Fossil Dig — Prototype

Dig Site

Your Hand

Your Tools

Your Museum

Experiment bot-vs-bot batches under the Config-tab rules · seats rotate every game

Seat 1

Seat 2

Seat 3

Seat 4

Seat 5

Games

Seed

Presets

Rule Knobsevery contested number from the design discussion — applies to new games and Lab batches

Variations to Playtestthe discussion list for game night — most are Config knobs or Lab experiments

Placement pays actions, not digs — implemented: switch "Placement reward type" above to free actions. Placing costs 1 action, so +3 actions nets +2 extra — and unlike 3 digs it can't push you over your hand limit. Bot A/B (600 games each): identical pace, identical placement usage, and the placement-hungry Opportunist gained ~2 points of win rate — a mild buff worth a live test.
Museum evictions — DISABLED (2026-08). Being able to evict cards from your Museum has been tested and was not frequently done, therefore the ability to do so has been disabled for the time being. We may consider a Tool that allows a one-time eviction or return to your hand, but for now there is no way to evict cards from your museum. We could achieve a similar effect by allowing a larger hand size rather than another layer of rules. (The Curator's Crate went first, for the same reason — it never came into play; the Lab's "Crate/g" column remains for old data.)
Plaster as a one-shot Action card — current rule: Plaster is a Tool; casting later costs 1 action, completes an exhibit missing exactly one part, and the two bones stack beneath the cast (1 space, −2). Alternative: playing Plaster is the cast, one action total. Faster, but loses the hold-the-plaster-hunt-the-bones mini-game.
Help the patient builders — bot sims say rushing small sets beats hunting 4–5-card skeletons roughly 2:1. Levers to try live: consolation points for a set missing one part (say, half value), a FULL final round for everyone once a museum fills, or a per-museum cap on 1-point curios.
Teeth for secrecy — first tooth now in effect: closed exhibits score NOTHING unless opened by game end, so a secret collector must reveal on their own last turn at the latest — rivals still holding final turns get to see the hidden sets. Further ideas if secrecy still feels free: an Action card that peeks at (or raids) a closed exhibit, or a small bonus for revealing a completed set all at once.

Paleo Notes — Roster Realismcould this cast really share one dig? and who could — a period-accurate candidate list

The quick check you asked for: no, mostly not. Of the seven creatures in the game, only three actually lived side by side — the Hell Creek trio (T-Rex, Triceratops, Ankylosaurus): latest Cretaceous, ~68–66 million years ago, western North America, right up to the asteroid. The rest span roughly 90 million years and two-to-three continents — the classic toy-box mix. (Fun bit: that's also true of most dinosaur toy sets and half the movies.)

In the game now	Period	~Age (Ma)	Where	Really with T-Rex?
🦖 Tyrannosaurus	Late Cretaceous	68–66	W. North America	✓ the anchor
🦖 Triceratops	Late Cretaceous	68–66	W. North America	✓ yes
🛡️ Ankylosaurus	Late Cretaceous	68–66	W. North America	✓ yes
🪶 Velociraptor	Late Cretaceous	75–71	Mongolia	✗ wrong continent, a bit earlier
🦕 Brachiosaurus	Late Jurassic	154–150	W. North America	✗ ~85 My too early
◆ Stegosaurus	Late Jurassic	155–148	W. North America	✗ ~85 My too early
🦅 Pteranodon	Late Cretaceous	~86–81	the inland sea	✗ ~18 My early, marine, a pterosaur not a dino
🐚 Ammonite (curio)	Mesozoic seas	to 66	oceans worldwide	✓ died out with them at the K-Pg
🪲 Trilobite (curio)	Paleozoic	gone by 252	ancient oceans	✗✗ extinct 186 My before the first T-Rex

Recommended set — the Hell Creek "last day" fauna (~68–66 Ma, Montana & the Dakotas). Thematically perfect for your premise: this exact community was wiped out together by the K-Pg catastrophe — a real "mixed heap" of everything that died at once. It keeps 3 of your current species and only asks you to swap the four odd-period ones.

Dinosaur candidates (all genuinely Hell Creek / latest Maastrichtian)

Tyrannosaurus rex — apex predator, the 5-card marquee set. [keep]
Triceratops — three-horned face, 3-card. [keep]
Ankylosaurus — armored club-tail, 4-card. [keep]
Edmontosaurus — big duck-billed hadrosaur, wildly abundant — a natural 5-card herbivore. [replaces Brachiosaurus]
Dakotaraptor — a real ~5.5 m feathered dromaeosaur from Hell Creek — the honest North-American "raptor," 3-card. [replaces Velociraptor]
Pachycephalosaurus — domed bonehead, 3-card. [replaces Stegosaurus]
Quetzalcoatlus — giraffe-tall azhdarchid pterosaur, the flyer, 2-card. [replaces Pteranodon]
Anzu ("chicken from hell") — feathered oviraptorosaur; Ornithomimus — ostrich-mimic; Thescelosaurus — a small survivor. Good small sets / 1-point curios.

Non-dinosaur items that genuinely fit the same beds

🌿 Fossil fern / leaf — Hell Creek is full of plants; the "fern spike" right after the impact is famous.
🦟 Insect in amber — Cretaceous amber really does hold insects (a wink at the Jurassic Park mosquito; true mosquitoes go back ~90+ My).
🐚 Ammonite — keep it; marine, but it died out at the same K-Pg boundary. 🐢 turtle shell, 🦈 gar scale, or a tiny 🦦 mammal jaw (Didelphodon) also fit.
🥚 fossil egg nest and 🦷 giant tooth stay fine — both generic.

Alternative set — all-Jurassic (Morrison Formation, ~155–148 Ma)

If you'd rather build around the big sauropods: Brachiosaurus + Stegosaurus [keep], plus Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, Allosaurus (the apex predator here), Ceratosaurus, Camarasaurus, and small ones like Ornitholestes. Curios: fern, petrified wood, an Archaeopteryx feather, ammonite. The catch — no T-Rex or Triceratops in this world.

Either way, retire the Trilobite — it vanished ~186 million years before any dinosaur, so it can't share a dig. Swap it for the ammonite (already in) or a Cretaceous seashell. And of course… it's a game about paleontologists digging a jumbled flood-heap, so a little license is totally fair — this is just here for when you want the accurate version.

Card Design Mockupstwo print directions, same card — for game-night discussion