🕹️PlayerHUD

⚠️ Required Companion Plugin: PlayerHUD requires the PlayerHUD Filter to be installed and enabled. Without it, item drops will not render in course content.

PlayerHUD – Structured Gamification Engine for Moodle

The PlayerHUD Block is a modular gamification system for Moodle that introduces structured progression mechanics based on XP, Levels, Inventory, and Ranking.

It provides a dynamic HUD (Head-Up Display) inside courses, allowing students to track their progress in real time while teachers configure engagement mechanics aligned with pedagogical objectives.

" Features

• 🎮 XP & Level System: Automatic level progression based on earned XP.
• 🏅 Level Tiers: The level badge changes color at every 5-level milestone (e.g., 5, 10, 15, 20), giving students a visual sense of progression.
• 🎛 Configurable Progression: Teachers define the number of levels and XP required for each level.
• ' Inventory System: Collectible items with configurable Cooldown (Recharge Time) and usage limits.
• 🎯 Item Powers: Items can carry a special effect beyond XP — become the student's profile avatar, grant a deadline extension on a chosen activity, or act as the collectible PlayerCoin.
• " Quest System: Create manual, collection, activity, trade, and chapter quests with a built-in auto-suggestion tool.
• 🎭 RPG Characters: Students choose characters with unique portraits, lore, and tiers. Items can be restricted to specific characters.
• - Story & Chapters: Interactive branching narratives with scenes, choices, and chapter progression tied to quests.
• -️ Reputation System: A moral-alignment mechanic that evolves the student's character portrait over time.
• 🏪 NPC Shop & Trades: Allow students to exchange collected items for rewards using a secure, rules-based transaction system.
• 📊 Analytics & Reports: Comprehensive audit logs, game economy tracking (with an Economy Health panel), a level-distribution histogram, and a quest-completion chart.
• 📍 Drop System: Place collectible items across course sections (labels, pages, descriptions) using shortcodes provided by the PlayerHUD Filter.
• 🎁 Auto Drop Distribution: Automatically distribute item drops to all enrolled students with undo support.
• 🏆 Ranking System: Leaderboard with tie-breaker logic and visibility controls.
• 🔐 Optional Participation: Students may choose to opt in or opt out of the gamification system.
• ⚡ Real-Time Updates: AJAX-based collection using Moodle's core API.
• NEW🎉 Mascot Celebration Popups: The Huddy mascot introduces itself on a student's first visit and celebrates level-ups, beating the game, first quest completed, and first PlayerCoin found. Fully accessible; can be disabled by teachers.
• NEW🪄 Gamification Wizard: A step-by-step assistant that builds a course's entire gamified structure in one run, with live progress, retry-on-failure and one-click undo per run from a history list.
  • Eleven mechanics in three tiers — Items, PlayerCoin, Avatar Pack, Trade, Ranking, Missions, Knowledge Collectible, Deadline Extension, Item RPG, RPG (characters + full story) and a hidden Secret Item, grouped into Basic / Intermediate / Advanced by how sophisticated the mechanic is, not by what it technically does.
  • Shared XP budget — keeps every generated mechanic inside the course's level ceiling.
  • Automatic drop distribution — inserts generated items across existing course activities (or into the course's own news forum for PlayerCoin/Secret Item).
  • Live Octalysis coverage octagon — faithful to Yu-Kai Chou's original 8 Core Drives, geometry included, shows which motivational drives the current setup actually covers.
• - AI Tools (Optional): Two AI-powered features powered by Gemini, Groq, or any OpenAI-compatible provider:
  • Content Generator — creates items, story chapters with branching nodes, and RPG character backstories on demand.
  • Game Master Assistant — a conversational chat tab for teachers. Ask questions about game design, get suggestions, and trigger actions (create item, create quest, generate chapter) with a confirmation step before anything is saved.
• 📱 Mobile-Ready: Compatible with Moodle web services.

🎓 Educational Purpose

PlayerHUD is designed to:

• Encourage active engagement
• Reinforce mastery-based progression
• Provide structured reward systems
• Support competitive and cooperative learning dynamics
• Allow voluntary participation in gamification

Suitable for:

• Gamified academic courses
• Technical and vocational training
• Certification pathways
• Engagement reinforcement strategies

- Usage

1. Install the PlayerHUD Filter and enable it in your site's filter settings. This step is required before using the block.
2. Add the PlayerHUD Block to your course.
3. Access the Management Panel (Teacher role required).
4. Choose how to set it up:
   • Quick start: run the Gamification Wizard to auto-generate items, quests, ranking, and other mechanics in one pass (see Features above).
   • Manual setup: configure each mechanic yourself:
     • Items
     • XP values
     • Number of levels
     • XP thresholds
     • Drop placements
     • Recharge time (Cooldown)
     • Collection limits
5. Students collect items directly within course sections.
6. XP, levels, and ranking update automatically.

🔎 Third-party Service Disclosure (AI)

PlayerHUD includes optional AI-powered features for generating items, story scenes, and character oracle responses. These features are not required. The plugin works fully without any external AI service.

• Supported Providers: Google Gemini, Groq, and custom OpenAI-compatible APIs.
• Bring Your Own Key (BYOK): The plugin does not provide API keys. Keys and custom Base URLs must be configured by the institution.
• Data Privacy: No student data, prompts, or raw responses are stored. Data is only transmitted when a teacher explicitly uses the feature to generate course content.

⚙️ Technical Reliability & Security

• Core Standards: Fully compliant with Moodle coding and accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA) standards.
• Robust Architecture: Capability-based access control, strict require_sesskey() protection against CSRF, rigorous server-side validation for game rules, and automated test coverage (including new PHPUnit coverage for RPG tables).
• Data Security & Privacy: Full implementation of the Moodle Privacy API (GDPR compliant), Backup & Restore support (now extended to all RPG tables), and privacy-aware ranking participation.
• Scalable & API Ready: Optimized database structure with memory-efficient bulk queries that avoid redundant database calls, and fully Moodle External API compliant.
• Bring Your Own Key (BYOK): The plugin does not provide API keys. Keys must be configured by the site administrator or individually by teachers.

🕹️PlayerGames Ecosystem

PlayerHUD Filter is part of the PlayerGames gamification ecosystem. Together, these plugins transform Moodle into an immersive experience:

• PlayerHUD Filter: Enables item drops via shortcodes inside course content.
  ' https://moodle.org/plugins/filter_playerhud
• PlayerHUD Availability Restriction: Restricts access to course activities based on the student's current Level or items.
  ' Link: https://moodle.org/plugins/availability_playerhud
• PlayerGroup: lets students autonomously form their own groups directly from the activity page — no teacher intervention needed.
  ' Link: https://moodle.org/plugins/availability_playerhud

🧩 Optional Integration: Late Penalty

The Deadline Extension item power (see Features) does not work on its own — it requires the separate Late Penalty plugin (local_latepenalty, by the same author, but not part of the PlayerGames family). When installed, redeeming a Deadline Extension item pushes back the activity's effective deadline for that student and triggers Late Penalty's automatic recalculation, waiving or reducing any late-submission grade penalty already applied. Without Late Penalty installed, the item power fails gracefully with a "not installed" message instead of granting the extension.

• ' Link: https://moodle.org/plugins/local_latepenalty