Card Survival: Tropical Island News

Hi everyone!

It's update time.
Here's our content list:

[h2]End Game Journal:[/h2]

We have added a new screen that can be accessed when you die or escape from the island. It contains a log of most of the important things you did during your run. This way, winning a game can feel more rewarding.
It is a first iteration and we will continue working on it, so don't hesitate to give us feedback. ;)



[h2]Item Naming:[/h2]

Storage chests and partridges can now be given names. Let me know if there are any other cards you would like to be able to name!


[h2]New Items:[/h2]

Metal scraps can now be found in the shipwreck and used to craft scrap knives and axes. These tools are similar to the copper ones but cannot be infinitely repaired like them.
You can now also craft leather trousers, which can offer protection against wounds, in particular against lizard bites.



[h2]New Ailments:[/h2]

You can now get parasites by eating raw food, drinking unsafe water or being very dirty. Parasites are not that harmful if your immune system is strong, but if you are feeling weak or you are not cautious, their numbers can start growing inside you and things can get out of control. Parasites compromise your immune system, consume nutrients and increase your appetite.
Antibiotics as well as spider lily and ginger teas can help you get rid of them.

You can now get camp fever during your second month in the island. It is transmitted by bug bites and will cause a rash, fever, diarrhoea and headaches. If you catch it, you will need to fight it for a at least week, so make sure you have the tools to keep it under control or it will kill you.


[h2]Balance Tweaks and Minor Additions:[/h2]

- Clothes can now get wet, and will keep you wet until they are dry.
- Palm Trees, Large Trees and Almond Trees can now be cut with Stone Axes again, but require multiple hits.
- Advanced axes also now require multiple hits to cut trees, but less than stone axes.
- You can now become obese by being too overweight, this will apply a penalty to movement.
- Ginger now also helps a bit with diarrhoea.
- A new portrait has been added.
- A couple new perks, obese and brave have been added.
- Increased probability of finding mud deposit in the mangroves.
- Large Trees can now be found in the mangroves.
- Tweaked courage requirements for washing different minor wounds with different things.
- Reduced the effects of raw ginger.


That's all for now.
Wish you all a good week! :)

Hello everyone!

It's time for the new update.
This time we have a big one that introduces a whole new environment along with new animals and plants. There's also a lot of tweaks to the nutrition and immune systems, and many balance changes.
I hope you will like them!

[h2]Mangrove Forest:[/h2]

The Mangrove Forest is a new mid-late game environment that can be accessed from both the beach and the wetlands, effectively looping the island.
While it contains many useful things, it is the most dangerous environment at the moment, so do not explore it too much if you're not prepared.



[h3]Monitor Lizards:[/h3]
These large reptiles are the apex predator in the island, and while not as dangerous as a tiger or a crocodile would be, can still be pretty nasty. They will fight back even if attacked with ranged weapons and will sometimes chase you if you choose to retreat. Their bite contains a lot of bacteria that will require attentive care if you don't want to quickly fall sick.
On the bright side, when killed, you'll be able to skin their bodies for leather and butcher them for meat. Although they won't give fat or as much leather as the boars. Be warned!

[h3]Sea Kraits:[/h3]
These snakes can be found when exploring or diving and will bite you if you are not wearing shoes or if your swimming skills are not high enough. If you are lucky, they will inject you little to no poison, but if you are not, you might get a paralizing effect that will make walking hard and can even cause you blindness.

[h3]New Fish:[/h3]
The Mangrove Forest is another shore environment with access to the sea and as such it permits fishing and diving. Two new types of fish can be found here: The Mudskipper which can be fished or caught on land with deadfall traps and the King Threadfin, a large fish of varying size from which you can harvest a large amount of meat.



[h3]Nipa Palms:[/h3]
Nipa Palms can be found here too and they have a large fruit with edible seeds. Once harvested, the plant can also be used to extract sap for wine and sugar, but without the need to climb or build a sap station. In their current form they are a new water source that is close to the beach, as long as you are willing to risk it of course.
The original Palm Tree Sap Stations have been disabled for now, I might add them back later again but for now, Nipa Palm is the only source of sugar and wine.

