Monday, September 7, 2020

REVIEW: Fossil Hunters


Next up from itch.io's Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is Fossil Hunters. Developed by Reptoid Games, Fossil Hunters is a casual action-adventure game about digging for fossils and building your own dinosaurs. Every kid's wildest dream!


You are an adventuring Fossil Hunter who has traveled to a remote, mysterious dig site to discover the most incredible fossils the world has ever seen! Discover and assemble your own fossil creations and avoid cave-ins, monsters, and traps while you explore exciting underground environments. Find secrets, treasure and more as you uncover clues to the whereabouts of the fossil hunters who came before you, and endeavor to reach the very bottom of the caves.

Sporting some beautiful 3D graphics, Fossil Hunters takes players through 30 handcrafted levels with the goal of digging up fossils. The unique fossil building system allows players to dig up individual bone segments and snap them together to create dinosaurs and other creatures in any way they want. Players can drag and rotate the pieces and snap them together to come up with whatever abomination their hearts desire.


Players are given a series of jobs requiring the delivery of completed fossils of different specifications. Two heads, four claws, a long body, maybe even a fish with wings. These assignments get progressively more complicated and require more specific pieces which in turn require delving deeper into the underground.

Each level contains a specific fossil outline that must be completed to unlock the next level. There are also a handful of secret items hidden throughout, ready to be discovered. Journal scraps found in each level also expand a modest yet still intriguing mythos surrounding the caves, its creatures, and the previous diggers who got lost within its chambers.


Gameplay wise, Fossil Hunters is a small and simple experience. You dig up bones and put them together. That’s more or less the entire game. And that’s okay. Digging up bones is a lot of fun. The more you dig in one area, the more there is a chance of a cave in crushing you or your hard work keeping you on your toes as you keep digging to find that one last piece you need.

Cave-ins aren’t the only hazard you have to deal with. Each of the four sections of the underground comes with its own wildlife ready to wreck your day. From little critters that like to break fossils to a rapidly growing fungus that renders fossils immobile, how and where you decide to assemble your prehistoric creations is all about strategy.


My only problem with Fossil Hunters is the rewards you accumulate over time. You make so much money that it becomes more of a point system then usable currency. Tools are cheap so it's hardly an inconvenience when you fall down a pit or getting crushed in a cave in resulting in a loss of coins and an immediate continue.

You also acquire gems that are used to open hidden areas. But like... there’s maybe five hidden areas total. You get at least one gem for every quest, plus they can be dug up randomly in the underground. There’s no inventory system so your base is just crowded with useless gems. I wish there was more to do with them.


Overall, Fossil Hunters is great fun for the casual and hardcore gamer alike. The core gameplay concept is original and executed very well. The 3D graphics, rare for an indie title like this, are gorgeous and add to the spectacular atmosphere.

Fossil Hunters is currently available on itch.io, Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Happy hunting!