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Card Survival: Tropical Island News

Card Survival: Tropical Island - Update 27

Hello everyone!

Time for a new update.

Let's start with a couple of announcements.

Discord Server:
First, we have created a discord server! A good number of people had asked for it over the past few months and we have now decided to give it a try as an experiment. I'm not sure if it will work, as I don't know if we have enough players and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to split them into two different places (discord and the steam forums). But we'll see! Opinions are welcome of course.
Here's the link: https://discord.com/invite/dURZTmeEaN

Android Release:
Second, in case you missed our announcement last week, Card Survival has been officially released on Android and can now be found on Google Play. If you are having trouble finding it, just try typing the complete name between quotes. That should do the trick in the worse case. :)

Now, to the content list:





[h2]Coffee:[/h2]

Coffee can now be found in a new location called the Jungle Highlands. Its berries can be harvested and eaten and its seeds can be roasted and used to make coffee. This new drink can be used to wake yourself up when sleepy, but don't abuse it as the lack of sleep will have detrimental effects to your mental structure, specially after spending long periods of time in the island.
Coffee can of course also be planted on crop plots like all other plants.


[h2]Macaques:[/h2]

Macaques now inhabit all jungle environments, old and new, although they are most commonly found in the jungle highlands.
These monkeys can visit your place, just like other animals do, but can also steal your tools and objects in addition to food.

Macaques can be hunted with weapons and log traps, both for their skins and their meat, which can be smoked and salted, just like goat and boar meat. While not dangerous like boars or monitor lizards, they can still bite, so be careful!

One special thing about macaques is that sometimes when hunting them or catching them with log traps, you can wound them instead of killing them. In those cases, you'll have the chance to nurse them back to health and gain their trust. If you keep them fed, hydrated and unstressed for long enough they will become your friends once they are fully healed and stay permanently with you.
A macaque friend will keep you company, lowering your loneliness (specially when pet), and can also be carried around as a satchel. In addition to this, it can also bring you gifts every now and then, and of course poop.
Be careful though, a macaque is not a domesticated animal so expect to get bitten quite a bit by it, specially if stressed. :)





[h2]Rice:[/h2]

A new crop that can be found in yet another new location, the secret valley. Rice can be found in the wild and its stalks can be harvested and thrashed to get its grain. The remaining plant can be used to feed goats as straw.

Rice is unique too in that it can also be planted in a new type of crop plot called the Rice Paddy. When planted there you can get a much greater yield, at the cost of using considerably more water.
This new food source is supposed to fill the role of staple food to late game players building their bases inland.

Lastly, Rice will grow best in fertile areas, like the grasslands or the secret valley.


[h2]New Locations:[/h2]

Three new locations have been added to the game:

The Deep Jungle:
A new jungle that can be accessed from the wetlands and connects to a few different locations. It is now the only place where you can find jasmine at the moment. It can be reached from the wetlands.

The Jungle Highlands:
It can be reached from both the deep jungle and the highlands. These area has the highest chances of finding macaques and is also the only place in the island where you can find coffee.

The Secret Valley:
An area that can mainly be reached from the deep jungle. It is a fertile environment, similar to the grasslands, where plants grow a bit faster than in other places. It is also the only area where you can find rice.


These three new areas are still missing content and need some balancing, but this will change over the next few updates.
The Volcano and a few other new areas are coming soon too, and should be completing the final structure of the island for the game's release. Probably on the next update or the one after that at the latest. ;)


[h2]New Visual and Sound Effects:[/h2]

We have added new visual and audio effects for darkness, derealisation and altered mind states. We hope they will help make the game experience more immersive.

We have also added lots of new ambient and action sounds that were missing. Goats and partridges for example will no longer be silent now. :)
Smaller environments like huts and enclosures now also play muffled version of the environments outside too.


[h2]General Tweaks:[/h2]

- Many tweaks to the mental system, specially as it relates to the late game and to manic states.
- Isolation now decreases morale more directly as time passes, making having a proper house essential for players that want to stay in the island for long periods of time.
- Balance tweaks to the watcher experience.
- Added many food items to the food filter.
- Fish scraps and slices no longer turn into rotten remains after expiring.
- Tweaks to the bug population system.
- Added many new items to the list of things that are affected by the table's crafting bonus.
- Very Favourable and Unfavourable sea winds in the raft now come with rain too.


