oh there's our fossil mount
okay go outside and bring in the crates
the fossils to the cleaning station
where's my cleaning station
Let's see what this is: cleaning stage in prep
room two
can i get through there that's the
exhibition
put crate in stone cleaning station
oh right
press e to enter station
all right so now we cut the plaster
jacket off
[electric sawing sound]
[electric sawing sound]
can i tilt this thing? rotate camera
horizontally - what i'm doing
i can't get around the other side okay
let's try to do that angle
okay
Eeesh... that's not how you do it
i haven't had to remove too many plaster
jackets in my time to be fair so
i just don't think you'd smash at it like that
now depending on the type of rock that
this is in
you might want to start using a drill to
drill
away the rock around it or
if it is something that's
held together by a cement like calcium
carbonate and you can dissol... dissolve
that with hydrochloric acid [I meant acetic acid!] so you could
put this whole rock
in a vinegar sort of solution
and let that dissolve away the cements
the grains of sand or mud or whatever
that were being held together by that
fall apart and release the bone but you
put glue over the bone to keep it
together oh i don't like this
oh yoi yoi look at that skull
i don't wanna you just don't no no
oh man you don't just whack it with a
hammer
and especially position this rock
differently so that
it's not going to fall on its face first
you'd be wanting to
set this bone with glue like Mowetol
or some sort of glue like that oh this
is hard i don't like this at all
oh god the neck's still attached the
vertebra so the cervical vertebrae like
the atlas and the axis are probably
hidden under here
and then you've got cervical vertebra
one two and so on
beautifully preserved ah it's making me
wince watching it roll around OH NO! Eeeeeeuu...
haha no! [laughing] Aahhhhhhh...
look at those bits of bone that are just
going to snap
off
what's the difference between prep room
and manual clean
prep room is that where the drilling is
all right clean bones manually or send
them to co-worker. Oh i wanted to clean it i
didn't want them to get sent to a
co-worker
how do i get out of this ah there we go
so actually coming in from the field the
first thing you'd probably be doing is
well bring the boxes inside but then
sitting down here
and transcribing all the information
that you need to to say that these
particular
specimens have come into the collection
so when you're out in the field
writing down notes as you're digging up
these rocks and drawing
uh sketch maps of where everything was
positioned taking photos that sort of
thing
you also are giving that rock would you
we would give that rock or that fossil
a ID number so that you know
this is say its fossil site is called
xyz quarry and then that's rock number
1 so you might call it
xyz001 or something like that
each museum will have its own convention
for numbering systems and that sort of
thing
and then when you come in you type into
the computer
exactly how many specimens you found and
what their numbers are
so that you can keep track of them so
then if somebody wants to know if you
want to know where something is you can
say oh specimen 001
is in the cleaning room the prep room
specimen 002
is in the rock lab and so on
that way you don't lose track of things
especially when you've taken photos of
these things in the field and it'll look
like you know a big rock with a bit of
bone sticking out of it and then
when you come here and remove the
jackets
and start to prepare the specimen and
get rid of that rock it's going to look
completely different it's going to be a
different shaped rock and you need to
know
what rock that
fossil came from originally in the field
so that you can sort of piece everything
back together like a like a puzzle
essentially
and so you'll have the fully prepared
bone that you know what it is you know
what it looks like and you can get your
fossil locality map back out in your
little sketch drawing
of the fossil site and know where that
bone was sitting in the ground and in
what direction it was facing as well so
one of the things to do with jacketing
specimens or even just working with big
concretions
is writing not only the name of that
specimen
like the number on the rock itself or on
the jacket but also
north so you know
which way that rock was facing
and that can that can be important later
if you're trying to
piece together a skeleton and know that
all the bones that you've got actually
did come from
one animal or maybe they came from
another and there's another fossil
out there that you need to go back and
find okay i'm going to click
