Each story is rooted in real local history and landmarks
A child discovers that the painted figures on the Rathausplatz houses come alive at night, each facade telling its own tale from across the centuries. From Hercules on the White Eagle to the laughing sun on the Haus zur Sonne, the child must hear every story before dawn to break an ancient curse that threatens to fade the frescoes forever.
A child finds a glowing shard of Roman glass near the Rhine and is transported back to Tasgetium in 294 AD, where soldiers are building a mighty fortress with twelve towers and engineers are anchoring a wooden bridge across the swift current. The child must help a young glassmaker protect a precious hunting cup before raiders threaten the settlement.
In the monastery museum, a child discovers a hidden door behind a fresco in the Festsaal, leading to David von Winkelsheim's private study. There, the last abbot left a final riddle before fleeing to Radolfzell in 1525, and solving it reveals a secret about the monastery that Ambrosius Holbein painted into the walls centuries ago.
Walther von Klingen's ghost still haunts Hohenklingen Castle, singing his old songs from the Codex Manesse on moonlit nights. A child climbing the castle ridge hears the melodies drifting from the tower and must learn the words to a lost ninth song -- one that was never written down -- to finally set the medieval poet's spirit free.
The laughing sun on the Haus zur Sonne winks at a passing child and invites them into the painted world behind the facade. Inside, every house on the Rathausplatz becomes a portal to a different century of the town's history, from Roman Tasgetium to the medieval market to the Reformation, and the child must find their way back before the sun stops laughing.
When the town receives a mysterious letter claiming the original Wakker Prize trophy has been hidden somewhere in the old town, a child must solve clues at each painted house, both medieval gates, Hohenklingen Castle, and the monastery to find it. Each landmark reveals a piece of the puzzle, celebrating why this tiny town of 3,800 people earned Switzerland's very first heritage prize.
A child befriends the Roman engineer who built the first wooden bridge across the Rhine in 82 AD, helping to solve the puzzle of how to anchor heavy oak piles in the swift glacial current. Together they must complete the crossing before winter floods sweep away their work and sever the link between the fortress on the north bank and the settlement of Eschenz on the south.
During a violent thunderstorm, the heraldic animals from the painted houses escape their facades and run wild through the old town -- the white eagle soars above the rooftops while the red ox charges through the market square. A child must coax each animal back to its correct wall before sunrise, or the five-hundred-year-old frescoes will fade forever.
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