Brandon Hall Award — Best Use of Games & Simulation
ELB Learning (formerly eLearning Brothers)
Designed and developed a bespoke, high-fidelity game-based learning experience for a Fortune 500 client. The simulation placed learners inside a richly branched environment where decisions had real consequences — driving engagement, emotional investment, and measurable knowledge transfer that traditional courseware couldn’t achieve.
Approach
The design challenge was straightforward to articulate and difficult to execute: build a learning experience that felt less like training and more like consequence. Most compliance courseware tells learners what to do. This simulation made them live it.
Branching architecture was built around realistic decision points drawn from actual workplace scenarios. Wrong choices produced visible, logical outcomes — not a red X and a “try again” prompt. Learners experienced the downstream effects of their decisions, which is what actually drives behavior change.
What Made It Work
The simulation was built in Articulate Storyline with custom JavaScript interactions to handle state management across branching paths — tracking decisions across scenes to ensure consequences felt earned and connected, not arbitrary.
Visual production quality was treated as an instructional variable, not an aesthetic one. High-fidelity environments signal to learners that the content is worth taking seriously.
Outcomes
- Brandon Hall Award — Excellence in Learning, Best Use of Games and Simulation
- Built in Articulate Storyline with custom JavaScript interactions
- Delivered for Fortune 500 audience with enterprise LMS deployment
Full samples available on request.