◉ STRATA & SHELLTHE PREPARATION ROOM
A SMALL DISCOVERY, CAREFULLY MADE

A little closer to
deep time.

Chip the crust. Lift the dust. Reveal the extraordinary.

0 / 8SPECIMENS PREPARED
TRAY 01PREPARATION IN PROGRESS
Ammonite fossil embedded in sandstone
← ↑ ↓ → Move · Space Work · 1/2/3 Tools · Z Undo
01 / OBSERVE

Thick crust is safe to chip. Once a fragile cell reaches dust or bare fossil, switch to the gentler tools.

NO TIMER. JUST DISCOVERY.
THE FIELD GUIDE

Patience reveals everything.

Clear all 64 cells to prepare a specimen. Every dot is one layer of stone. A pale ring means the cell is fragile.

  1. Chisel (1): remove 2 layers from a cross of up to five cells. A fragile cell with 0 or 1 layers fractures if it is in that cross. Check the preview: red means danger.
  2. Brush (2): remove 1 layer from one cell. Always safe and never runs out.
  3. Air puffer (3): clear only 1-layer dust in a 3×3 area. Leaves thicker stone untouched. Limited charges; save it for clusters of dust.

Three fractures stop the tray. Undo any stroke or retry. All eight trays are available in the drawer. Earn three stars by finishing under the stroke target with no fractures.

Keyboard: arrows move, Space or Enter works, 1–3 choose tools, Z undoes, H suggests, Escape closes this guide. On touch, tap a cell to work; use the brush when unsure.
YOUR COLLECTION

Small pieces of forever.
SOURCE & CREDITS

Made for a quiet moment.

Original game code, interface and rules: MIT license. Specimens and landscape: original GPT-generated illustrations, optimized and bundled locally.

Inspired by October 2026 museum fossil-preparation news from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. All specimens here are fictional illustrations.

GitHub topic research: Sojews/fossil-fighters-decomp (2 observed stars, CC0-1.0, last commit November 1, 2026). It requires a Nintendo DS ROM, so it is a research reference only. No upstream code, ROM, characters or art is reused.

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