manual clean because i want to clean it
okay
perfect so this is kind of represented
here so i've got now a little
tag 'Ornithomimus right hand bones' but
yeah you'd also have a specimen number
which obviously isn't as interesting in
the game to maybe
do but all right now this is where we're
drilling
[mechanical drill vibrating sound]
i haven't had to drill too many
specimens in my time
you just have to be so so careful and
also start to familiarize yourself so
it's a really good idea to grab
a bit say a bit of the rock that i
chipped off from before
that you know or are pretty sure there's
nothing in it
grab that bit of rock and use that to
drill them because then you can get an
understanding of how tough is this rock
how much time do i need to
apply the drill in a particular area for
it to start to chip and crumble away
or is it not going to chip and crumble
away you just don't want to go too
quickly
and start drilling into the bone
because it's really important when
you're looking at the surface of the
bone and if you
oh god is that supposed to oh man that
makes me cringe
um when you're looking at the surface of
the bone and you're wondering if there's
any little marks on there because some
little scavenger might have chewed on
the bones whatever and then, nuh, turns
out it was just because
the drill bit hit the surface of the
bone and that's sometimes not
um possible to stop happening the other
thing
about this preparation technique is what
we're doing in the game at the moment is
a thing
that is often done which is getting rid
of all of the rock
freeing up the bone and creating a
little pile of bones there to
articulate into that skeleton that's
standing over in the corner of the room
but it's also really really useful not
only to take lots of photos at this
stage so you can see where the bones are
at
but in some cases to actually leave the
bone sitting in the rock
because if you look (ah I can turn it) if
you look here for example
this is part of the hand so we already
freed up as it were some of those claws
from the tip of the fingers
but if you kept that rock there then you
could actually keep
how all the bones were positioned at the
time of fossilization
and again that could be really really
important to understand
what sort of environment was this animal
living in and subsequently dying in
and also there could be traces of
soft tissue there could be little
marks of maybe feathers or something
like that
that are on the rock that you're
drilling away so i'm not saying it's
incorrect to ever drill away all the
rock
but you certainly need to keep an eye on
not only
not hitting the surface of the bone with
the drill but also
any other features that you might see in
the rock as you go you might think "Oh this is funny - little stripes in this bit of
rock
near the surface of the bone" you
probably have to stop and figure out
whether that's a trace fossil whether
that's something that actually belongs
to that animal in life
but yeah this this is quite alien to me
the
completely removing
the rock from these separate like from
these individual bones when
they're all beautifully articulated
together you could leave it like that
and photograph it like that
make your technical drawings and create
casts of these bones
and use the casts to create a skeleton
that goes on display
use photogrammetry to get
nice 3d models of the bones
i mean i'm still enjoying myself but
again i'm just because of the type of
paleontological work i'm used to i'm
cringing a little bit at
having all these loose bones flying
everywhere
but i don't want to throw shade anyone
who does do this
okay let's keep drilling and this of
course
the game mechanics means that this is a
really really quick process in the game
and this could take six months to do
properly
in the real world
and
there we go
we're just brushing them oh
it looks really rough i don't want to
too
coarsely brush them
[sweeping/brushing sound]
the idea of finding a complete dinosaur
fossil at a site which
can happen it's not impossible but it is
much harder
and you think like it every single
little bone
preserved and i like the idea of
my colleagues having been to this site
saying oh we can't find
the right hand bones and the skull and
the neck
and... oh the hips and that could just be
they're not there they didn't get
preserved either they got destroyed
before the animals fossilized or those
fossils
were brought up to the surface and
destroyed after
they were fossilized so it could just be
that you never find them
i like the idea of we can't find them so
keep looking they must be there
i mean you always want to look. okay is
this glue?
"softening matrix"?
