Rome was built on these. . . and with three letters on the board and $1,300 on the line, Player 1 knows exactly where this is going: SEVEN HILLS.
Meet History Wheel, the newest duel on DuelingHistory.com. It’s a spin-the-wheel vocabulary game rebuilt from a 1993 ToolBook “Chapter Vocabulary” wheel game written by Stephen F. Hustedde. Thirty-three years later, it spins in any web browser, with no download and no plug-in.
How it plays
Two to four students type in their first names, pick a puzzle set, and choose 3, 5, or 7 rounds. Each puzzle comes with a clue and a category (Place, Person, People, Thing), or you can switch the clue off and play on the category alone when the class is ready for a challenge.
Spin the wheel, call a consonant, and cash in for every time it shows up. Vowels cost $250. Land on Bankrupt or Lose a Turn and the wheel moves on to the next student. Solve the puzzle to bank the round, and the biggest game total at the end takes the duel.
The built-in Ancient Rome set has twenty terms: patricians and plebeians, tribunes and dictators, Romulus and Remus, the Tiber River, and the Republic itself. A Southern Africa set is in there to get you started too.
Make it your own chapter
Here’s the part teachers will like. Click the little ⚙ teacher link at the bottom of the game and you land in the password-protected Puzzle Editor. Type in a term, a clue, and a type, and it drops straight onto the board. You can build whole new puzzle sets for any chapter or any subject, rename or delete sets, and Export a set to share with the teacher down the hall (who can Import it in seconds). Made a mess of things? Restore Built-in Sets puts Rome back where you found it.
That’s the same idea the original had back in 1993. The teacher writes the vocabulary, and the game does the rest.
The man who saved my life
This game has a story, and it starts with Stephen Hustedde.
In 1993 I had a World History class of 33 students and only 8 computers. Stephen handed me his ToolBook “Chapter Vocabulary” wheel game. It had a password “back door” where I could type in my own vocabulary terms and matching clues, and it changed everything. I still say Stephen saved my life. He’s the man who helped me become a better teacher with programming. He taught me how to build these things myself, got me started in edutainment, and his knowledge inspired every game I’ve made since. That was 33 years ago, and he’s still the first person I send a new build to.
And the game delivered. It kept a World History class busy and engaged right after lunch, which every teacher knows is the toughest slot of the day. They could not get enough of it.
Now it’s ready for a new generation. Thank you, Stephen.
Good luck, and have fun learning!
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