Dig It! Presents Roman Town

First off, Roman Town is a computer game. It comes on a CD. But it is no ordinary game. It is a game that also teaches about life in Ancient Rome.

But watch out, if your young people, especially boys, play this to much they may end up digging up your back yard!! LOL

Next I wanted to say that not only is this an educational game... it is a lot of fun. I played and enjoyed it and so did both of my boys (ages 14 and 16).

You/your child start off by working your way through 6 pre-set levels... each is an area of a Roman house that you need to excavate.

When you start digging in an area flags pop up to tell you where to dig. The little stick figure men, just under the flag in the green strip of the picture on the left, tells you how many diggers you get. As you do more levels you get more diggers. When a flag pops up your child chooses a tool from the ones on the left (you only get so many of each) and then click on a flag and the digger will begin his work. Then more flags will pop up. You keep assigning diggers until you get all the spots excavated.

When a digger finds an artifact a green talk bubble pops up. You click on the green buble Then you take your trowel and do the final work of uncovering the artifact. (See the picture to the left.) Then you have an opportunity to L.E.A.R.N. more about the artifact. You need to learn about the artifacts so that you can solve puzzles and answer questions later. L.E.A.R.N. stands for Locate Engrossing And Remarkable Knowledge.

After you have dig up all the spots in a certain area you will get a screen that will allow you to sort the artifacts by the type... I hope you were paying attention and that you L.E.A.R.N.ed something... if you did, sorting should be easy.

There are many puzzles and mini games within Roman Town. The one shown on the left is a 3D reconstruction.... turn the item and place the pieces onto the form. There is also a 2D reconstruction for frescoes that is just like putting together a puzzle. The pieces in the 2D puzzle can be picked up by clicking withe the left mouse button and then rotated  by clicking the right mouse button, until you see that they fit... then place them on the puzzle.

One of the other games is the matching game you see on the right. You match old artifacts with items from modern times. It helps if you payed attention and L.E.A.R.N.ed a lot when you were digging up each artifact, then you will know exactly what the item was used for in Roman times, and matching it to today's items will be a cinch.

This is what the kitchen looks like after all the artifacts have been uncovered.

When you are done finding all the items for an area of the game you can then do a Room Tour. If you click on an object you can then  L.E.A.R.N. more about that object.

Another fun game that can be played is the Doesn't belong game. They place modern items in the picture that don't belong and you have to find them all. Like one of those seek and find games.

The final thing to do for each level is to send in your report. The report is at the bottom of the Lab page. (The reports look like the picture at the left.) You click on the words at the bottom of the page and drag them to the spot in the report where they fit. When you get all the words in place it will let you know how many you have right and how many wrong. If you did not get them all right you can move things around until you do get them all right. It will let your child move them as many times as they need to.

After you send in your report, for that level, you can play some extra mini games or you can dig and complete another level.

Once you have completed a level you can replay that level, re-dig it, or play any of the games. When you play all the levels then you can re-play any of the levels in any order you want. You can also play any of the "extra games" in the menu.

Maybe this video that Dig-It uploaded to YouTube will help you further understand the game.



How did I use this in our homeschool??? I put the game on the boys computers and let them at it. They had a grand time and played and learned, a lot.

If you have more questions you can check out their FAQ page.

SALE ALERT!! You can use the coupon code TOS2011 to get Roman Town for $19.96! This coupon code expires on February 21, 2011. The usual price for Roman Town is $39.95, so this TOS2011 coupon code for $19.96 is a really great deal! Click HERE to visit the store. The MAC version of Roman Town is supposed to be coming soon.

Out of five stars we give Roman Town:

My boys said they would have given it four and a half stars if I had half stars. They also said they would have given it five stars if it had better graphics for the digging part. They thought the company could have done better than the stick figures. I thought it was fine. The digging is not the important part of the game. The important part is that they learn about the artifacts and about how people lived in Ancient Rome, and the games they play add a lot to that knowledge, are fun, and the graphics for the games are good.

I think this would be a good addition to an Ancient Rome study, or just anytime, for, oh, 3rd grade and up. My ds a Junior in High School, grade 11 that is, liked the game though he finished all the levels in a very short amount of time, as did I. So I would recommend it for ages 8 to 88!!!

Maybe you are interested in some other opinions on this product, check out what my friends at the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say. 

***Dig-It! Games provided me with Roman Town so we could play and learn. Though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.


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