Teacher note
Enter the teacher password to see the answers and testing tools.
How it runs
- Teams of 3 or 4 share one Chromebook. The game tells them to pass the mouse after every puzzle so everyone gets a turn to drive.
- Plan on 60 to 75 minutes (it can be split over two class periods with progress codes). Students explore 10 rooms on 3 floors of a castle plus the Throne Room, help 9 characters, collect 9 clues, find the crown Rook the raven hid, then open the Royal Crown Case with a secret word in the Knight's Code.
- The castle opens up as they go: Cook Bramble's Stair Key opens Floor 2, Weaver Nell's Tower Key opens Floor 3, and Herald Fanfare opens the Throne Room. Scribe Quill gives the Knight's Code Key, which is needed for the final lock (it also shows on the final screen).
- Skills: ratio tables (1, 3 and 5 pies), heads and legs logic (guess, check and adjust), adding to an exact target, music note values and fractions of a beat, Roman numerals and making a bar graph, multiples of 4, a logic grid with 6 clues, planning knight moves on a chess board, reading a calendar and counting days, elimination from 10 clues (every clue is needed), and a symbol cipher (pigpen, called the Knight's Code here).
- Wrong answers lock that puzzle for a short wait (15 seconds, then 30, 45, 60) so teams talk instead of guessing. Lark's music puzzle clears after a wrong check, and the knight puzzle starts over when the team runs out of hops. A wrong search adds 2 minutes to the clock plus a wait that grows each time (1, 2, 3, then 5 minutes). A wrong secret word waits 20, 40, then 60 seconds. Hints: 3 per puzzle (the Crown Case has 3 too), one every 45 seconds.
- Bonus: 11 jewels are hidden in the rooms for teams that like to explore. The count prints on the award.
- Progress codes: after every puzzle the team gets a 10 letter code (like
KDHTM-7XQMP), also shown on the side. Have one student write the newest code on paper. If a browser resets or the team switches Chromebooks, they type it on the start screen and get back their crew name, every solved puzzle (in any order), open floors, items, the crown, hints and time. Made-up codes do not work, and after 3 wrong tries the box makes them wait 20 seconds. Typing their own code again on the same computer keeps any wait that is still running, so reloading the page cannot skip a wrong answer wait. A code always brings its own crew name, and that name prints on the award. - The "Left this page" counter on the side goes up every time someone switches to another tab or window. It does not stop the game. A high number can mean someone went looking for answers, for example by taking a screenshot to an AI helper, so it is worth a quick check in.
- Everything in this room (the castle, the characters and the story) is original, so it is safe to share. The castle facts on the clickable spots are real.
Timer
Minutes until the coronation: (teams can keep playing in overtime; the award says "Finished in overtime")
Answers
- Kitchen, Cook Bramble: Apples 4, 12, 20 (1 pie is 4). Eggs 2, 6, 10. Honey 3, 9, 15. Flour 2, 6, 10. Gives the Stair Key, which opens Floor 2.
- Stables, Tobin: 5 horses and 7 geese (12 heads, 20 + 14 = 34 legs). 4 sheep and 5 hens (9 heads, 16 + 10 = 26 legs).
- Archery Range, Marigold: Marigold: 8, 12, 15, 15 (50). Tam: 7, 15, 15 (37). These are the only ways to make each score with those arrows; the game checks the totals.
- Great Hall, Lark: Measure 1 quarter note, Measure 2 whole note, Measure 3 dotted half note, Measure 4 eighth note, Measure 5 half note.
- Scriptorium, Scribe Quill: Gareth XIV = 14, Elsa IX = 9, Rolf XVII = 17, Ivy XI = 11, Hugo VI = 6. Gives the Knight's Code Key.
- Weaving Room, Weaver Nell: color only the multiples of 4. They make a picture of a key. Gives the Tower Key, which opens Floor 3.
- Armory, Dame Gwen: Alden: green, bear. Brea: red, lion. Cole: gold, dragon. Dora: blue, eagle.
- Chess Garden, Jingle: the knight starts in A1. Fastest path (5 hops): B3 (bell), D2, C4, D6 (bell), F5 (bell). Any path that gets all 3 bells in 6 hops or fewer works.
- Throne Doors, Herald Fanfare: Jousting Tournament on the 19th (third Saturday), Harvest Feast on the 10th, Royal Ball on the 14th. Opens the Throne Room.
- The search: the crown is in the Velvet Box (Great Hall). Every one of the 10 clues removes a different hiding spot.
- The Royal Crown Case: the secret word is TURNIP.