Running very late on my usual mid-month video 
Fossil Sweeper - minesweeper meets palaeontology (was Bonesweeper)
Hi,
that's a great idea, minesweeper games on their own, except beating the clock, give not so much will to go on and on and on except for a quick, quite relaxing, game from time to time. Giving long term goals, tasks even maybe, is a great addition. I like when a nice game teach you something at the same time (like some game about chocolate based bakery and trading goods I don't remember the name I played long ago).
From the last dev log although, it looks like there are too much focus on museum/dinosaur/collecting/assembling stuff and not so much on mine sweeping, which, I suppose, is still the core of the game, you may have to be careful with that and don't neglect the core part.
Also, from devlog 6 video, the mine sweeping game looks odd to me, I see blank space filled with "dirt", I guess, and a number, it doesn't look natural, I mean, all area could be dirt covered and when player dig a cell, dirt is removed, showing either a number, nothing, a bone or whatever.
Finally, you're update just popped up at the right time 
, I think of hexceed (available for free on Steam), it's a nice game still the author completely forgot about the will to play, it's always the same kind of field to clear, same obstacles or hints and there is no progress along the way, making it pretty boring as nothing push, or kick in the back, the player to go on and go on and always discover new things and want more, which is the base of a good game.
JusTiCe8 Hi! Thanks for your kind words!
JusTiCe8 From the last dev log although, it looks like there are too much focus on museum/dinosaur/collecting/assembling stuff and not so much on mine sweeping, which, I suppose, is still the core of the game, you may have to be careful with that and don't neglect the core part.
Is there something specific that you think isn't getting enough attention? My focus right now is to get every phase playable to a minimum level. The Dig phase is already there and has been for a long time, so lately other phases have been getting more attention.
JusTiCe8 Also, from devlog 6 video, the mine sweeping game looks odd to me, I see blank space filled with "dirt", I guess, and a number, it doesn't look natural
Fossil Sweeper isn't a direct re-creation of Minesweeper and has some additional mechanics. One is that when you clear all the "dirt" from around a fossil, it is considered "excavated" and added to your inventory. These are left on the playspace so that you can have an idea of what you've acquired and see where it came from.
Another difference is that if you smash a fossil, it's not an immediate game over. The tiles you're referring to are the equivalent of an "excavated" tile, but without a fossil on it (because it's been smashed). At the moment, this is a little more intuitive with audio, though I generally mute that for the progress update videos. I'll be coming back to do more visual passes on the Dig phase at a later stage, and with that will come VFX, etc. to better communicate that something has been destroyed.
25 days later
Another month, another video!
a month later
Running a bit late again, but there's some fun stuff in this month's video, including a visualisation of how fossil chunks flow through the game's various gameplay phases now that a bare bones (ho ho ho) version of the Research phase is implemented.
For those of you who haven't been able to elaborate on what you think is missing from the Dig phase, maybe some of the biome stuff at the start of the video might put you at ease.
Enjoy!
a month later
Running very late again this month, but here's the video - this time talking about the Research phase background and some small quality-of-life tweaks. Enjoy!
2 months later
Whoops, completely forgot to share the May progress update video, so here's a double whammy with this month's. The past few weeks have been pretty slow, but after wrapping up a bunch of other commitments, I'm looking forward to getting back on track.
a month later
Whoops, forgot to post this month's video - better late than never! I've been continuing to work on museum interaction mechanics, which are getting close enough to ready that I'll be migrating that stuff to a more final implementation soon (at the moment, the museum phase is the only one that isn't extending my gameplay Phase class and is still based on a lot of temp framework I put together early in development)
2 months later
Whoops, I forgot to post August's, but here's the September video. Been continuing to work on museum stuff mostly. Added a new dig ability too ^_^
a month later
- Edited
Here's the (late) October mid-month progress update for my fossil diggy-uppy game. Mostly focused on museum music UI and implementation stuff this month!
Cheeseness The game is really nice looking.
Very nice! 
10 days later
Thanks, people!
17 days later
- Edited
Here's the November video, with some nice thoughts from Peter on the sountrack, and some more work on museum UI
Edit: Whoops, wrong URL
Cheeseness Nice!
MikeCL Thanks!
2 months later
Whoops. Forgot to post December's video. Better late than never!
23 days later
A little late, but here's the January video. Mostly museum interface work again, with gamepad controls nearly completely up and behaving now. This video also includes a recap of and reflections on the 2nd year of development. Enjoy!
Since that video arrived a little late, it's now out of date. I've found time to cross a couple of items off the remaining items covered in the "looking ahead" section. Here's a quick look!
I've re-implemented skeleton size variation (weighted for adults, but also allowing for less-common itty-bitty-saurs). This was present in my first pass on the Assembly phase, but I'd temporarily taken it out while integrating it with the rest of the game. The skeletons and poses here are still placeholder, of course ^_^
I've also finally gotten around to implementing non-square dig sites, which a) help make digs feel a bit less "samey," and b) give a point of difference from traditional Minesweeper that's less subtle and easier to convey than stuff like the excavation mechanic, limited-use special abilities, mistakes not giving an immediate game over, etc..
Organic-shaped Dig sites don't have as big an impact on the feel of playing as those other things, but for prospective players who haven't yet gotten interested enough to invest time in thinking through the gameplay implications, this will hopefully act as a superficial hook and increase the chances of a "Oh, maybe it is different from Minesweeper" type thought.
18 days later
- Edited
Another Fossil Sweeper update video \o/
This goes into detail on how I'm generating non-square dig sites, which combines multiple convex shapes to give interesting (or at least less-samey) variation.