[h3]Ginger:[/h3]
Ginger can now be found in both the Mangroves and the Wetlands. Its roots can be ground and prepared into a tea with many health benefits:
- It helps increase your appetite.
- It helps treat nausea.
- It has a minor pain soothing effect.
- It has help you fight sleep when you are trying to stay awake.
- It has a minor antibiotic effect.

[h3]Mud Deposits:[/h3]
Lastly, depletable mud deposits can also be found in the mangroves. A new, closer source from which to bring mud to your base.




[h2]Balance Changes:[/h2]

[h3]Nutrition Changes:[/h3]
Characters now start with a higher weight and will burn calories depending on their weight. So thinner characters will consume less energy and therefore lose weight slower while larger ones will lose weight faster.
This should make it harder for characters to go underweight. Not eating enough while doing excessive exercise or getting hurt or sick too often will of course still lead to the same destination.

[h3]Hydration Progression Changes:[/h3]
Palm Trees can no longer be cut down with stone axes, making subsistence by coconut harder. The first rain however will now happen earlier, giving players an earlier chance to get water on their gathered coconut shells and also pulling the second rain to an earlier date (most of the time).
Coconuts are still be accessible by climbing or by exploring the beach and the outskirts, and water is also available in the form of the Nipa sap and wine that can be harvested from the Mangroves as long as you are willing to risk it.

[h3]Happiness System:[/h3]
It is now harder to get self-destructive or euphoric, as a rubber band effect has been added that will tend to push happiness to a neutral state. This will make staying super happy harder, but will also help prevent those horrible depression spirals as long as you're not in a very bad state.

[h3]Other Changes:[/h3]
- Stone Axes can no longer cut down palm trees and large trees, copper or more advanced axes need to be used for it, effectively gating mud huts and rafts to after you have copper tools.
- Made tweaks to how the immune system works and how happiness and body weight affect it.
- Rebalanced the whole immune system and how it interacts with fever and diarrhoea bacteria.
- The Beach now has some light, even during the night.
- Raft has been made slightly more expensive.
- Bug repellent is now unlocked later.
- Wearing socks or wrappings temporarily neutralizes a portion of your foot damage.
- Cleaning Wounds with sea water now lowers your happiness.
- Aloe Vera Gel lasts twice as long, but its effect is spread thinner.

[h2]Bug Fixes:[/h2]
- Made Crop plots fill up faster during the rain.
- Fixed a bug that prevented crop plots from hydrating when you weren't there.
- Fixed bug that was preventing wounds from healing in some cases.
- Survival Axe can now be used to chop logs like the other axes.
- Wetting soap on salt water no longer produces salt.
- Made Pale Skin, Dark Skin exclusive with Sun Allergy.
- Mouse meat is no longer considered bird meat. 

That is all for now!
As usual we'll be working on fixing bugs and balancing all these new things during the following days. So don't hesitate to let us know if you find any issues or have any feedback! :)
See you next week!

Hello everyone!

It's update time again.

Before we go into the content list though, I wanted to let you know that we're going to be changing the day at which we release our updates from now on. Instead of Sundays like we've been doing, we're going to start releasing them on Wednesdays, still weekly of course. So, the next update after this one will be on Wednesday the 17th.
As a plus, this also means that the next update is going to be be a big one, as we'll have more time to work on it. :)

That said, here's all the new content, improvements and fixes for this week:



[h2]Clay Pot Cooler:[/h2]
A new type of large vase that can be used to store and preserve food. When charged with water, it uses evaporation to reduce the temperature inside and make its contents last longer.


[h2]Chest:[/h2]
You can now craft chests with long sticks, cords and woven palm fronds. While they cannot be moved around, they have more slots than usual inventories and can be used to keep your base tidy and organised.


