Can somebody explain the fossil minigame to me?

[Crimson Phantom]

There's no tutorial or anything, I can't seem to find anything on any of the wikis.

[Greb]

Think Tetris.

You have to use the shapes from tools you are given to clear away the rock and stone WITHOUT hitting the fossil or you will destroy it.

1) Use the brush tool to move away the dirt and reveal the fossil underneath.

2) Use the tools provided in the minigame, such as the SQUARE GRID tool, to hit the stone areas, to turn them into dust.

3) Wipe away the dust as you create it.

4) AVOID HITTING THE FOSSILS WITH THE TOOL AT ALL COSTS

5) After you've chipped the stone a few times, the obvious choices will be gone. Now you just have to find areas where you can hit the stone while not hitting the fossil with any tool overlap.

6) Reveal enough of the fossil to complete the minigame and receive your reward.


There's always a chance completely it will simply not reward you with anything, AKA "Minigame complete" but not "Archaeology Successful!" message pops up. I believe it's a chance based thing, your best option is to only make and use Masterwork Fossil Brushes. They stack, so make a whole bunch if you plan on collecting fossils for any solid length of time.

Ignore chests. They don't really give anything good. They should have added unique rewards like a SUPER fossil brush that acts like an infinite master brush, but nope, it's mostly just tech cards and such.

[EllyBeeShaped]

So, you have a brush, which brushes off dust anywhere on the screen, but wo'n't damage the bones or do anything about the hard rock.

You also have four shaped tools, with limited uses (determined randomly for each time you use a brush on a fossil). These tools can break rocks, but if any of the squares they are affecting DOES NOT have a rock in it but DOES have a bone in it, you lose - you damaged the fossil. Note that fossils covered by dust but not rock CAN BE DESTROYED, so be careful.

It's basically like complicated tetris - you want to reveal the fossil (the number of squares of bones is displayed as x / y where x is how many tiles are exposed and y is how many in total) without either damaging it or running out of tools without revealing it.

To make it more complex, sometimes there's also a treasure chest buried as well as bones, and fully revealing it will give you a random item when you're done, too.

[Crimson Phantom]

Okay, thanks. I thought the idea was to hit the rock where you thought the fossil would be. A tutorial really would've been a good thing to have in-game.

[EllyBeeShaped]

IT's a lot like Pokemon's fossil digging minigame in at least one iteration, which might be why I picked it up so fast - I did far more than my share of pokemon paleontology.

[Tetra]

Just failed my first fossil dig. Was confused as to why I failed. Thanks for posting the info guys! Excited to keep finding more, and hopefully not destroy them.

[Cipher]

there is some youtube video's that realy helped me out :)

[Drunken Pineapple]

Just mine for days & keep brushing away. Thats how i got good. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #SadnessEverknees

[Crimson Phantom]

I figured out where I was confused - it automatically fails you when it determines that you don't have the tools left to complete it. Or if you hit a bone you've already uncovered. It makes sense to me now, but it's still quite difficult.

[Astasia]

It's essentially impossible with the basic tool, which is what threw me off and made it so hard to figure out what I was supposed to do.

[⋠Ĝ๏ą✞⋡'ƦэŁĨq.]

How do i start this fossil game? Do i need something? Or can i just hit E when i see a fossil

[Astasia]

You need to build the fossil station, which becomes available after upgrading your station building station once. Then you need to build the brush tools and use them on the fossils.

[⋠Ĝ๏ą✞⋡'ƦэŁĨq.]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You need to build the fossil station, which becomes available after upgrading your station building station once. Then you need to build the brush tools and use them on the fossils.

Thx :)