[h2]Fixes and Hotfixes since the last update:[/h2]

- Added art for the flower necklace.
- Fixed the Cellar effect.
- Fixed a bug where games would fail to load on version ea_27.01.
- Fixed the strange behaviours when trying to put things into containers inside the mud hut (triggering the "Mud hut doesn't have room for this" messages)
- Added new Down To Earth perk.
- Fixed some issues related to sleep interruptions.
- Fixed an issue that was causing traps to unlock with the crafting instead of the trapping skill.
- Fixed an issue that was limiting the amount of almond trees that could exist at any given time to 1.
- Handdrills work normally again (they were doing a strange thing with dry leaves).
- Fixed some psychological issues related to manic states.
- Fixed a bug with the dark chamber in the highland hole.
- Made swapping card stacks faster.
- Fixed multiple typos.
- Fixed an issue with the jasmine clay jar.
- Fixed a bug that was causing shelving units not to work anymore.
- Fixed a bug with the hunter's mark.
- Fixed an issue that was locking the liferaft perk.
- Fixed a bug that was causing cookers to cook air into air!
- Fixed an issue that was preventing you from using metal knives to carve wood.
- Fixed cellar bug that was messing with durabilities.
- Fixed an issue that stopped you from building more than one hut or cellar per environment.
- Light is no longer required for ripping clothes or crafting wrappings or bandages out of them.
- Fixed some issues with hunter proximity doing strange things.
- Blueprints "fill all" button no longer steals elements from other blueprints.
- Fixed an issue with the watering through not refilling under some special circumstances.
- Fixed a bug that would cause the screen to go all white when nearing death
- Made the charcoal/ash exploit less of an issue.
- Fixed bug that allowed you to feed partridges infinitely with bait.
- Fixed issue that was preventing wound dressings from spoiling in some cases.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the hunter from appearing to characters with night vision.
- Fixed an issue with charcoal in stoves.


That's all for now.
Hope you enjoy the update and have a nice couple of weeks!

Android Release!

Hello everyone!

Special announcement here.



We have good news for all of you interested in getting Card Survival on your phones.
The game seems to be finally available in the play store!

While it's still not properly appearing in searches it can be found if you look for "Card Survival" (with the quotation marks included) or if you click on this direct link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.winterspringgames.survivaljourney

As always, let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions. ;)

Have a nice week!

Card Survival: Tropical Island - Update 26

Hello everyone!

It's time for update 26!

First just a small announcement: we have submitted Card Survival to Google Play and it should become available soon. We'll let you all know as soon as the game goes live on Android.

Now to the content list:




[h2]House Improvements:[/h2]

Tables:
You can now build tables, which will give you a bonus to crafting as long as you are in the same room as them. Making crafting things at home much better. They also increase house comfort.

Chairs:
Cheaper than tables, they can also give you a bonus to crafting, This bonus gets even better if there's a table too. They also give a bit of comfort as well.

Shelves:
A more advanced version of the individual shelf, this shelving unit increases comfort and can store a lot more things as well as display decorations.

House Filthiness & Brooms:
Houses now get dirtier over time. If they get too dirty, comfort will decrease and you'll player will start getting stressed. Fortunately you can now craft brooms to keep your place clean.
It's also worth pointing that some caves will get dirty faster than others, making that a strategic decision at the time of choosing a home. Oh, and animal enclosures get dirty too of course.
On a related note, the dark cave can now accept individual shelves, all the other caves don't though, as their walls are too hard.

House Capacity:
All indoor environments, the raft and the enclosures now have a maximum weight capacity. So you will no longer be able to store infinite things inside them. Shelves, chests or other inventories will help you make a more efficient use of the space though by reducing the weight of the things stored in them.

Cellar:
You can now dig cellars/underground cellars to use as home or storage place. Food items stored there will spoil at a slower rate. This effect is not working at the moment however, but a hotfix tomorrow will make it work.




