Card Survival: Fantasy Forest News

Hello everyone!

New patch! Today we're introducing a few more areas to the northern parts of the forest, a couple of new "plants" to further differentiate pine woods, and many fixes and balance tweaks as usual.

The highlights of the patch are:

[h3]Fly Agaric:[/h3]
A new mushroom that can be found in pine areas. While toxic in its natural form, it can be made edible by boiling it or oven-dried to access its spiritual properties. It works as a cheaper alternative to spirit mushrooms that while more abundant, needs to be processed before it can be used.

[h3]Heather:[/h3]
A new plant that can be found in pine clearings. Its flowers can be used to make a calming tea that helps with respiratory infections and will be loved by bees once they're introduced in the near future.

[h3]Additional Things:[/h3]
Three new areas have been added to the bear territory, including a new pine clearing, grove and river bank.
Both springberries and billberries can now be properly grown in garden plots.


And here's our list of fixes and tweaks:

[h2]Version EA_0.39[/h2]

- Improved feedback on how tasty the food is when eating.
- Added a weapon selection screen at the start of fights.
- Added 3 new areas to the north of the map.
- Added Fly Agaric and Heather.
- Springberries and Billberries can now be farmed.
- Reduced the Woodworking requirement to unlock the simple Bow on Research mode.
- Summonings now allow you to cast spells more times and their power no longer goes down over time (they will leave you however after 3 days).
- Dry Needles now give more acidity to Gardens than Dry Leaves do.
- Significantly Increased the upper boundary for Archery Skill and slowed down training speed.
- Bow can now become much more powerfull but it takes a lot longer to get there.
- Trapped animals should no longer be pushed out of traps when caught.
- Storing Lures in Storage Containers no longer reduces their durability over time
- Domesticated Partridges can no longer be put inside the travois, but can now stack (so you can "carry" as many as you want in your hand).
- Candles now have new icons for fuel percentage
- Fixed the Cellar Filth Icons.
- Making ropes now gives a bit of tailoring experience.
- Shadow blessing status now properly displays as a buff.
- Mining from the Motherlode now finishes the Mine some Flint subquest.
- Cutting the overgrowth in overgrown tunnel now spends a proper amount of stamina.
- Cauldron water with no ingredients no longer gains quality over time and can't be stirred.
- Crafting cloth on loom now gives tailoring skill (Cloth Shirt gets quality from high tailoring skills).
- Raw Healers moss now gives a wellbeing penalty when eaten and boiled does not ( before it was the oposite which was not intended ).
- Door Improvement now properly stops animals on low trust from running away when player is away.
- Fixed a bug which caused Clay Jars on shelfs and Fireplace to increase the comfort of player wherever he was.
- Wind spirit now properly increases Wind Urge.
- Added alcohol to the chemicals tab.
- Funnel traps now have proper weight and no longer drop heavy stones when destroyed or get destroyed while in flood-safe containers.
- Rocky bank and Southern Rapids should no longer give pine nuts when foraging but pine cones instead.
- Tannins from Leather can now be washed with River and Unsafe water stored in your containers.
- Fixed a bug which caused Partridges to increase Bird Affinity even when not in same area with the player.
- Oaken Grove and Shady Grove fauna description fix, added Foxes to the list.
- All newly made Travois now drop what they were made from when dismantled or broken.
- Boiling Healers Moss now removes some of the spoilage.
- Smokehouse now displays all the changing stat when drying raw fish meat.

[h2]Hotfixes since the last Patch:[/h2]
- Torch is no longer destroyed when lighting fires.
- Fixed a bug which caused a certain discomfort level to drain too much wellbeing.
- Fixed a bug which allowed the player to transfer the Spirit liquid from the enchanted Knife Sheath to other objects which can hold it.
- Lit Torch can now be used to start a Fire at Campfires and other similar structures.
- It is no longer possible to season raw pine nuts with raw pine nuts or roasted pine nuts with roasted pine nuts.
- Fixed a bug which prevented roasted berries from drying.
- BasicPottery: Make Clay subquest will now complete if you make it out of fine dirt.
- Rebalanced the Comfort gain from Clay Jars and Woodcarvings placed on shelves.
- Clothing items now affect stats only if they are directly equipped.
- Fixed a bug which prevented the Improvised Bed from being repaired with Fresh Leaves.
- Fixed the Icon for the Ash Water liquid temperature durability.
- Added Bears to the Fauna Help Section of areas in which you can encounter one.
- Moving in and out of Bear Cave no longer makes you wet.
- Bear Carcass no longer has Boar Enchanments (bear enchantments will come later).
- Fly Lure and Fish Lure now starts at max durability and loses durability when used for fishing.




That's all for now.
See you next time for the Trader update!



Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there and are likely to undergo balance changes quite frequently! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/

Hello everyone!

Today we're finally updating the main branch of the game with all the things we've been adding to the beta branch over the last few weeks.

We're also posting our first wave of answers from the Q&A:

[h2]Q&A 1:[/h2]

Thank you all for sending your questions for the Q&A. We decided that we'll be spreading our answers over a few different announcements so that they won't become too long!
If your questions haven't been answered yet don't worry, they will be in future announcements soon. And if you wanted to ask a question but haven't yet don't worry either, you can still ask it and we'll answer it in a future Q&A. :)
Also, some of the questions had to be shortened to fit the Q&A format or merged because another similar question already existed, hope I didn't miss anything because of that!


1) Could we dig for dirt if we aim the shovel to the location?
Yes, we could implement that again. :)

2) What were the inspirations for Card Survival? 
There wasn't any specific inspiration. I guess a bit of everything. I always liked survival games very much. The Long Dark, Unreal World, Green Hell, are all games I enjoyed quite a bit. 
We already had made a prototype for a text/menu only survival game with Plissken in the past and one day, when he was visiting and we were going for a walk, we had the idea to turn it into a survival prehistoric card game. We started working on it and it eventually turned into Card Survival: Tropical Island!

3) Were there any particular features or ideas you wanted to/tried to include in tropical island but couldn't for whatever reason?
Lots of things: Proper Sailing, Procedural Islands, complex NPCs, more creative systems, and many other things... Fortunately, some of these ideas are planned to be implemented or already partly implemented in Fantasy Forest.

4) Favorite games both old and new?
It's hard to know which are your favourite games but some of the games that have been important in our lives are:
Gwim: Duke Nukem 3D, Starcraft, AVP2, Dwarf Fortress, The Long Dark.
Plissken: Link's Awakening, Half-Life 2, Ark, Super Smash Bros, Disco Elysium.
Neomare: Heroes of Might & Magic 3, FTL, Vermintide 2,  CS:TI, Tainted Grail: Conquest

5) Is Steam Workshop integration planned for the future? I feel like the first game would have had much more longevity and reach if modding had been easier and more widespread.
Yes, Steam Workshop integration is planned. We want to make Fantasy Forest as mod friendly as we can. This will have to wait until the game is a lot more advanced however. For now we have our hands full. :)

6) Will there be victory conditions like in Tropical Island?
Yes, there are multiple victory conditions planned (at least 4). They will be introduced once we feel like there's enough content in the game for them.

7) Are changes expected to come to the skill novelty system?
Skill gain is going to go through a lot of iterations before we leave Early Access. We are trying to pace skill gains in players by gradually raising their practical skill caps as we introduce new content. You can still become a master at any skill if you're willing to grind but this will become easier as more content is added.

8) Will there be different characters/szenarios like in the first part?
Yes, we have 4 characters coming. For now we're just waiting for more of the forest and its content to be in place. Once there's enough we'll start adding them one by one. Things might change but the current character list is:
- The Witch:
An apprentice witch with good starting conditions and whose progression contains a mixture of foraging, agriculture and magic.
- The Hunter:
A character that is mostly geared towards hunting ever greater prey, and sometimes being hunted in return.
- Isekai'd Tourist:
The old tourist makes a return! An advanced character that starts in dire conditions and has to find his place in this new world, and perhaps find love and start a family!
- The Man-Beast:
A difficult character like the mermaid. This adventure is a feral and nomadic one, mostly about surviving on the edge and eventually assembling your pack and becoming the king of the forest!

9) What are your plans for difficulty? Given this game is larger than tropical island, do you plan for the game to keep its difficulty into further years, or do you plan the game to be more sand-boxy after the first year?
Probably a mix of both, but depending on your playstyle it could become more challenging or sandboxy.
Our idea is to keep introducing challenges in the later years. Some will just be random, but others will be based on your actions.
Here are some examples of late years challenges:
- Colder Years
- Drier Years
- Crop Blights
- Mental/Spiritual Issues.
- Meeting trading demands.
- Meeting Family, Friends and other NPC demands.
- Unique Dangerous Beasts.

10) What is the charcoal powder intended to use for?
For now, treating diarrhoea. More uses will come in the future.

11) Do you have any plans for a taming system?
Yes. Currently only partridges and boars can be tamed but eventually we would like players to be able to tame just about anything, from bears to squirrels. Some animals will of course still be quite wild even after being tamed but the option will be there.

12) Is there any chance we might see stronger incentives to maintain high Morale in the future?
Yes definitely. Especially once we introduce more mental/spiritual issues (including loneliness), but also as we continue to tweak things like the immune system.

