Dev Log May: New Mechanics! New Mini Games! and Wholesome Direct!

I can’t believe it’s already been 3 months since Romy and I started production full time on Fossil Quest. We wanted to thank you all for the overwhelming support we’ve received from over 650 000 people who played the prototype on either Itch or GX.games. We also got over ONE HUNDRED responses to our feedback form which has really helped us figure out what to focus on, what to improve and potentially what new mechanics and features to add.

We’ve also added the lovely Kate Munro to the team who will be assisting with 3D modeling, concept art and making beautiful things to put into the game.

Without all of you, this project of ours would never have been possible. So a big thank you to everyone.

To be honest, there is so much that we’ve done over the last 3 months so this little devlog might not cover absolutely everything we’ve accomplished. But I’ll do my best!

But… before we dig into it (pun intended), we have a little piece of good news!

We’re in WHOLESOME DIRECT! What the heck.

Fossil Quest was accepted into Wholesome Direct!! This is an incredible opportunity and experience for us and we’re beyond excited. The showcase is on the 6th of June so come check it out to see some really awesome games. Steam post imageWe also have a big announcement coming where we reveal our new feature we’ve been working on, so keep an eye out for that too!

Ok lets get back to the dev log…

Figuring it all out

One of the big things we’ve had to do is figure out exactly where we want to go with this game, what kind of experience we want players to have and what emotions to invoke. All that said, we have some core pillars of what we want to deliver. We want to make a game that:

1. Is faithful to paleontology, natural history and paleontological processes.

2. Is relaxing, calming and stress free.

3. Teaches players about natural history and paleontology in a way that is fun and not jammed in your face.

4. Has a bit of grinding, but not too much. It’s not Elden Ring. Find a nice balance here.

Using these pillars as our guiding light we’ve made significant progress into planning the entire game, we now:

1. Know exactly what dinosaurs and locations to include. (this was a LOT of research phew)

2. Have a very good idea of our research and progression system.

3. Have planned out town as well as 12 characters each with their own storylines, backstories and resolutions.

4. What management mechanics we want to add to the museum.

5. What game mechanics we want to add for excavating fossils and other finds.

6. How the visitor phase and economy of the game works.

Overhauled the digging mechanics

One of the main recurring pieces of feedback we got was that excavating through rock formations felt uncomfortable at times. So we’ve completely overhauled the digging mechanics and player controls. We’ve also created a procedural generation system to make rock formations more interesting and varied.

Along with this, we’ve added some new tools to digging. We’ve added a shovel to dig up sediment samples and a sledgehammer for pesky hard rock (just be careful to not damage your fossils!).

Our main goal was to make the digging process fun and enjoyable and we think it's a vast improvement over the prototype.

Location, location, location

After careful consideration we’ve come up with six locations that will feature in the game. We chose the locations very carefully because we wanted to cover a variety of different biomes, dinosaurs and eras and we think we’ve done a pretty good job. (*pat ourselves on the back*)

Additionally, each location won’t just be a boring place to dig. It’ll be a place to explore, potentially meet new people, unlock new dig sites and find incredibly awesome fossils!

Steam post imageSteam post image

We won’t spoil it by telling you what locations will be available yet, but you can rest assured that we spent A LOT of time carefully considering a combination of locations that offers a lot of variety and something for any and every dinosaur enthusiast.

New excavation mechanics

One of our main goals is to make Fossil Quest as fun as possible and to achieve that we’ve realized we need to add MORE STUFF. Well… more fun mechanics to get fossils so you aren’t always doing the same thing.

We’ve added a new screenwashing mini game. You can collect sediment from locations and then take them back to the museum to process and, hopefully, find kick ass finds!

We’ve also added a new nodule cracking mini game. Crack open those nodules and find some crazy ammonites!

We’re planning on adding more mechanics and features over the next year so stay tuned and we’ll keep you all updated.

A secret feature we can’t share yet.. Just yet.

Along with all of these awesome things we’ve been working on, we’ve also been working on a super-secret-ultra-awesome feature that…. We can’t quite announce just yet because it's a secret and will be revealed at Wholesome Direct!!! (DID WE MENTION WE’RE IN WHOLESOME DIRECT OMG)

Trust us though, it’s been something so many people have asked for and I think it’s going to be incredibly fun to use.

It sucks that we can’t share it yet, but Wholesome Direct will be at the beginning of June so keep an eye out!

Other stuff…

Some other things we’ve done over the last 3 months that are worth mentioning but not rambling about…

1. Migrated the old project to a new project in unity and cleaned up the code and architecture.

2. Added controller support for the entire game. (maybe this was worth talking about haha)

3. Re-written the visitor AI and pathfinding.

4. Written dialog for 3 characters.

5. Redesigned the UI and planned UI for museum management.

6. Created a bunch of tools that help automate the process of adding new content.

7. Added new visitor animations and models. (Aren't they cute?)

What's next then?

Over the next 3 months the team will mostly be working on:

1. Finalizing our gameplay loop.

2. Adding a couple of new digging tools. We’re still prototyping some ideas at the moment to see what’s most fun.

3. Museum Management

   1. Menus & UI

   2. Exhibit Management: Mounts, display cabinets, single exhibits & dioramas.

   3. Construction Projects

4. Visitor Phase improvements and new mechanics and gameplay.

5. Setting up Follyoaks (town) and creating new assets

6. The usual stuff:

   1. More content. More dinosaurs. More fossils.

   2. Making stuff work.

   3. Trying not to feel overwhelmed and just have fun making a game.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported us. It’s been an incredibly humbling experience to have so many people on our side and to have had so many people who’ve had enjoyment from something we’ve made.

It’s a nice feeling and we really hope that we can keep up the good work and deliver a game that is memorable and fun at the end of this game development process.