[h2]Psychological System Improvements:[/h2]

Sleep Changes:
Sleep can no longer be cancelled and is now affected by your morale and stress. Depression will cause you to sleep more while stress will cause you to sleep less and give you nightmares that wake you up in the middle of the night, giving you even more stress. The positive effects of sleeping over napping have now also been increased.
On another related note, you can now also get bitten by spiders while sleeping! Specially if you sleep on the ground in some of the more heavily forested areas.

New Altered States of Consciousness Mechanics:
Two new mechanics of this sort have been added to the psychological system, bringing the total of possible altered state experiences to 4. These two new experiences will bring some new challenge to the late game.

Flower Necklace:
You can now craft a necklace out of jasmine flowers and cord. It's nice smell can help a little bit with stress. Just a bit. :)

Isolation Mechanics:
The newest late game challenge added is the isolation system. As you character spends more and more time on the island alone, his previous mental structure will start gradually falling apart, making altered mental states easier to trigger and making loneliness more of a problem.
Don't worry though, permanently living in the island is still completely viable, some mental systems will just get a more challenging with time, and you will start unlocking some new experiences.
This system still needs a lot of tweaking and balancing, but it is on a good starting place at the moment I think. :)


[h2]New UI Improvements:[/h2]

Location Arrows:
The location row now has arrows that can be pressed to scroll more easily. You can also hold them to fast-scroll to any of the ends of the row.

Swap Action:
You can no swamp cards from row to row by taping on the top or bottom area of a card, depending on which row they are located. In addition to this, you can also hold your click to move stacks faster.

Blueprint and Exploration Bar Improvements:
Blueprint's completion bars now show how many steps they will have, making it easy to get an idea of how big/expensive a project will be.
Exploration bars

Easier Equipping:
Dragging cards to the equipment button will now equip them directly. Making the whole process easier.

Near Death Visual Effects:
The screen will now pulse red, sounds will get muffled and you will be able to hear your heartbeats whenever a stat get too close to a death causing state. We hope this will help avoid distraction deaths considerably. :)

Credit Improvements:
Credits are now on a special button in the main menu and have arrows to navigate them.

Autosave Improvements:
The game now autosaves every 6hs instead of every 24.


[h2]General Changes:[/h2]

- Storm waves can now destroy items from your hand, only items that are equipped or on supply chests are safe. (Chests now also accept clay vases though)
- Increased shelf weight capacity.
- Travelling to and from the rocks now takes 15 minutes.
- Doing exercise burns more calories now.
- Drums no longer have a special screen for choosing rhythm.
- Derealization can now also be experienced without having a mental breakdown.
- Washing yourself now also wets your clothes, although less than swimming.
- Bug protection is now a bit stronger when in high doses.
- Rustic Bed can now be dismantled.
- Traps can no longer be dismantled or rearmed in the dark.
- Rearming traps now increases your trapping skill.
- Reorganized blueprint tabs.
- Fish scraps now taste worse.
- Chances of ruining wood carvings are now lower.
- Dismantling Solar Stills and Raincatchers now requires confirmation.
- The Mud Hut is now a bit cooler.
- Clay Jars can hold half as much liquid as before but slow down spoilage making liquids like kava and spider lily last longer in them.
- Clay Pot Cooler has more capacity now.
- Cooked meals can now be stored in clay pot coolers.
- Food counts as more in the partridge feeder.
- You can now also train climbing at the wetland cliffs.
- It is now a bit harder to get a heatstroke.


[h2]Bug Fixes and Hotfixes from these weeks:[/h2]

- Fixed a bug where the Archer perk would not make you start with the bow and arrow blueprints.
- Fixed a bug where transferring liquids to other containers would reset their durabilities.
- Fixed a bug that would create strange behavior in blueprints.
- Fixed a crash that would happen sometimes when opening inventories.
- Fixed issue with flower durabilities in clayjars and bottles.
- Fixed the stick fuel issue again. :'(
- Made it so that you can burn all types of wood carving now.
- Fixed an issue with that caused sticks to give a lot of fuel.
- Fixed an issue with respawning highland holes.
- Fixed an issue that would trap you in drum hell.
- Made half logs weigh less.
- Fixed a typo on the shield blueprint.
- Fixed a bug that would get players stuck when attacking lizards, boars or cobras with a spear or when attempting to retreat.
- Fixed an issue that was preventing the solar still from been refuelled.

