Demo shows first sign of Danger in Pompeii on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Full version of historical side-scrolling edutainment adventure coming in July

If you could travel back to 79 AD Pompeii, shortly before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius with foreknowledge of pending disaster, what would you do? While the choice isn't entirely yours in DNA Studios' upcoming Danger in Pompeii, you'll have plenty of opportunity to explore and make decisions about how you'll spend your last day before the cataclysmic event. 

Players control their choice of Flavia or Flavius, a youngster in a wealthy family who becomes the chosen one of the god Mercury to receive divine visions of the upcoming destruction. The details won't be clear at first, however, and besides, you're just a child; what could you possibly do? You obviously can't stop the volcano from erupting, but you can explore the city's "streets and mythical sites," solve puzzles and help the townsfolk with their problems, allowing them to escape Pompeii unscathed. That means having to "decode the secret to the perfect bread at the Pistrinum, unmask the culprit behind the attempted murder of the famous actor Clodius, track down the sacred chickens, and much more." When time's up, however, you'll need to escape however you can, rescuing your loved ones and fleeing the devastation raining down upon the city in a desperate struggle to survive.  

Presented in a colourful hand-drawn art style, Danger in Pompeii is a side-scrolling adventure controlled either by keyboard or gamepad. You can freely wander the city, which has been "faithfully reconstructed from historical documents," allowing you to "explore the temples of the Forum, stand on the stage of the Grand Theater, or join the crowd at the Amphitheatre for the games," to name just a few possibilities. You'll have assigned tasks to carry out, but (rather ironically) there's no time pressure and Pompeii is filled with people going about their business, more than 60 of whom you can interact with to learn their individual stories. There are also a variety of side quests to complete and 28 unique points of interest to discover, each with its own encyclopedic displays revealing more about the culture of that time period. Along the way you can buy any number of items from scattered shops, such as clothing, jewelry or fabrics. Of course, that means having money, so you'd best keep an eye out for any opportunity to collect some. Not that it will do you any good when the catastrophe finally arrives.

The game comes by its educational focus honestly, as it's being fully funded by the Le Rosey Fondation (which receives "no profit from its sale") and created in collaboration with the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland. Under the supervision of the school's former director Anne Gudin, the students themselves "composed the original soundtrack, conducted graphic research, designed mini-game mechanics, and followed the entire game development process from start to finish." Designed for anyone to enjoy, ages 9 and up, there will be two different variations of the game – the publicly available version and an educational version specifically for schools to use in the classroom, complete with worksheets. (Interested educators are encouraged to contact dangerapompei@rosey.ch to learn more.)

The iOS version of Danger in Pompeii is already available on the App Store free of charge. The commercial PC version, with optimized graphics for larger screens, adapted controls and additional save slots, isn't out yet but won't be much longer, expected to launch on Steam for Windows PC sometime in July. In the meantime, you can already start exploring the doomed city through the playable demo, set in the quieter moments at the start of the game.