[h2]Candles and Torch Changes:[/h2]
You can now craft tallow candles out of fat, which you can use as a longer lasting portable source of light. The torch now requires oil instead of fat, so it can be crafted in the early game.





[h2]Updated Guide:[/h2]
We finally took the time to work on the guide and get it up to date! It has now been reorganised and contains basic info on all of the main mechanics, including nutrition, hydration and wounds.


[h2]Performance Improvements:[/h2]
We have been working a lot on improving performance. We really wanted to fix those framerate drops that happened in the mid and late game.
We hope the difference will be noticeable!


[h2]Character and Perk Tweaks:[/h2]
- We have removed the standard guy and made the create new character the default option.
- Renamed some of the difficulties.
- We have made a few perks start unlocked so new players can start with some basic customization options.
- We have lowered the cost of many perks so it's easier to unlock them and the character creator becomes practical earlier.
- Made all main Halloween perks permanently available, they can now be purchased by paying moons.


[h2]Hunger Tweaks:[/h2]
- Wounds, fever, depression, pain and exercise have a stronger effect on appetite.
- Appetite is now slower to decrease.
- Changed Malnourished statuses to Underweight and emaciated to help avoid confusion.
- The nutrition stat is now mostly referred to as weight and is constantly visible in the status window. This way players will be able to tell beforehand when they are on their way to becoming underweight so that they can have more time to prepare.


[h2]General Balance Tweaks:[/h2]
- Characters now start less thirsty, but dirtier. This will hopefully make the experience easier to new players, first by giving them more time to solve their hydration issues and second, by indirectly making them lower their temperature when they try to wash themselves of the dirt.
- The stove and the bed are now craftable in any location that is indoors (such as caves).
- The stove is now easier to unlock (requires only a built kiln).
- We have made woven hats, baskets and chests available early, as long as you are willing to spend the time weaving palm fronds.
- It is now impossible to get a fracture while climbing palm trees when your climbing skills are too high.
- You can no longer cook things manually on fires!!


[h2]Bug Fixes:[/h2]
- Cleaning wounds with seawater no longer produces salt and it now requires more courage.
- Fixed some durability issues with some items.
- Made fish traps ding again.
- Fixed a bug where all cards would appear greyed out after a drag and drop.
- Fixed some issues with the canteen (there are still many remaining though)
- Fleshes boar skin no longer says spoiled when its curation process finishes.


That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone!

It's time for update number 10.
Here's all our new (halloween-themed) content:


[h2]New Wound Systems:[/h2]
Wounds are no longer stat based, they all now have their own unique cards that get automatically equipped into your equipment screen so that they can heal and be treated individually.
In addition to this, there are many new types of wounds you can get, making the whole experience more interesting and realistic.
The wounds we now have are:

• Sprained Wrists and Ankles
  
• Fractured Legs and Arms
  
• Lacerations on Legs and Arms
  
• Minor Lacerations and Abrasions
  

[h3]Individual Wounds:[/h3]
Getting wounds is no longer limited to the shipwreck and the boar, climbing or slipping will now sometimes result on sprained ankles or wrists, or even in fractures if you are unlucky enough.

[h3]Wound Effects:[/h3]
Wounds will now also affect your everyday tasks, hurt a leg and it will take longer and be more tiring to travel or do activities that require your legs, hurt your arms and crafting things with your hands will also take longer.

[h3]Wound Treatment:[/h3]
Each open wound now has its own rate of infection and has to be washed separately as well as treated with dressings, splints and tourniquets depending on their type.
Wounds can now also have Aloe Vera applied to them to help them heal, and open lacerations can be stitched up with a threaded needle.
We've also added a splint to treat sprains and fractures and a new simpler, but worse, tourniquet that does not require cloth.

Wounds have made the game a bit more dangerous! So make sure you are ready before taking any risks! Don't hesitate to send feedback my way, I'll be spending most of next week balancing these new system and making sure it feels fair and fun.

