The main focus of this project was to make Roman Heerlen and the field of archaeology visible and experiential in education during and after the ‘Heel Heerlen Graaf’ project. 

This is how we came up with: Coriovallum Stories is a “digital board game” (a board game played on a digital board) designed for students in grades 7-8. The concept aims to engage students in learning about daily life in Roman Heerlen through gamification and storytelling, emphasizing the idea that history can be seen from different perspectives. 

The game is played by the entire class. The goal of the game for students is to uncover the complete story of a character together. In the game, students assume the role of archaeologists searching for artifacts. They dig for artifacts using the game board displayed on the digital board. When they find an artifact, it unlocks a part of the character’s story; by finding all the artifacts, they discover the entire story and achieve the goal of the game. When conveying the story, the teacher can choose to read it aloud or play an audio fragment. Running parallel to the artifact excavation is a puzzle that needs to be solved, and solving the puzzle involves playing mini-games (each time an artifact is found, a mini-game is played to help solve the puzzle). This puzzle is crucial to the game because it provides vital instructions for finding the final artifact. Without solving the puzzle, the story cannot be completed. The mini-games are played in groups to ensure that a few students are not occupied with the mini-games while the rest of the class is idle or disengaged. The mini-games are educational and related to the theme of the story (more on this later), although their main focus is to provide students with activities and encourage collaboration. The real learning primarily lies in the storytelling of the story segment