Ummmm...
okay
[spraying water sound]
Oh okay so have I drilled down to a point
where there's still a layer of matrix on
the bone
that i'm trying to get off, and this
could perhaps then be like a
vinegar solution
depending
on what was covering the bones this is
actually now really good in showing how
tedious the cleaning process can be so
the fact that you've got
the bones and instead of just drilling
them straight out of the rock and
they're being like
yep done you've now got your dinosaur
bones they're actually showing
like we're only 60% of the way
through cleaning oh sorry 45%
of the way through cleaning overall
progress bar
down the bottom left
okay so yes there is more matrix i thought
this might have just been really
'scuddely' preserved bone
[mechanical drilling/vibrating sound]
i mean it's going to be nearly
impossible not to leave some
micro scratches on the bones and so you
have to know that this is how that
fossil has been prepared if you're going
to look
at the surface of the bone and try to
make any judgment call on whether
the bones were gnawed on after the animal
died or whether there was say
um some plant growth around it and root
trace marks on the bone that sort of
thing
if you know that that bone has been
drilled out of the rock matrix it's
probably not what you're looking at
[mechanical drilling/vibrating noise]
you also have to be careful drilling
around the
claws in case the claw sheath was still
preserved so you've got the actual
bone at the tip of the finger that is
that shape then
a keratin layer on top that forms that
outside surface of the core that makes
it look the way it does
like sort of shiny stripy and not just
like bits of bone sticking out of the
ends of an animal's hand
[mechanical drilling/vibrating sound]
okay now we're 60% away through cleaning
"cleaning small sediment"
[intermittant drilling sound]
okay "washing the bones"
just getting all that really fine
particular matter
particulate matter off with dust and
stuff that you've generated from
drilling. depending on how strong these
bones are they haven't included gluing
at any stage of this process
okay prep has been completed oh now we
get to construct
our arm okay
so there's a scapula i guess it's
scapular coracoid
now goes our humerus
and radius and ulna
go here
and then the carpal bones so the little
wrist bones oh god they're gonna be
annoying to pick up
yes i'm trying to pick it up there we
are
okay there is the completed arm
how it's hovering like that all put
together i don't know it's not like the
pieces are
i mean presumably i had to wire them
together for that to work
right yeah it goes out um
so there's oh it is the coracoid it's a
scapular coracoid
girdle shoulder girdle there
and so what we need is our ilium
ischium and pubis bone
there as well as the vertebra that run
in between it so that's the
pelvic girdle is what it's called
and then all these neck vertebrae all
these beautiful very spiky processes
up to the skull and scleral ring in the
eye all these beautiful little bits of
bone so if that's preserved
in this particular specimen that would
be beautiful so this would be
yes a 100% complete
dinosaur which is extremely hard to find.
[Reading text out loud]
All right,
transport crates to exhibition room
okay oh now we get to design our own
museum
i didn't realize this game and like i
knew i said at the start "we have our
own museum,
do we get to build our own or add to it"
or whatever
but i didn't actually realize that you'd
be able to sort of design the whole
place i thought it would just be you
find the fossil you prepare it in the
field and then bam it goes on display in
some pre-allocated position
oh beautiful "take a look at the controls
shown in the upper left corner to learn
how to change skeleton poses
mirror rotate" etcetera "click on the
decoration
symbols placed in the lower left corner
you can rotate and scale
every decoration or or exposition item
if you have more than one exhibitors to
edit you can switch between them by
entering design mode."
Aahhh that's the best thing! it's like The Sims
plus dinosaurs
okay
that's how i'm going to leave my exhibit
for the moment it's not necessarily the
most beautiful display but i quite like
it
so that is ah now i can walk around and
enjoy it of course from the first person
perspective
i wish his foot wasn't disappearing into
the sand but i can see we can fix that later
It's really cool 
you can sit on the bench and
have a look at the dinosaurs i really
like that posture there
very cool
all right what's next
[reading text out loud]
Ha, and the doors magically opened and a theme song played in my head, no.
Ok...
Ooooh wooooow!