That's all for now!
Hope you have a nice couple weeks until the next update!

Card Survival: Tropical Island - Update 25

Hello everyone!

It's time for the update.

First a small announcement:

We have been working hard on improving the performance of the android version and making UI improvements that will make the experience on the phone (& pc) more pleasurable. Unfortunately, while we wanted to release the android version over the next few days we believe it's probably going to be better to wait one more update before doing so as we would like to test the new version we've been working on a bit more before releasing it. To those participating in our beta, stay tuned we will soon be updating its version!

On another topic, as stated on our update plan, Card Survival has received a new price increase. The game is now 16.99 dollars and will stay that way right until final release.
We'd like to take this opportunity to give a special thank you to all of you early supporters that have purchased our game until now. :)

That said, let's get to the content:


[h2]New Psychological System:[/h2]

Mental Structure:
This is a new hidden stat that governs how confident you are on your own worldview. A high structure stat makes you see the world as a predictable place you understand the rules of, a low structure on the other hand makes you see it as a chaotic and unpredictable place.
Structure will usually increase on its own while you are busy and relaxed, but intense emotions like euphoria, severe depression and severe stress/anxiety will tend to lower it. Feeling too lonely, not getting enough sleep or talking to Weston too often will of course not be the best for your structure either.
If this stat gets very low it will start causing altered mind states that can sometimes end in what some people would call psychotic breaks. The game currently has two of such episodes (although more will be added later) which can be triggered in different circumstances and have their own unique effects..

Stress:
Characters will now get gradually stressed when under pressure. Having wounds, being hungry, thirsty or having worries of any sort will now impact your stress levels. If you stress gets out of control you will start getting anxiety attacks which will make you waste time, damage your mental structure and demoralise you,
To combat this however, you have many options:
- Doing leisure actions such as swimming, playing the drums, carving wood, making sand castles or just plain relaxing.
- Keeping busy with varied tasks and avoiding doing the same actions too frequently in order to stay fresh and focused.
- Drinking Kava, Wine or the new Jasmine tea as well as eating sugary foods.

Morale Changes:
Morale has been tweaked to work with the new mental structure and stress stats. In addition to this, the effects things have on your morale will change based on how saturated you are of them. Therefore you might get some good entertainment out of playing the drums for 2 hours, but after playing them for 7 hours you won't be getting much out of it.
Depression has also been changed now, you will no longer get the event but instead will get a duration penalty to all actions.

Captain:
There is now an Anti-Weston: the Captain. He is a bad imaginary friend that should probably be avoided by most people, unless you are a masochist. The Captain is a very negative character that will try to get you down, lowering your morale in exchange for his company. There are many new features coming from him and Weston coming in the next few updates too!
By the way, the skeleton that used to be in the cave by the rocks has moved to a new location. :)


[h2]New Woodworking Stuff:[/h2]

The woodworking skill can now unlock a lot more things.
Here are some of those things:

- Shavings: These are now created with a blueprint that produces many at once.

- Wood Carvings: You can now create 5 different figurines out of wood which can serve as collectable decorations that you can use to make your house more comfortable by placing them on shelves. Making wood carvings will sometimes produce failed figurines depending on your skill but will also count as entertainment and be great training for your woodworking skills.

- Shield: You can now craft a wooden shield that lowers the chances of getting wounded by Monitor Lizards, Boars and Spitting Cobras.

- Bow and Arrows: These are now unlocked as part of the woodworking skill progression.

- Drum: You can now craft a drum with which to entertain yourself. Initially you will only be able to practice, but as your skill increases you'll unlock new rhythms with different effects. There are only two rhythms to unlock for now but more will be added in the future. It also doubles as decoration for your home.

- Wooden Bed: A new bed that can be crafted with planks, which includes a proper mattress and a feather pillow!






