Uncover long-lost civilizations and prepare your findings in time for the Archaeology Symposium. Laying tiles to maximize adjacency-based score will help you stand out amongst your peers.
*Full-Screen for full-enjoyment & scroll to zoom-in.* Descriptions of excavated cards might give you hints regarding the most lucrative adjacency bonus' -- try to max your high score, uncover the most successful civilizations, bring Dr. Smith to shame! Reading the tiles is recommended, both for atmosphere and strategy.
WARNINGS: May require multiple runs to maximize enjoyment(i.e. rogue-like). After all, much learning is required to become a professor.
We are committed to fixing bugs! Comment below with any issues and we will put our best effort towards fixing the problem. Upgrades/suggestions gratefully accepted.
Change Log
_2021-04-28_ * we now have LEGIBLE FONTS -- wahoo! * increased size of cards in player's hand
Looks super intriguing but unfortunately, I can't seem to get past the tutorial page. Clicking on the Start Run button doesn't do anything either in or out of fullscreen mode and it doesn't seem like pressing any keys has any effect either.
Fun optimization puzzle game! However, I think the fonts are rather difficult to read, and I somehow managed to get the remaining moves to a negative number, preventing me from submitting my archaeological discoveries.
A very interesting concept! I like the idea of a card game where you don't actually know what all the cards do and have to figure it out via experimentation and reasoning. It was fun trying to puzzle out what all the interactions were, and I was quite surprised when I actually got negative points from certain bad interactions. I did notice that the turn limit counter seems to be broken when I was playing. It started at 0 and counted down into the negatives infinitely. Despite this issue, I had a good time with this game. Nice work!
@$162477 @lancival@superpokeunicorn Would not have noticed these issues without your feedback, thanks! I updated the intro screen and tutorial to scale with the screen size. Also, suuuperrr face-palm of a bug -- the turn count should not be negative anymore!
Although I struggled with some of the fonts (the end of run font was particularly hard for me) I still really enjoyed trying to figure out the adjacency bonuses through experimentation! It could've benefited from a little ambience or sound but overall I did quite enjoy how figuring out where to place my cards made me think quite hard! Well done!
Okay, so as others have said, the font choice here is a big problem. For a game that has so much text, you want a crystal clear font, and that's missing here.
The game bills itself as an archaeology game, but that's not really what happens here, its more like a city builder. You have to place districts near other districts that give them a bonus, until you find the "go deeper" tile. That's cool, but it makes the theme feel a little distant from the gameplay.
I liked how the tiles would kinda hint at what needed to go near them. A lot of times with this sort of game you just have to guess and the developer is like "duh anyone would know that temples and markets go together" but players don't know that by default, so good on you for making it a kinda puzzly thing.
I didn't understand why I'd want to go deeper. Are there better tiles down there? I don't know. Moreover, I didn't really understand how I could influence how fast I got deeper. It seemed to mostly depend on whether I got tiles that drew more tiles or not.
Some eerie exploration music would have helped the mood
Overall, nice game idea, good job making it in the time, it has a very clean and polished look!
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the importance of legible fonts for text-heavy games, and we'll definitely be changing those (questionable) font choices asap.
The "A Way Down" tiles offer other ways of increasing your final score -- implicitly by allowing you to start uncovering a new lost-civilization (which will reset the deck/board and your hand), as well as explictly adding a civ bonus to your final score for every "A Way Down" discovered. Since the number of turns remaining act as a resource, it's up to you whether it'd be more lucrative to spend them uncovering more tiles in the current civ, or trying your luck on another floor with a refreshed deck/hand. The game does heavily lean on the player piecing together tile synergies accross multiple runs, so hope this clears things up!
I was a bit confused about where I needed to place my tiles down to get some extra score. I do love the creating a city aspect and the theme you weaved into it. Overal it feels and plays smooth just a bit more polish and it would be a game I would startup again.
