The Last Day of Pompeii, but It's a Video Game
TimeBoy
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Pompeii, AD 79. By tomorrow morning this town will be gone, and everyone asks the same question about the people who died here: why didn't they leave? No warning? No time? No way out? It's none of those. The real answer is stranger, and before this game is over, you'll do it yourself. Tonight you don't just hear about the last day of Pompeii: you play it.
You play a street-food seller with a tiny dog called Ferox, hour by hour, like an old video game. You make five decisions, and the clock you can't see runs out at dawn. Player two is real: Pliny, seventeen, across the bay, whose two letters are the only eyewitness account we have, so they're your walkthrough. You battle the myths a lot of videos repeat: a river of lava, a city destroyed in minutes, nowhere to go, people turned to stone, and the 24 October date. And you collect ten real objects, from a bar's price list to a little case that a 2026 scan showed holds tiny medical instruments.
Everything around the seller is real: Pliny's letters, Seneca, Strabo, Martial and Statius, the writing on Pompeii's walls, and the newest finds of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. The seller and Ferox are made up. Where the evidence runs out, we say so.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Ground Shakes Again
0:43 Why Didn't They Leave?
1:21 Player Two Is Real
1:47 Mission I - Open the Shop
3:46 Level 1 - The First Quake
4:38 Mission II - Hora VII
4:51 Player Two - The Admiral's Offer
5:35 It Starts Raining Stones
5:58 Myth Battle - A River of Lava
6:53 Myth - No Warning
7:33 The Admiral Sails
8:42 Mission III - The Roof
8:56 Myth Battle - Destroyed in Minutes
10:19 Mission IV - Night
11:09 Myth Battle - Nowhere to Go
11:35 Stabiae - The Admiral Sleeps
12:20 Herculaneum
12:58 Mission V - Dawn
13:57 Game Over - The Last Box
14:55 Load Save
15:29 Player Two - The Escape
17:34 The Admiral's Last Morning
18:24 Epilogue - The Survivors
19:07 Digging Up Pompeii
19:35 Myth Battle - Turned to Stone
20:14 Two More Myths
21:11 Vesuvius Today
21:44 Your Verdict
The admiral sailed into the cloud to save people, and never came back. His nephew stayed home with a book, and lived to write it all down. Who played it right? A, the uncle. B, the nephew. Tell us in the comments.
SOURCES
Pliny, Letters 6.16 and 6.20 (Latin): https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pliny.ep6....
Pliny's letters in English (Loeb, 1915): https://archive.org/details/letterswitheng...
Seneca, Natural Questions 6.1 (1910): https://archive.org/details/physicalscienc...
Strabo, Geography 5.4.8: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Rom...
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.62: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?d...
Tacitus, Annals 14.17, the riot of AD 59: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Rom...
Columella 7.12: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/columella/...
Martial 4.44 (trans. Ker, 1919): https://archive.org/details/martialepigram...
Statius, Silvae 4.4 (trans. Mozley, 1928): https://archive.org/details/statiusstat01s...
Hedone's price list, CIL IV 1679: http://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffi...
The snack bar of Regio V: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=26830
The relief found in Belgium (2023): https://vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/12/14/pompei...
Luongo et al. 2003, the 1,044 victims: https://geotechpedia.com/Publication/Show/...
Giacomelli et al. 2003, casts on top of the pumice: https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2003/v26i...
Pompeii Park E-Journal (the date, 2024; after AD 79, 2025; the Porta Stabia victims and the doctor, 2026): https://pompeiisites.org/e-journal-degli-s...
Oplontis, Villa B: https://pompeiisites.org/en/oplontis-en-2/...
Herculaneum, the boat sheds: https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/i-fuggiasc...
The casts, Fiorelli and Settembrini: https://pompeiisites.org/pompei-map/approf...
The dog cast (1874): https://pompeii.pictures/Casts/victim%208.htm
Pilli et al. 2024, DNA from the casts: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.007
Steven Tuck's survivors: https://www.livescience.com/64854-where-po...
Vesuvius evacuation plan: https://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/en/app...
TimeBoy plays real history like an old video game. Subscribe for the next cartridge.
#Pompeii #Vesuvius #AncientRome
© 2026 TimeBoy. All rights reserved.
#Pompeii #Vesuvius #AncientRome #RomanEmpire #Herculaneum #MountVesuvius #PlinyTheYounger #PlinyTheElder #AncientHistory #RomanHistory #History #HistoryDocumentary #Documentary #Archaeology #Volcano #Eruption #AD79 #LastDayOfPompeii #VideoGame #RetroGame #PixelArt #TimeBoy
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The Last Day of Pompeii, but It's a Video Game
TimeBoy
12 views
Pompeii, AD 79. By tomorrow morning this town will be gone, and everyone asks the same question about the people who died here: why didn't they leave? No warning? No time? No way out? It's none of those. The real answer is stranger, and before this game is over, you'll do it yourself. Tonight you don't just hear about the last day of Pompeii: you play it.
