your control), certain parts of the presentation will be adjusted in speed, while others are not. This can lead to weird situations, for instance:

* A 2-second video ends much faster than a 2-second animation, thus de-syncing when mathematically it should be the same
* An animation gets slowed down (even if for only one frame), but the detection for mouse clicks (and thus triggers) does not

The latter leads to a situation where for one "simulation frame", you can click multiple times, which of-course confuses PPT and can lead to issues.

The proposed solution I gave you is also not flawless, as it still depends upon the simulation speed to remove the clickable layer. The full-proof solution is to change slides after every click, as a slide change is only hampered by the loading of the slide, and thus pauses the entire slideshow whilst loading the next slide. This would fix the issue, but of course you would need to make each click you want pressed happen on a separate slide (which may necessitate re-building that game entirely).

VBA would also solve this issue, but because of compatibility concerns on other platforms (such as Mac and Office Online), some people here choose ot avoid VBA to make their projects more accessible. The choice is yours.

If you need a book recommendation, I actually just linked a free PDF on this forum to a book that should help you out. It's in the section for educational materials.

Wow, PPTDev; that's some interesting information!  How'd you figure-out this whole framing-thing?  You must have a background in game-design or something.  Or have you been watching Masahiro Sakurai's YouTube-channel or something.