I didn't see the "A Way Down" card in my first run - is the deck random and I got unlucky or is there a condition that has to be met to unlock that card?
I really liked that you did know what cards and combinations gave you points and that you had to do it by trial and error. I never managed to find the way down.
This was super cool and I think it would work really well as a board game. I think that it should be a bit clearer what each tile does in relation to other tiles, because placing a tile and loosing 10 points seems kind of harsh. But I do like the mechanic of saving your points by going down!
Honestly this was one of the most thought through games I have seen so far, and I wish there was a form of multiplayer here. I see so much potential in this game, I really hope you go further with it and turn it into a fun little puzzle game with maybe some nice story attatched!
@andidebob Thank you so much! We definitely had to simplify numerous aspects of the game for the jam, sacrificing clarity or initial intent/balance in the process. However, we now have a pretty strong idea of where we want to go from here, and have already started working on a more fleshed-out version we hope to eventually release as, like you said, "a fun little puzzle game".
I gotta say, we were stoked to read your comment -- we have some ideas on adding multiplayer, more puzzle/strategic depth, and of course, a complimentary story. I also spent a whole day messing with paper prototypes, so it's super gratifying to see the board game aspect shine through!
Simple but nice hex.... I guess builder is much more fitting than archeology "simulation". Definitely could use description of the tile before you place it (I'm looking at you, battleground) - sure, learning curve and so on, but I'd prefer being able to plan a bit (it would be different if the effect of the tile was partially randomized)
@shigor Thanks for the review! Not sure where you got "simulation" from. The idea behind the game is to discover synergies that are hinted by the text, spelling out all the interactions would take away from the puzzle/exploration aspect. After a few runs, you should be able to play more strategically. Interestingly enough, "battleground" is the second best card in the deck in terms of possible score.
Comments36
Okay, so as others have said, the font choice here is a big problem. For a game that has so much text, you want a crystal clear font, and that's missing here.
The game bills itself as an archaeology game, but that's not really what happens here, its more like a city builder. You have to place districts near other districts that give them a bonus, until you find the "go deeper" tile. That's cool, but it makes the theme feel a little distant from the gameplay.
I liked how the tiles would kinda hint at what needed to go near them. A lot of times with this sort of game you just have to guess and the developer is like "duh anyone would know that temples and markets go together" but players don't know that by default, so good on you for making it a kinda puzzly thing.
I didn't understand why I'd want to go deeper. Are there better tiles down there? I don't know. Moreover, I didn't really understand how I could influence how fast I got deeper. It seemed to mostly depend on whether I got tiles that drew more tiles or not.
Some eerie exploration music would have helped the mood
Overall, nice game idea, good job making it in the time, it has a very clean and polished look!
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the importance of legible fonts for text-heavy games, and we'll definitely be changing those (questionable) font choices asap.
The "A Way Down" tiles offer other ways of increasing your final score -- implicitly by allowing you to start uncovering a new lost-civilization (which will reset the deck/board and your hand), as well as explictly adding a civ bonus to your final score for every "A Way Down" discovered. Since the number of turns remaining act as a resource, it's up to you whether it'd be more lucrative to spend them uncovering more tiles in the current civ, or trying your luck on another floor with a refreshed deck/hand. The game does heavily lean on the player piecing together tile synergies accross multiple runs, so hope this clears things up!
Good game.
Honestly this was one of the most thought through games I have seen so far, and I wish there was a form of multiplayer here. I see so much potential in this game, I really hope you go further with it and turn it into a fun little puzzle game with maybe some nice story attatched!
I gotta say, we were stoked to read your comment -- we have some ideas on adding multiplayer, more puzzle/strategic depth, and of course, a complimentary story. I also spent a whole day messing with paper prototypes, so it's super gratifying to see the board game aspect shine through!
Definitely could use description of the tile before you place it (I'm looking at you, battleground) - sure, learning curve and so on, but I'd prefer being able to plan a bit (it would be different if the effect of the tile was partially randomized)