You play a street-food seller with a tiny dog called Ferox, hour by hour, like an old video game. You make five decisions, and the clock you can't see runs out at dawn. Player two is real: Pliny, seventeen, across the bay, whose two letters are the only eyewitness account we have, so they're your walkthrough. You battle the myths a lot of videos repeat: a river of lava, a city destroyed in minutes, nowhere to go, people turned to stone, and the 24 October date. And you collect ten real objects, from a bar's price list to a little case that a 2026 scan showed holds tiny medical instruments.
Everything around the seller is real: Pliny's letters, Seneca, Strabo, Martial and Statius, the writing on Pompeii's walls, and the newest finds of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii. The seller and Ferox are made up. Where the evidence runs out, we say so.
CHAPTERS
0:00 The Ground Shakes Again
0:43 Why Didn't They Leave?
1:21 Player Two Is Real
1:47 Mission I - Open the Shop
3:46 Level 1 - The First Quake
4:38 Mission II - Hora VII
4:51 Player Two - The Admiral's Offer
5:35 It Starts Raining Stones
5:58 Myth Battle - A River of Lava
6:53 Myth - No Warning
7:33 The Admiral Sails
8:42 Mission III - The Roof
8:56 Myth Battle - Destroyed in Minutes
10:19 Mission IV - Night
11:09 Myth Battle - Nowhere to Go
11:35 Stabiae - The Admiral Sleeps
12:20 Herculaneum
12:58 Mission V - Dawn
13:57 Game Over - The Last Box
14:55 Load Save
15:29 Player Two - The Escape
17:34 The Admiral's Last Morning
18:24 Epilogue - The Survivors
19:07 Digging Up Pompeii
19:35 Myth Battle - Turned to Stone
20:14 Two More Myths
21:11 Vesuvius Today
21:44 Your Verdict
The admiral sailed into the cloud to save people, and never came back. His nephew stayed home with a book, and lived to write it all down. Who played it right? A, the uncle. B, the nephew. Tell us in the comments.
SOURCES
Pliny, Letters 6.16 and 6.20 (Latin): https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pliny.ep6....
Pliny's letters in English (Loeb, 1915): https://archive.org/details/letterswitheng...
Seneca, Natural Questions 6.1 (1910): https://archive.org/details/physicalscienc...
Strabo, Geography 5.4.8: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Rom...
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 3.62: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?d...
Tacitus, Annals 14.17, the riot of AD 59: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Rom...
Columella 7.12: https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/columella/...
Martial 4.44 (trans. Ker, 1919): https://archive.org/details/martialepigram...
Statius, Silvae 4.4 (trans. Mozley, 1928): https://archive.org/details/statiusstat01s...
Hedone's price list, CIL IV 1679: http://ancientgraffiti.org/Graffiti/graffi...
The snack bar of Regio V: https://pompeiisites.org/en/?p=26830
The relief found in Belgium (2023): https://vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/12/14/pompei...
Luongo et al. 2003, the 1,044 victims: https://geotechpedia.com/Publication/Show/...
Giacomelli et al. 2003, casts on top of the pumice: https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2003/v26i...
Pompeii Park E-Journal (the date, 2024; after AD 79, 2025; the Porta Stabia victims and the doctor, 2026): https://pompeiisites.org/e-journal-degli-s...
Oplontis, Villa B: https://pompeiisites.org/en/oplontis-en-2/...
Herculaneum, the boat sheds: https://ercolano.cultura.gov.it/i-fuggiasc...
The casts, Fiorelli and Settembrini: https://pompeiisites.org/pompei-map/approf...
The dog cast (1874): https://pompeii.pictures/Casts/victim%208.htm
Pilli et al. 2024, DNA from the casts: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.007
Steven Tuck's survivors: https://www.livescience.com/64854-where-po...
Vesuvius evacuation plan: https://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/en/app...
TimeBoy plays real history like an old video game. Subscribe for the next cartridge.
#Pompeii #Vesuvius #AncientRome
© 2026 TimeBoy. All rights reserved.
#Pompeii #Vesuvius #AncientRome #RomanEmpire #Herculaneum #MountVesuvius #PlinyTheYounger #PlinyTheElder #AncientHistory #RomanHistory #History #HistoryDocumentary #Documentary #Archaeology #Volcano #Eruption #AD79 #LastDayOfPompeii #VideoGame #RetroGame #PixelArt #TimeBoy