Fossil Sweeper - minesweeper meets palaeontology (was Bonesweeper)

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!

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.

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)

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 ^_^

Thanks, people!

Whoops. Forgot to post December's video. Better late than never!

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Since that video arrived a little late, it's now out of date.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.

Here's another Fossil Sweeper progress update video. A short one this time, looking at a new dig gameplay option, assembly fixes, and museum editing interface work!

I've settled on something that's close to isometric (it's not orthographic since I can't animate from a perspective camera to an orthographic one) for the museum editing interface, and I've implemented a new dig gameplay option that allows for much faster play.

April video time! This is a short one, but I feel like it marks a couple of significant milestones!
The game now has all the music it needs (although just after publishing the video, I found some notes where Peter and I had discussed an additional track - whether or not that's necessary is something I'm feeling flexible on though, so we'll see!
I've also finally put an implementation for wall and ceiling placement into test builds, and have added wall and ceiling variants for the placeholder informational display. I've also updated lights to be proper MuseumItems so that they can be moved around, added to the player's inventory, and saved/loaded.
I'm looking forward to getting back to other aspects of the game soon - my next focus will be nailing down how I'm presenting Dig phase environments, which I'm looking forward to!

It’s been a super busy month with other projects (a game I was doing contract work on came out a couple of days ago \o/). I still found time to do a little more museum work though.

Another very busy month, but I'm slowly starting to feel like I'm getting some momentum back. Over the past month or so, I've been working on Dig environment backgrounds to help convey a better sense of place. The solutioin that I think is giving me the best/most appropriate results at the moment is a simple hightmap (first impressions from after the period this video covers are looking good!)