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Vindolanda App

Connecting children with the past

Dr Claire Stocks explains how a unique video game is transforming how children learn about life on Hadrian’s Wall. 

Increasing public engagement with heritage sites and museums remains a challenge, as visitors can feel disconnected from historical sites and objects when viewing them out of context or in display cabinets.

That's why we developed the video game ‘The Missing Dead,’ with our partners at the Vindolanda Trust. Our aim was to open up the past to young people and encourage them to engage with history through a different learning environment.

Still from the Vindolanda app

The Missing Dead

The game is built around the mystery surrounding a 1,800-year-old skeleton discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, on Hadrian’s Wall, in 2009. Using archaeological evidence excavated from the site, the game uses 2D, hand-drawn animation in a comic-book style to recreate Vindolanda as it would have been in c.230AD. 

It is designed to be used either on-site at Vindolanda, at home or in the classroom. Guided by Aquila the Eagle, the game takes the player around different buildings on the site as they follow Marcus, a Roman Tribune, as he helps his friend, Vitalis, to find a missing slave.

Players must question the characters that appear in the game as they explore what life would have been like on the Roman frontier, and learn about the diverse community that lived there. 

Click here to find out more about how the app was developed, how it is being used to educate Key Stage 2 students and how the app kept people engaged with Vindolanda during the Covid-19 pandemic.