[h2]House Comfort:[/h2]

A new stat, called comfort, has been added. It only exists when you stay in your mudhut or cave base, and it can be increased by adding decorations or furniture. Comfort helps lower stress and raise morale and is a first step towards the new home ending that will be coming in future updates.
Some of the current things that can increase comfort are:
- Stoves
- Wooden Beds
- Drums
- Decorations such as wood carvings or flower jars when placed on shelves.
Some things will also lower comfort however, such as:
- Rotten remains
- Excrement like Manure or Guano
- Various Animal Carcasses


[h2]Jasmine Flowers:[/h2]

A new plant has been added to the jungle. Its flowers can be harvested and used to make jasmine tea, which has a relaxing effect that can help you sleep and lower your stress. In addition to this, jasmine flowers can also be placed on plastic bottles or clay jars to serve as decorations for your home. Make sure to water them if you want them to last longer.
Of course, Jasmine plants can also be grown on crop plots. :)


[h2]Other New Items:[/h2]

Harpoon:
The Harpoon is a new tool/weapon unlocked through your spearfishing skill. It acts as a fishing spear but can be used in the open seas during your raft journey.

Clay jar:
The clay jar is a new liquid container, it cannot contain much liquid but it has a lid that allows it to keep its contents safe from evaporation, making it a good container for vinegar, oil or other useful liquids.

Plastic Bottle:
Plastic bottles are now a rare find in the rocks. They can be used just like clay jars. Some perks will now make characters start with them.

The Hole:
There is now a new location in the highlands, a hole that can be climbed down into provided you have enough rope with you. There are some nice things inside, just make sure your climbing is high enough or you might get stuck down there with pretty bad company. :)

Fishing Lines:
Fishing Rods can now longer be unlocked by crafting a hook but instead will unlock once your fishing skill gets high enough. In the meantime you'll be able to craft fishing lines: cheaper and simpler fishing tools.


[h2]New Character and Perks:[/h2]

There is now a new experimental character: the survivalist.
While the Islander is still supposed to be the ideal character for newcomers, the survivalist is designed to be a more relaxing character for those who want to approach the game in a more relaxed way.
In addition to this there's a couple new perks:
- Loner: It takes longer for you to feel lonely.
- Supply Trunk: Makes you start the game with a chest full of supplies, including fishing lines and water purification tablets.



[h2]Tweaks:[/h2]

- Fish scraps now taste worse, lowering more morale than before.
- Metal Axes now get more wood from wood cutting actions.
- Coconut Water gives a bit less diarrhoea.
- Goats now drink more water.
- Stone Axe is now made with a blueprint and wood handle can no longer be made in the game.
- Some clay blueprints now take a bit longer to craft.
- Learning is now more efficient if done in short sessions.
- Made it a bit more likely for rain to take place in the first week.
- Aloe Vera no longer needs light to be harvested.
- Scarecrows scare seagulls a bit more.
- Shelfs can now carry a bit more weight.
- Woodshavings can no longer be crafted the old way, as they now come from a blueprint.
- Bows and arrows are now unlocked with woodworking.


[h2]Fixes and Hotfixes for the Update:[/h2]

- Fixed rotten coconut duplicating when cracking it on its last tick and other bugs of the sort
- Fixed a bug with cooking pots and other liquid containers moving to different inventories
- Fixed a bug where liquids would disappear from containers
- Fixed bugs where cards would get stuck being greyed out when quickly dragging things around
- Fixed some issues with clothes' durabilities.
- Made it so that smaller items give less food to the partridge feeder.
- Corrected a text that was appearing when the water filter runs out of water.
- Satiation stat no longer says not hungry while it's been filled.
- Cooked Fish should now give cooked fish scraps when eaten.
- Fish scraps are now less nutritious.
- Fixed an issue with the satchel.
- Fixed an issue with the military belt.
- Fixed an issue with sailing.
- Wine now expires faster.
- Tweaked the amount of woodworking skill gained with some tasks.
- Made sure all wood cutting tasks now increase woodworking skill.
- Fixed a bug where liquid containers stacked in inventories would disappear (for instance several waterskins in a backpack would disappear).
- Fixed a bug where environments that had Claypot Coolers in them would not load properly
- Fixed a bug where weapon options (attack with spear or with bow) would not appear in hunting or animal raid events
- Made the Claypot Cooler work with the new weight system


That's all for now. Hope you enjoy the new update! :)

Card Survival: Tropical Island - Update 24

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well!
Let's get straight to the content list this time:

[h2]New Weight System:[/h2]

The new weight system is now live.
Its main features are:

Encumbrance:
This stat is now the primary limiting factor determining how many cards you can carry. Slots still exist, but play now only a secondary role, limiting only the amount of different items you can carry in your hands at a time.
Every item in the game now has an encumbrance stat, a mixture between weight and how cumbersome to move around the item is. Exceeding your encumbrance will give you penalties to movement and stamina, making it harder to move between locations while carrying excessive weight.

