Digital Play

The Tomb of the Mummy I is a very difficult puzzle game. Because of its difficulty, it’s ideal to use it with an upper intermediate - advanced  class in a connected classroom (i.e. one with a computer & a data projector or IWB) and to use it to generate language used for hypothesis (should, conditionals, etc).

Example language : “We think you should press the beetles in the following order…”, “You should try clicking on the axe while it is swinging”, etc.

Preparation (the Rules)

a) Show the students the first screen and tell them the objective is to free the mummy from the tomb

b) Tell the learners to work in teams and that you will award points to the  team that comes closes  to solving each of the stages of the puzzle

c) Ask them to think of ideas to try out, which the team secretary will write down on strips of paper and then hand to you

d) If you want, you can insist on a particular format for their sentences (e.g. using should as in the solution, below)

e) Tell the students that if their sentences are incorrect, you will not accept them (you will give them back to correct them)

Playing the game:

• As you receive the learners’ ideas, read them aloud and try them out if they are grammatically correct
• If you receive any sentences which are not correct, give the sentence
• If they solve part of the puzzle, award points (keep score on the board)
• After several attempts, if no team comes close, give clues to the class (tell them the parts of the solution below marked in bold)

Solution:

1) You should click on the blue scarab continuously to move the first rock into the cup of the left-hand brazier

2) You should press the question mark in the bottom left hand corner

3) On the screen showing the riddle, you should move the ball-shaped rock that’s right above the white bug.

4) You should put the rock in the top right hand corner (you will notice that’s the only rock missing – the other three corners have rocks)

Note: A ray of light will shine on the screen and a new rock appears – This rock that one is for the other torch/brazier thing

5) You should click the scarabs to move the rock until it jumps into the brazier

6) Notice the small rocks on the top of both braziers – you should click the scarabs until these two rocks are in the same position (close to the doors)

6) Wait for the mummy to knock hard, so that the torches are rocking. Then you should click the blue beetle in the middle several times while he is knocking, and this will knock the torch pillars down.

7) Now you will see an axe swinging – While the axe is swinging, you should push the scarabs in order : G + B + B + R + R + Y + B + R + Y + P ( see order above door) -

You should push the colours just before you hear the sound of the axe.

Now, you should push the door to open it.

9) To close the door after releasing the mummy, you should click the left scarab when the axe disapears left (you should hear a click) click the right scarab when the axe disappears right (you should hear a click) after clicking a few times the door closes

Finally…have fun – this is just one way of exploiting a puzzle game in the classroom and can be adapted to any similar game.

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