Review: Roman Town app from Dig-It Games

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We’ve had a lot of fun with our recent review of Dig-It! Games Roman Town (iOS App).

It works on our iPad 2, and was played mostly by my 8-year-old son–both independently (mostly for the game-playing) and with me helping him (mostly for reading the historical information). I rarely play video games personally, but I decided to try these to see if they were actually fun. They are!

I love all kinds of educational games and educational apps for my kids. This one fits perfectly with our new history lessons because we are studying ancient history starting this fall.

Here is how the game Roman Town works:

You start out by learning about the two characters of the game, the twins Fiona and Charlie. They go off in the city of Pompeii to explore and talk to tourists. Along the way they are learning about what the archaeological digs have uncovered in the town. They see pictures of artifacts and art such as frescoes and mosaics and learn about how the people lived. In between the history education, they are playing some really fun games. My son liked the games Dots & Boxes and Code Breaker the best.

Code Breaker:

Dots & Boxes and Concentration were fun because they are interactive games with the iPad playing the other “person”. Maze was also really neat because you tilt the iPad to move the ball through the maze, and in Knucklebones you shake the iPad to roll the dice/bones. I liked Artifact Identification because it uses real pictures of actual artifacts and the kids learn what the artifacts are. The same pictures are used in the game Concentration.

There are five areas of Pompeii to visit: Street, House of the Vettii, Baths, Temple of Jupiter, and Basilica. In each area, the kids learn new facts about ancient Rome or Pompeii and play new games by talking to the tourists. As they make accomplishments in the games, more opportunities are unlocked (other places to visit and other games to play).

The full list of games included are: Calculi, Code Breaker, Dots and Boxes, Jigsaw, Knucklebones, Artifact Identification, Concentration, Maze, Pipes, Roman Numerals, and Sliding Puzzle.

Here is some of the information we learned from Roman Town:

The people who fled the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D. left suddenly, even leaving food on the table.
There were about 150 bars and taverns where the ancient Romans got “fast food” to go.
The houses had less furniture than we do but had beautiful mosaics on the floors and frescoes on the walls.
There was an amazing systems of aqueducts that brought water to the city.

One great feature of the Roman Town app is that you can reset the game after one student has gone through the entire thing. Then another child can learn all the facts again.

In the tools section, you can toggle the music and toggle the sound effects.

There is an achievement screen which keeps track of each time a student wins a game, gaining a clue.