How a Physical Game Became a Fundable Digital Experience

Client: Institute of Archaeology (Viminacium Archaeological Park, Serbia).

Product: Viminacium: Mystery of the Emperor’s Death (Android), an educational hidden-object adventure set at the real Roman site where Emperor Hostilian died in 251 AD.

Time to MVP: Under two months, delivered by a four-person core team (design/art, game design & narrative, PM, Unity development).

Scope: ~11 playable scenes; historically accurate art; branching endings; facial-animated dialogue; data-driven content pipeline.

Outcome: The project exceeded expectations, earning strong client satisfaction and helping secure additional funding for the next phase. Shortly after, the game was publicly released on Google Play.

Context & ambition

Viminacium is one of Europe’s largest Roman archaeological parks. It is believed to be the site of Emperor Hostilian’s death and burial, a story that became the centerpiece of the game’s narrative.

Before the project began, the Institute ran a physical board game and educational program called “Mystery of the Emperor’s Death.” With support from the SAIGE project, the goal was to bring this concept into the digital age and transform it into an edutainment experience that could reach a broader, modern audience.

Business goal: Deliver a fast, polished MVP that demonstrates both learning impact and visitor engagement, something compelling enough to show funders, partners, and the general public, while keeping scope, cost, and timeline firmly under control.

Challenges

• Time & team size: The MVP had to be delivered in weeks, not months, with only a small cross-functional team.
  
  
• Historical accuracy: Both visuals and narrative needed to stay true to Roman material culture; there was no room for shortcuts or generic assets.
  
  
• Production flow: Client input often came in bursts, so we had to establish a straightforward, efficient workflow to keep approvals and development in sync.

  Our approach

  We followed Marble IT’s tried-and-tested playbook: first align on the vision, then move fast with focused sprints. The process began with a short but essential pre-production phase where we locked in key artistic and technical decisions. From there, we shifted into outcome-oriented sprints, each designed to deliver tangible progress and keep the client closely involved. This rhythm allowed us to stay agile despite the short timeline, ensuring that creative direction, historical accuracy, and technical execution moved in sync. By structuring the work this way, we could balance speed with quality, hitting MVP goals without compromising the depth or authenticity of the experience.

Design & narrative

• We chose the hidden-object puzzle adventure format as the foundation since it naturally combines discovery with learning. To make the experience more engaging, we introduced multiple endings in which players evaluate evidence and decide on the “true” conclusion. This not only deepened the narrative but also added replay value without requiring additional content overhead.
  
  
• On the production side, the narrative was fully data-driven. Written and structured in Google Sheets, it was automatically converted into JSON for the Unity runtime. This approach minimized engineering effort and allowed the designer to iterate freely, without blocking development progress.

Art & authenticity

• The visual direction was grounded in assets provided by the client, including detailed 3D renders of the archaeological site. From there, our art pipeline combined Blender and Photoshop to re-render, photobash, and paint over the material, achieving museum-grade quality while keeping performance optimized for mobile devices.
  
  
• To bring characters to life within the tight timeline, we used CrazyTalk for lightweight facial animations, making dialogue scenes feel more dynamic without heavy production overhead. For voice, we prototyped with AI-generated voiceovers, a pragmatic choice that allowed rapid iteration during MVP development, with the option to replace them with professional studio recordings later.

Engineering

• We built the game in Unity, chosen for the team’s familiarity and ability to get content into players’ hands quickly. The systems were designed to be clean and extendable, avoiding hard-coded shortcuts, so the Institute could confidently expand the project in future phases.
  
  
• We established a tight designer–developer feedback loop backed by mutual QA to maintain speed and quality. This workflow kept iterations fast, minimized bottlenecks, and ensured every new feature was production-ready.

What we built (MVP scope)

• The MVP delivered a fully playable vertical slice across ~11 scenes, combining exploration, clue-hunting, dialogue, and branching story conclusions.
  
  
• All content was rooted in Viminacium’s actual archaeology — for example, the mausoleum believed to be tied to Emperor Hostilian was transformed into an interactive learning moment inside the game. This grounding in real history gave the experience both authenticity and educational value.
  
  
• To keep the world engaging, we included facially animated characters and interactive environments, all optimized to run smoothly on mid-range Android devices.

Impact & Opportunities

Fast, efficient delivery: A four-person core team transformed a physical educational program into a polished, content-rich MVP in under two months. Released on New Year’s Eve, the game was quickly enjoyed by both visitors and stakeholders, showcasing Marble IT’s ability to deliver under tight deadlines without relying on brittle shortcuts.

De-risking and scalability: The MVP gave funders and decision-makers a tangible, playable artifact, translating proven educational content into a scalable digital product. The Google Sheets → JSON content pipeline reduced iteration costs, making future scenarios, quests, or language localizations much faster and cheaper.

Audience reach and reuse: The project extended the park's reach beyond on-site visitors by bringing the story of Viminacium to mobile devices. The same approach can generalize to other heritage organizations, enabling a workflow from board game or exhibit to data-driven edutainment MVP with staged funding and feature growth.

Next steps and growth opportunities:


1. Curriculum add-ons and teacher mode (guided play and assessments)
2. Visitor analytics and heatmaps to inform exhibit design
3. On-site AR experiences, such as mausoleum overlays, and interactive kiosk builds
4. Localizations for multiple languages, building on the physical game’s existing versions

The MVP delivered immediate impact and set the stage for future innovation, expansion, and
engagement across audiences and heritage organizations.

Ready to bring your vision to life?

At Marble IT, we specialize in transforming complex ideas into engaging, high-quality digital experiences, from educational games and AR/VR applications to custom software and interactive storytelling. Whether you’re looking to digitize a heritage program, create a learning experience, or develop a scalable MVP under tight deadlines, we can help you make it happen. Let’s create something extraordinary together. Get in touch with us today.