Hand Changes:
Items can now be stacked in your hands too. This means that light weight items can now be carried in your hands in large amounts without much trouble and that this row is now a lot more practical buffer for the purpose of managing and organising your base row.
Large items, like long sticks, can also be stacked allowing to finally be able to carry more than 6 at a time. Logs can also be carried to other environments now, provided you have the weight.

Inventory Changes:
Cards now also stack in inventories and are limited only by weight, making them a lot more useful for organisational purposes. A chest can now be filled for example, by a few heavy items or lots of smaller items.
Portable inventories can also stack cards and allow you to extend the amount of weight you can carry by neutralising all of part of the weight of their contents.


Don't hesitate to give us feedback about the new system. We believe it works much better than the old one, specially after you get used to it. It is not just more realistic, but also a lot more practical for organising things and carrying them around.
Of course, we will be balancing it considerably over the next few updates to make sure the costs and benefits of inventories and card weights are appropriate. :)


Note on Clay Pot Coolers:
Clay Pot Coolers where a bit of a special case so we have left them with the old system for now to prevent some issues. We will be pushing a hotfix soon however, that should update this inventory to the new system as well.





[h2]Extras Features:[/h2]

Spindle:
A new tool that can be used to spin cord more efficiently than with your hands. It is unlocked automatically once your tailor skill gets high enough and allows you fill it with fiber, which can then be converted into 2 cords or 1 yarn for a single 15 minutes action. It is also able to make 2 cords out of 3 fibers instead of 4, making it an efficient tool in terms of not only time but resources as well.

Woodworking:
In preparation for some upcoming changes, a new woodworking skill has been added.
The skill can Initially be increased by cutting wood or felling large trees but once it's high enough it will start unlocking new blueprints which will also be able to help increase it.
At the moment there are only two blueprints, but many more will be following soon:
- Planks: Which can be crafted from logs and will be used for more advanced constructions and crafts.
- Shelves: A very cheap storage card for the upper row that can only be placed inside Mud Huts.

Vinegar:
Wine will now turn into vinegar when spoiled. This new liquid can now be used as a replacement for rennet so that people can make cheese without needing to have access to a dead baby goat.
Vinegar has no other uses for now but I'm sure that will change over the next few updates.

Credits:
We implemented a first version of the credits section. For now it can only be accessed in the options but we will plan to make it more accessible in future updates.



[h2]Minor Changes:[/h2]

- Edible multi-use items have now been made single use, but are now found in larger quantities.
- Milk can now last longer when stored in a clay pot coolers.
- Hyperthermia now takes considerably longer to kill you.
- Bedroll recipe is now divided into 2 shorter steps.
- Lactating goats can now be carried around.
- Goats now get stressed when there's too much poop in their enclosure. (make sure to keep it clean!)
- Increased the amount of snake grass produced by crop plots so it's a more viable way to feed goats.
- Sugar is no longer made with a blueprint, but simple by cooking sap (similar to how you get salt).
- Lemongrass now takes longer to rot.
- Depression events and sleep will now get interrupted if you're too hot.


[h2]Fixes and Hotfixes for the Update:[/h2]

- Fixed a serious bug that was teleporting containers from enclosure to enclosure.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the bedroll to lose durability over time.
- Fixed issue that would allow you to create ash water in any container.
- Fixed an issue with goat lactation.
- Fixed a bug related to goat kids growth.
- Fixed some issues with goat stress.
- Fixed an issue that was causing feeding troughs to disappear when multiple enclosures existed.
- Fixed a bug that was causing goat kids to turn into adults when killed.
- Fixed a bug that prevented starting fires with mirrors on some cases.
- Fixed a bug that was causing goat hunting events to drop partridges.
- Fixed an issue where excessive heat wouldn't interrupt your depression event.


That is all for now.
See you in the next update! :)