How Do You Get Mysterious Fossil in Travel Town?
A complete guide to the Mysterious Fossil mini-game event, including how to get pickaxes and the best digging strategy.
What is the Mysterious Fossil Event?
The Mysterious Fossil is a popular, recurring mini-game event in Travel Town. During the event, you are presented with a special grid covered in sand tiles. Your goal is to use a special currency, pickaxes, to break these tiles and unearth the hidden fossils and other treasures buried beneath. This event is a fantastic way to earn a large number of free energy, diamonds, coins, and even rare items like Jokers.
How to Get More Pickaxes
Pickaxes are the key to this event. You cannot use energy to dig; you must use this special event currency. The primary way to earn pickaxes is by playing on your main game board.
- Merging Items: The most common way. Every time you merge items on your main board, there is a chance that a pickaxe will spawn in a free space.
- Completing Tasks: Turning in items to the townspeople will often reward you with a bundle of pickaxes.
- Event Milestones: Some other concurrent events may offer pickaxes as a milestone reward. It's always a good idea to check the reward tracks of all active events.
To maximize the pickaxes you earn, your strategy on the main board should shift. Focus on making many low-level merges rather than a few high-level ones, as each merge action has a chance to generate a pickaxe. This means you should be tapping your producers frequently and keeping your board active.
The Digging Strategy: How to Clear the Sand Efficiently
Simply breaking tiles at random is not the best approach. There is a strategy to clearing the grid to maximize your rewards for the fewest pickaxes.
The grid contains several types of objects hidden under the sand:
- Fossils: These are your main objective. They are large and take up multiple squares. You must uncover all parts of a fossil to collect it.
- Treasure Chests: These contain valuable rewards like energy, coins, and diamonds.
- Bombs & Rockets: Uncovering these special items will trigger an explosion, clearing a large area of sand for free. A bomb clears a 3x3 square, while a rocket clears an entire row or column.
The Best Strategy:
- Clear in a Checkerboard Pattern: Don't clear adjacent tiles. Instead, clear tiles in a checkerboard or spaced-out pattern. This maximizes your chances of revealing a part of a large fossil or hitting a hidden bomb or rocket early.
- Hunt for Bombs and Rockets: Once you reveal a bomb or rocket, it will have an arrow or a blast radius indicator. Use your next pickaxe to hit the bomb/rocket itself, triggering its effect and saving you numerous pickaxes. This is the most important part of the strategy.
- Focus on Large Fossils: The largest fossils give the best completion rewards. Once you uncover a piece of a large fossil (like a dinosaur skull), try to clear the tiles immediately surrounding it to reveal its full shape.
- Don't Waste Pickaxes on Single Tiles: If you have a few isolated sand tiles left at the end, consider if the potential reward is worth the cost. It's often better to save your pickaxes for the next level of the event.
By following these steps, you'll be able to clear the Mysterious Fossil event boards efficiently, collect all the amazing prizes, and get a massive boost to your main game progress. For more in-depth information on events in general, check out our main events guide.