A free prototype of a small puzzle game inspired by Minesweeper (and maybe some others).

A larger version of this game called Fossil Sweeper is in development. More information can be found on the game's website, and you can follow development on Twitter, Mastodon, YouTube, or Patreon!

Visit dig sites and excavate bones by digging the tiles around them. Deduce fossil locations from the "adjacent fossil count" on dug tiles.

Between digs, assemble skeletons from found fossils.

This prototype includes:

• Skeletons for 5 genera of Mesozoic creatures to excavate and assemble
• Multiple player profiles with independently tracked progress
• A showcase mode to view assembled skeletons and sorted misc fossils
• Full mouse-only controls
• Full keyboard-only controls
• Full gamepad-only controls
• Partial text-to-speech support
  • TTS can be enabled at startup with the following launch argument, or via the Accessibility Settings menu

    --descriptive-audio

  • skeleton assembly TTS uses features that may not be available on Windows with some TTS back ends (consider increasing the Fall Step Time setting in the Gameplay Settings menu)
  • custom keybinding UI is awkward to navigate with TTS

Fun fact for the day: Palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life (such as dinosaurs, but not including humans). Archaeology is the study of human culture through the artefacts produces and impact it leaves behind (not including dinosaurs).