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 11 rooms on 3 levels plus the King's Chamber, help 9 characters, collect 9 clues, find the hidden Sun Amulet, then read the magic words in hieroglyphs to get home.
- The pyramid opens up as they go: Scoot the scarab lights the stairs to the middle level, Nekky the vulture's lever opens the upper level, and Jax the jackal's door opens the King's Chamber. Professor Hoot's Hieroglyph Sound Chart is needed for the mummy's name and the final magic words.
- Skills: decoding from examples, reading hieroglyphs (including which direction to read), planning moves, coloring logic, Egyptian number signs with regrouping, a classic river crossing logic puzzle, multiplication and addition (the 365 day Egyptian calendar), map views from two sides, a sliding tile puzzle, and elimination from 10 clues (every clue is needed).
- Wrong answers lock that puzzle for a short wait (15 seconds, then 30, 45, 60) so teams talk instead of guessing. A wrong search costs 2 minutes of daylight plus a wait that grows each time (1, 2, 3, then 5 minutes), so trying every treasure is a bad plan. Hints: 3 per puzzle, one every 45 seconds.
- Bonus: 11 golden ankhs 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 levels, items, the amulet, 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.
- Real facts in the game: the owl hieroglyph stands for the M sound; animal hieroglyphs face the start of the line; Egyptians kept bees in clay tube hives; Egyptian number signs (stroke, heel bone, coil of rope, lotus); the three seasons and the 365 day calendar; the Grand Gallery and the granite box in the King's Chamber are real; a 4,500 year old boat was found beside the Great Pyramid; "miu" is an Egyptian word for cat. The hieroglyph chart is a simplified alphabet made for kids, since real Egyptian writing works more like sounds without most vowels. The real Great Pyramid also has almost no carvings or paintings inside; this story pyramid is a magic, decorated version.
Timer
Minutes until sunset: (teams can keep playing in overtime; the award says "Home after sunset")
Answers
- Hall of Hieroglyphs, Professor Hoot: MOON and NAPS. Gives the Hieroglyph Sound Chart.
- Underground Chamber, Scoot: roll Up, Right, Up, Right, Up, Left, Down, Right, Up (9 rolls; 16 allowed, and Start Over does not give rolls back, so teams cannot just try random rolls). Opens the middle level.
- Queen's Chamber, Queen Buzzby: every honeycomb cell colored so no touching cells match (there is only one way that works from the three starting cells).
- Workers' Room, Nekky: 1,213 + 342 + 1,125 = 2,680: 2 lotus flowers, 6 coils of rope, 8 heel bones, 0 strokes. Opens the upper level.
- Boat Room, Blue: take the mouse over, swim back alone, take the cat over, bring the mouse back, take the grain over, swim back alone, take the mouse over.
- Scribe's Room, Ibby: Flood, Growing, Harvest, and 365 days (3 x 4 x 30 + 5).
- Grand Gallery, Swoop: on the 4 by 4 map (north at top): Pyramid in row 1 column 3; Obelisk row 2 column 1; Palm tree row 3 column 4; Sphinx row 4 column 2.
- Mummy Room: the name is RAMOSE (the animals face right, so it is read from right to left).
- Antechamber, Jax: slide the tiles into order 1 to 8 with the empty space in the bottom right (10 moves at best). Opens the King's Chamber.
- The search: the Sun Amulet is in the Wooden Cat Box (Scribe's Room). Every one of the 10 clues removes a different treasure.
- The magic words: TAKE US HOME.