Oh, and we added a new perk so that you can start with a broken leg too! :)




[h2]Halloween Character and Perks![/h2]

I thought it would be fun to do something for Halloween so I added a temporary halloween character with some very unique perks. The character is a mermaid-like creature that has decided to make the island her nest. She can drink salt water and see in the dark but her skin needs to be kept moist and burns when in contact with the sun. I thought it could be a fun challenge for those who want to try it, as her selection of perks ensures that her run will be a unique one.
I'll release her perks as secret ones later in the week! ;)


[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]

- Jerrycan can now be boiled.
- Aloe Vera Gel is now crafted with a recipe (unlocked with herbology) and produces 3 gels from two leaves.
- Aloe Vera Leaves can be applied directly as a minor version of aloe vera gel.
- Jungle Salad is now much cheaper, making it a more viable option.
- Retreating from Boar Encounters now takes less time.
- It is now easier to get saturated of eating one type of food.
- Puddles clean a bit less when you refresh yourself with them.
- Refreshing yourself in Puddles now spends water.


[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

- Fixed many cases where the survivalist's axe could not be used for certain tasks.
- Drinking coconut milk is now correctly considered a vegetarian action.
- Eating fish scraps now properly increases fish saturation.
- Minor works were done on performance (nothing too visible yet though).


That's all for now!
Hope you have a nice week!

Hi everyone,

Here's the update for this week!


[h2]Quality of Life Improvements:[/h2]

- All inventories can now be emptied directly to the ground (middle row) with a special button inside their description window.
- Inventories and Blueprints now show how many slots they have free without having to open them to check.


[h2]New Perks Unlocking System:[/h2]

We have introduced a new perk unlocking system. Now every time any of your characters survives an in-game day you will gain a Sun and everytime they survive a month (30 days) a Moon will be gained. These Suns and Moons will now be the currency used for purchasing perks in the character creation menu.
Some secret perks will still be unlockable with special achievements though, although for now there's only one, a Retromation inspired one to be exact, see if you can find it. :)

By the way, any perk that you had unlocked with the previous system will remain unlocked, if you want to re-lock all your perks the only current way is deleting both your save and your save backup that can be found in: C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\LocalLow\WinterSpring Games\Card Survival - Tropical Island
That will of course delete all your characters too though, so be warned!





[h2]New Perks:[/h2]

We have introduced many new perks!

- Military: This was an existing one but it has been improved now. This perk will now start with a belt that carries a canteen, a knife and also a gun. So now you can hunt partridges, boars and seagulls with a handgun too if you so wish!

- Survivalist: This one comes with a large backpack which includes a deployable tent, a gas cooker, an axe, a knife, a canteen and a rope. The gas cooker has only one slot but can be carried around with you. The tent serves as an inventory and a place to sleep and can be deployed anywhere.

- We have also added some challenge Perks to make your adventures harder:
Vegetarian
Carnivore
Shellfish Allergy
Fast Metabolism
Inappetent

- And some difficulty reducing perks, including some that could help those who are dealing with frequent malnourishment issues:
Slow Metabolism
Gluttonous
Pain Tolerance



[h2]Other new Features:[/h2]

- Partridges now can eat many times from fish scraps, slices and prawns.
- Changed difficulty names and rebalanced difficulty ratings.
- You can now train climbing on Palm Trees with a lower risk of falling (but without getting any coconuts).
- You can now climb palm trees better if you have a rope in your hand.
- Added an extra level of satiation (now there's full, very full, and sick) to help prevent confusion with that stat.
- Added a new portrait.
- Coconut Flasks have been removed (I'm sorry!)
- Tweaks to the satiation/nutrition system.
- Many generals tweaks and small balance changes.


[h2]Fixes:[/h2]
- Fixed a bug that caused courage not to increase.
- Fixed a bug that caused some perks not to work properly after loading their saves.
- Cutting certain meats with a knife no longer makes fish slices.
- Embers can now be used to light wood shaving.
- Fixed many bugs where some types of axe or knife couldn't be used for certain tasks.

That's all for now! Have a nice week everyone! :)