[reading text out loud]
oh that's awesome
so presumably this is the room that it's
going to go on display in because you
wouldn't want to
completely assemble it and then put it
on a trolley and move it
very cool
it stands very tall and oh it's got two
fingers i was gonna say it's not a
tyrannosaurus but
and it's got its gastralia so those
belly ribs
they're very very hard to find preserved
in the fossil record
in situ
so let's get to work
constructing this creature
i have to say this game's really really well made
there are plenty of other dinosaur games
out there
that are not nearly as good
i think you may find one of them on our
channel they're just
very very buggy and they're full games
but this is
a free-to-play prologue of this game
before the whole thing
is made available and i haven't
encountered any bugs like there are you
know points obviously at which it's a little
bit
difficult to navigate the dig site and
you're sort of trapped in a hole or like
you're digging around the rock and
rocks floating in the air and you can't
grab it but apart from that everything
works
and i really really appreciate that it's
hard work making these games
all right so this is the
sacral vertebrae
all as one unit and often they are
fused together all of those vertebra in
the hip it's sort of like one
solid structure almost i mean the hip
bones aren't fused on
to the vertebrae but the vertebrae
appears to each other
not in every animal but in lots of them
okay that's the last caudal vert
T. rex is complete you can exit the
museum
it's another thing though um when you
walk into the room you said
wow amazing there's a those teeth are
really rounded and sort of sticking out
hang on a sec sorry i didn't notice before
that these teeth are sort of floating
out of the jaw they're not actually in
sockets in the jaw
um but yeah so when you walked into the
room you said Tyrannosaurus which is the
genus
name and then that notification said
T. rex so Tyrannosaurus rex where rex is
a species so
um yeah really sort of get
it's not a big problem but i wish games
would either say
Tyrannosaurus rex or a tyrannosaurid and
not
swap one for the other.
[reading text out loud]
and i feel you there
[reading text out loud]
okay
in what way is it i wonder
so we're in another loading dock
still in the americas can i get through
there no
do i just go through the garage? Yes.
[reading text out loud]
"remove all the garbage"
to where?
can i put it in the no shipping
container no
do i chuck it in the car so i can drive
it out
where do i put the garbage???
i'll just drop it somewhere until i
figure it out
Ugh. Oh? 
Ahhhhhhh! my fossil that i lost!
Awwww! [laughing]
[reading text out loud]
Awww, "thank you for playing thanks to your
suggestions and feedback this prologue
is better than demo in every way
possible
if you want to follow the development of
this game report a bug etc etc join
discord
if you like our work and the passion we
put into the game please support us with
your reviews and comments
thank you." It's already on my wish list
has been for a while
okay so that was the prologue for
dinosaur fossil hunter
what did you think? i really liked it i
think it's
very sweet and i like the fact that
it shows that it's not easy to get a job
in paleontology and it documents that
sort of path
i think the rest of the game is probably
going to be a bit of a
rose-tinted view of the world as far as
you know then you finally make it when
you decide to put your mind to it but
it's a good simulation of
what it might be like to be a
paleontologist we don't want the reality
version of that we get to live that all
the time
um and i think that if you
are a paleontologist or someone who's
interested in dinosaur fossils and
interested in paleontology
you may both equally get a lot of fun
out of this game
as a paleontologist it's really nice to
be
on a fossil dig in this virtual world
where
digging up fossils takes minutes and
maybe hours instead of weeks and months
so if you want that sort of experience
then this game is definitely for you and
if you just want to get an idea of what
it's like to be
in a field environment and then also
prepping those fossils
and the game does also do a good job of
showing that
it takes a long time to prep fossils it
takes many many steps
depending on the type of fossils you
have of course in the game
again it's quite short compared to real
life
but it's a game you know it would be
boring if you had to prep the fossil in
real time for months
so i really really like this game i
think it's it's quite
genuine in its um in its love
for dinosaurs and paleontology i'm
definitely going to be picking up the
full version of the game when it's for
sale and i think you guys should too
and if you would like to see me continue
to play through the game
then just let me know and i can make
some more episodes for the Paleocast
Gaming Network
thanks for watching
