Fossil Canyon

Fossil Canyon is a family-oriented set-collection card game developed in collaboration with the Field Museum of Chicago. Fossil Canyon features multiple ways to play, including a competitive game for 2-6 players and a cooperative/solo game for 1-4 players. In both, you are a fossil-hunting paleontologist with the goal of constructing complete dinosaur skeletons that attract visitors to your museum. Endgame bonuses reward the theme of your museum, and you can enhance your museum’s reputation through groundbreaking research.

Fossil Canyon uses a unique jigsaw puzzle scoring method, where each skeleton you add to your museum is represented by a puzzle piece whose length is proportional to its value. No adding victory points or moving pawns to keep score; the sizes of your puzzle museum show who is winning! (Plus you get a bonus puzzle on the backs of the scoring pieces!) Kids love the dinosaur theme, "digging" through the cards, and the jigsaw puzzle scoring. Adults enjoy the strategic elements of the game, its quick pace, and beautifully-illustrated cards. And parents appreciate the educational content from the Field Museum—including a companion booklet about the science behind the game.

• Players: 1-6 people
• Playtime: 30 minutes
• For ages 6 years and older
  

About the Game Creators

Kevin Lynch | Game Designer
Kevin is a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center for Robotics and Biosystems at Northwestern University. He is an award-winning instructor who has co-authored three textbooks, and his online courses in robotics are taken by thousands of students around the world. Kevin’s two young children were the inspiration and first game testers for Fossil Canyon.

Nathan Martel | Graphic Designer
Nathan is a graphic designer and software developer. He primarily works with universities and other mission-driven organizations to give their important educational messages a visual voice. He is also an avid board game enthusiast.

Akiko Shinya | Science Advisor
Akiko is the chief preparator of fossil vertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago. She discovered Gualicho shinyae, a bipedal carnivorous theropod from the late Cretaceous distantly related to Allosaurus, on a dig in Argentina in 2007. (The genus name Gualicho is derived from a demon of local folklore.) Akiko spends several weeks each year in the field prospecting and excavating fossils. She manages three labs at the Field Museum, where she leads her team of staff, students, and volunteers in the preparation of vertebrate fossils from all over the world.