The Lost Drachma
School version 3.0 · educational visual novel
A visual novel for Year 5 history lessons: a journey through ancient Greece in seven chapters – and the research prototype of a doctoral thesis. Original title “Die verlorene Drachme”; the game is in German.
- Year 5, teaching unit on ancient Greece
- In the browser, no installation – loads only when you click
- Teacher’s guide and game codes for every chapter
Play
Seven chapters, seven locations
Chapter 1 · Athens: Athenian democracy, the popular assembly (ekklesia), ostracism (ostrakismos), decisions before the Persian Wars.
Using it in class
- Introduce: explain the setting; the in-game tutorial explains the controls.
- Play: chapter by chapter, or jump straight into a chapter with a game code.
- Consolidate: discuss the decisions together – tasks for this are in the teacher’s guide.
Game code generator
Teacher’s guide
Handbook with a chapter overview and game codes, plus tasks, background texts and a glossary for learners (in German).
Teacher’s guide (PDF, 31 MB, German)Further reading: terms such as polis, agon or ekklesia in the historical glossary from the archive (in German).
Chapters, topics and game codes
| Chapter | Topic | Game code |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Athens | Athenian democracy, the popular assembly (ekklesia), ostracism (ostrakismos), decisions before the Persian Wars. | athen olive (start of the game) |
| 2 · Megara | The Greek gods, temples and offerings, the Oracle of Delphi. | nike krieg 1 |
| 3 · Olympia | Panhellenic games, the Olympic truce, the religious setting of the contests. | held wein dmgc 123 |
| 4 · Mycenae | Culture: theatre and poetry, sculpture, medicine; the material and immaterial value of cultural assets (with Argos and Epidaurus). | heilung held dmge dfb 1234 |
| 5 · Orchomenus | Ancient economy: import and export, coinage, crafts and division of labour. | handel olymp dmgg dff 12345 |
| 6 · Megapoli | Society: social classes, poverty and wealth, the role of women, citizen army and mercenaries. | gebirge toga dmgj dfi 123457 |
| 7 · Sparta | A militarised society, education (agoge), the Persian Wars and the Battle of Salamis. | sparta orakel dmgn dfl 123457 |
Support in the game
- Tutorial introducing the controls and the game world.
- Glossary: technical terms are highlighted in the text; a click shows the explanation without interrupting the game.
- Diary: collects chapter summaries and discovered terms – a way of consolidating what was learned.
- Reflection: after key decisions, a “What if …” puts the consequences of one’s own and the other choice into context.
- Other perspectives: in chapter 7 the Persian side has its say as well.
- Maps available at any time, for spatial orientation.
The doctoral thesis
The study does not ask whether the game is effective, but under which conditions teachers are able and willing to integrate a visual novel into their teaching – at the Chair of General Didactics and Empirical Research on Teaching at TU Dresden.
Designprinzipien für Educational Visual Novels im Geschichtsunterricht
Eine Design-Based-Research-Studie zu Implementierungsbedingungen aus Lehrkräfteperspektive
Design principles for educational visual novels in history teaching. A design-based research study on implementation conditions from the teachers’ perspective
Research question
How must visual novels be designed so that teachers are able and willing to implement them meaningfully in class?
The six sub-questions
- What initial requirements do teachers place on the design and didactic functions of a visual novel?
- Which cross-curricular potentials and subject-specific limits for learning do teachers identify?
- How do the prototype’s design features, revised after cycle 1, hold up in actual classroom practice?
- Which methodological and didactic strategies and structures do teachers develop to integrate the visual novel into their teaching?
- How does the learners’ actual play behaviour relate to the expectations the teachers formulated beforehand?
- Which transferable design principles can be derived from the teachers’ perspectives to improve the design of educational visual novels for school teaching?
Design-based research in three cycles
-
Cycle 1 · until October 2025
Formative trial
Six teachers try out the prototype in individual sessions.
collected -
Cycle 2 · from January 2026
Main study in the classroom
Two teachers use the revised version in their Year 5 classes.
collected -
Cycle 3 · from January 2027
Learners’ play behaviour
New Year 5 classes of the same teachers play in pairs.
planned -
Synthesis · afterwards
Design principles
Transferable design principles as hypotheses for further contexts.
pending
Concepts and method
From implementation research
- Practicality ethic (Doyle & Ponder 1977)
- Teachers first check whether an innovation fits their own practice and whether effort and benefit are in proportion.
- First- and second-order barriers (Ertmer 1999)
- External hurdles such as equipment, time and support – and hurdles in one’s own beliefs.
- Pedagogical design capacity (Brown & Edelson 2003)
- Adopting material, adapting it to one’s own conditions, or finding one’s own way in the situation.
- Mutual adaptation (Berman et al. 1977)
- During introduction, teaching and innovation adapt to each other.
Method
- Design-based research (Barab & Squire 2004)
- Developing practically useful solutions while gaining theoretical insights.
- Conjecture mapping (Sandoval 2014)
- Links design features to assumed processes and intended outcomes.
- Case studies (Eisenhardt 1989)
- Two cases, analysed first individually, then comparatively.
- Qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker 2024)
- Content-structuring, with a category system developed from the material.
The game’s images were drafted with generative AI (Stable Diffusion, Google Nano Banana), then selected, edited and checked for historical plausibility. Parts of the program code were written with the help of AI models; they were reviewed, tested and are the author’s responsibility. The teachers taking part were informed of this.
Cite
Töpper, D. (PyTales) (2026): Die verlorene Drachme [The Lost Drachma]. Schulversion 3.0 [Visual novel]. Online: https://www.pytales.de/pytales/drachme.html