Absolutely LOVE this game. :)
The pixel art style is as charming as ever and the concept of being in charge of your own excavation team in search of ancient artifacts is really interesting.
Wish we had more games like this.
Reviews for "Excavate!"
I spot a very rare relic at depth 6+ but could not dig down to that level, a shame!
Innovative, entertaining, and well-designed (not that I would expect anything else from Scriptwelder). The multifaceted gameplay was quite nice, and it managed to make the time management aspect fun and interesting.
The main thing it needs is more content, honestly. The premise would make for a rather significantly larger game. More areas, secrets to uncover, lore about what you're digging up, a trophy case full of rare finds, etc, etc. As it is, the gameplay is addicting, but after three or four playthroughs it's entirely too easy to play the game out. Even on my first playthrough I found myself wondering why there weren't more ruins. By my second I was able to finish on the ninth or tenth day with no difficulty.
Another thing I noticed was that the character stats were unbalanced. Strength, for instance, is king; a character with low strength is almost useless even if she has five dots in other categories, and you're going to want two or three of them to have 5 strength. If you don't have a character with 5 charisma you're going to get some nasty surprises, unless you know to get the contact upgrades ASAP. Further, the training upgrades are so expensive that if you need them, you won't be able to get them until it's too late (and even so, they're not guaranteed to increase a stat you'll find useful). As such, the game is made or broken during the character selection screen; there are two or three specific builds you're going to want, and likely spend a long time rolling for.
There were also several things that had to be figured out by trial and error, most notably the actual effect that each of the upgrades had, as well as when they became obsolete. (For instance, I at least finished locating all my ruins fairly quickly in each game, whereupon the inspection upgrades served no further point. Similarly, I cleared out the plants over where I was going to dig before I started digging.) It could also stand to be made more clear that you cannot even attempt to address a message if you do not have a character with high enough charisma; initially I had assumed a failure rate mechanic. (And on the topic of messages, it seems slightly unfair that you can receive a message after making your last action and exhausting all your AP, and have it due that day.)
The final complaint I have is that the cleaning segments are uninteresting and unchallenging, and have the sole effect of introducing tedium. Admittedly it was not significant, but it still broke the stride of the gameplay.
Despite all this I can give the game 4 stars, as it was a delight to play. I hope we get to see an improved and expanded version someday.
Awesome game, still amazing graphics, not sure if it's part of the game to be short, but I would love a sequel where we can choose how long the game can be. It's not like any other games where you play, upgrade, play, upgrade, then it's done. Makes it more unique. :)
It gets across the systematic and "procedural" aspects of archaeology very well! I enjoyed it!
A few more and varied finds would have the cleaning a bit more interesting though.