Three thousand years ago, the legendary island of Mantas was lost to history. Today, you and your excavation team are digging on a tiny island where a shepherd has found some pottery... but you’re about to find something incredible.
STRANGE FINDS is an adventure game inspired by the principles of real archaeology. Explore a forgotten chapter of a Bronze Age Mediterranean-inspired fantasy world, and work with your eccentric team of modern specialists to piece together the timeline of a lost civilization.
Here's how it goes:
Get out your pickaxe and dig up the ancient ruins of the island, one room at a time.
You'll uncover statues, sacred offerings, dirt middens full of trace materials, and pottery (there's a lot of pottery).
Once you've finished excavating, the left-hand panel of your screen moves into play. It's time for...
Assign your finds to specialists on your team to scrub them clean or put them under a microscope.
As the dirt falls away, you'll get the true form of each object you've uncovered, and some notes about each one.
Some finds might fit together into larger pieces, which can offer new insights into the culture of the island.
When your finds have all been processed, the right-hand panel of your screen moves into play. It's time for...
You brought some research questions to the island with you, didn't you?
Assemble sequences of your finds to form the answers to these questions, establishing new facts about the island's ancient history in the process.
Present your answers to your highly skilled but physically exhausted and quite sweaty team of specialists to get their thoughts on things, resulting in new research questions to complete.
As the years progress, you'll also draw on finds from other sites, museum collections, and parallel excavations to shed new light on the Dark Age of the Archipelago. Who knows what else you'll find out there?
I'm a 3D artist, one-time archaeologist, and second-generation Greek American based in NYC. This game is the product of my lifelong love of Greek culture, the ancient mythologies of the Eastern Mediterranean, and the muddy history of archaeology as a discipline.
I've worked on critically-acclaimed small indie titles in both educational and commercial games. This is my first attempt to use videogames to make obscure historical material accessible and engaging. I'm very excited to share this labor of love with you all, and I'm humbled by the support my efforts have already received. Hope you enjoy the game!
Thanks in advance,
Demetri
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