An Educational Gamification Prototype for Historical & Cultural Learning
This project was born from a common TRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game) scenario: What happens when the Game Master forgets to specify the time period and location?
Instead of breaking character, I turned this "bug" into a feature—players must now deduce the historical period and geographical location through careful observation and reasoning to survive and escape the dimensional maze.
- Passive lectures often fail to engage students
- Historical and geographical knowledge feels disconnected from real problem-solving
- Students memorize facts without developing analytical thinking
This quiz system transforms learning into an active investigation game where:
- Production Teams craft challenging, misleading scenarios with subtle clues
- Investigation Teams must use critical thinking and knowledge synthesis
- Competition dynamics naturally emerge, driving deeper engagement
Experience the time-space labyrinth yourself! No installation required—just open in your browser and start solving temporal mysteries.
- Mysterious Scenario: Players find themselves in an unknown time/place
- Evidence Gathering: Analyze cultural artifacts, language, technology, political references
- Deductive Reasoning: Synthesize clues while avoiding red herrings
- High Stakes: Wrong answers trap players deeper in the time-space labyrinth
- 📜 Historical Periods: Ancient civilizations, political transitions, cultural shifts
- 🗺️ Geography: Trade routes, colonial territories, cultural regions
- 🎭 Cultural Context: Literature, art movements, social customs
- 🔤 Linguistic Challenges: Etymology, nuanced word usage (bonus rounds)
// Quiz database with multiple question types
const quizDatabase = [
{
type: 'history',
title: 'Ancient Babylon Temple',
description: 'Cuneiform, ziggurats, Marduk worship...',
// Intentional red herrings included
}
// ... more scenarios
];- Beginner: Clear historical markers
- Intermediate: Mixed cultural evidence
- Expert: Subtle contradictions and linguistic traps
- Bonus: Advanced language differentiation
- 80s Terminal Vibes: Green phosphor text, scan lines, CRT glow effects
- Cosmic Themes: Stars, dimensional warping, time-space distortion
- Immersive Typography: Monospace fonts, retro color schemes
- Mystery: Unknown circumstances create natural curiosity
- Competition: Team-based challenges drive motivation
- Achievement: Point systems and success tracking
- Flow State: Balanced difficulty progression
- Preparation Phase: Teacher teams create scenario databases
- Competition Mode: Student teams rotate between creation and solving
- Analysis Phase: Discuss reasoning, evaluate evidence quality
- Iteration: Refine scenarios based on student performance
- Critical Thinking: Analyzing contradictory evidence
- Pattern Recognition: Identifying historical/cultural markers
- Research Skills: Connecting scattered clues
- Collaborative Problem-Solving: Team-based deduction
- Frontend: Pure HTML5, CSS3, Vanilla JavaScript
- Storage: LocalStorage for progress tracking
- Design: Responsive, terminal-inspired UI
- Animations: CSS keyframes for atmospheric effects
This prototype uses Japanese for historical/cultural content focusing on:
- Japanese history (Heian → Kamakura transition, Meiji Restoration)
- World history (Babylonian Empire, Byzantine Empire, Age of Exploration)
- Cultural knowledge (Classical literature, art movements)
- Linguistic nuances (English etymology, usage differentiation)
The beauty of open source is organic evolution. If this concept resonates with you and your friends, natural extensions might emerge:
- Your Language/Culture: Adapt scenarios for your own historical context
- Your Subject: Apply the mystery-solving format to literature, science, art, etc.
- Your Classroom: Use it as-is or modify for your teaching style
- Your Ideas: The framework is simple enough to hack and experiment with
No roadmaps, no promises—just the hope that if people find value in this approach, they'll:
- Share their own question databases
- Create variants for different subjects
- Report what works (or doesn't) in their context
- Build upon the concept in unexpected ways
This approach naturally aligns with:
- Active Learning: Students investigate rather than memorize
- Problem-Based Learning: Real scenarios require practical knowledge
- Gamification: Mystery and challenge drive engagement
- Collaborative Discovery: Teams work together to solve puzzles
- Try creating scenarios for your own subject area
- Adapt questions for your local history/culture
- Let me know what works in your classroom (no pressure!)
- The code is simple and hackable
- Feel free to improve the UI or add features
- Share your modifications if you think others might enjoy them
- Test it in your educational context
- I'd love to hear about unexpected use cases
- Document what you discover (or what breaks!)
MIT License - Feel free to adapt, modify, and build upon this concept for educational purposes.
- I develop prototypes with a focus on ethics.
- There are no plans for maintenance or support.
- The project is released under the MIT License, so feel free to modify it within the scope of the license.
- Instead of providing support, I create new prototypes to solve emerging problems.
※This project is intended for historical and cultural education purposes only and does not endorse any specific nation, religion, or political position.
※本プロジェクトは歴史的・文化的な教育を目的とし、特定の国家・宗教・政治的立場を推奨するものではありません。
Sometimes the best learning happens when you don't realize you're learning.
This started as a silly TRPG problem and became a fun way to practice historical reasoning. If it helps someone else turn boring facts into engaging mysteries, that's already a success.
The framework is intentionally simple—no complex dependencies, no server requirements, just a browser and curiosity.
"The best way to predict the future is to create it... but first, you have to figure out where (and when) you are."