13) When we do get the last big update on npcs and the ability to impregnate or get impregnated, will we have actual babies to take care of and watch them grow up?  Will there be a cap to how many babies you can have?
Yes, you will have actual babies you have to take care of and watch grow up and cause trouble. :)
Eventually they should become adults too. I don't think we'll have a cap on how many babies you can have, but performance will probably suffer if you go too crazy.

14) What are your end goals for the bacteria system in food? Will some food items rot after they reach 100% bacteria?
Most items should already rot if they reach maximum bacteria. If there's any specific item that is not rotting let us know and we'll fixt it!
Other than that we still need to iterate on and improve the balancing of the immune system and the amount of bacteria you get from food.

15) Is it possible to raise creatures other than pigs and birds? Maybe deer or badgers? Or new creatures of the future?
Yes. We want to give players the chance to both tame and raise all types of creatures. This will include crows, squirrels, bears, wolves, and basically any animal you can find in the game. If it's in the game we want players to be able to tame them and breed them.

16) When will the cooking system be released? Will it provide buffs?
The cooking system is already partly released, although it's still missing many features, including some important ones.
Our next patch should be releasing some feedback improvements so that the act of eating tasty food can feel more rewarding. The next improvement coming to the cooking system after that is the ability to create your own recipes. These recipes will be stored with your blueprints so that you can easily remake them whenever you want. Basically, a bit like the recipes in Tropical island but designed by you.
The closest thing this system has and will have to buffs, is the ability to get bonuses from combining the right types of foods. This is currently mostly reflected in wellbeing bonuses (which have an effect on morale) and will eventually also reflect on satiation and food saturation.

17) Amulets that have been enchanted with spirit power still work when stored in a bag. Personally, I don’t think this should be considered a bug. Why shouldn’t they work when stored in a bag? 
Is it possible you were playing on the main branch instead of the beta one where this fix was? If that's not the case perhaps there's some enchantment we missed? If it's still happening after reading this please let us know and we'll get it fixed as soon as possible.
The in-world explanation is that an enchanted item needs to be close to your person to work, not forgotten in a bag among many. :)
The design explanation is that we've been balancing enchantments to work as an optional thing that can help your playstyle, not as a requirement for survival. So while we don't want to stop players from enchanting all their equipment if they want to, we also don't want to foment that as we think that would be a bit of a chore and not vibe that well with the rest of the game. Giving players the possibility to carry dozens of enchantments in bags, on top of all their clothes is also a bit too much and too overpowered for us to be able to balance the rest of the game properly.

18) What is your ultimate vision for this game? What do you hope it will eventually become?
We'd like this game to become a little life simulation. We want a deep sandbox that is challenging and coherent enough to feel real, while open and varied enough that players can use it to explore themselves, their needs and their desires. If I'm allowed to go full delirious with this answer, I'd say my dream would be for people to feel like they are living a little simplified life in this forest and use it to get more in touch with their true selves. Of course, it probably won't get to be that, but if it gets to be even a 1/100th of that I will be happy! 

19) If the plan is to shape the game gradually based on player feedback, how do you ensure that the development pace can keep up with the speed of that feedback?
Our development process is quite organic and open to change based on player feedback but it still has a vision and a plan.
A lot of design work has gone into this project, and it includes a very large forest map, a very long content progression, planned systems and more features that all connect to each other. This vision and plan acts as a frame in which we can add lots of things without losing direction.
We feel that through our development tools and our plan frame we are able to add player requested features and system improvements quite a bit without being slowed down too much. We feel this is one of the special things of the Card Survival series. :)

20) What kind of system will you use to consistently and effectively collect input from players?
We traditionally get most of our feedback from Discord and from comments in the Steam forums since those are the platforms most accessible to us. We also get some reports from our friends in the Chinese community.
With the addition of the in-game bug report feature we can now also collect input from anyone regardless of their access to any platform and we are hoping that by having frequent in-game Q&A announcements like this one we can keep ourselves more aware of what people have on their minds!

That's all the questions we'll be answering today. We'll answer more next week!

See you later in the week for the new content patch!

Hello everyone!

[h2]Q&A:[/h2]
First, before anything, I wanted to announce that we're planning to have a Q&A.
We have created a new channel on our discord server (https://discord.gg/fR9ak4TAqC) where you can ask questions about anything Fantasy Forest or Winterspring Games related. We've also added a post on steam (https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600777204942561315/) where you can post your Q&A questions if you don't have access to discord.

We will be gathering questions for a week or so and we will then publish our answers with an announcement.
So if you would like to ask anything just drop us a question and we'll add it to our list!


The main highlight for today's patch is the:

[h2]Map Expansion (part 2) & Bear![/h2]
We continue to expand the map to the north. This time by adding a few more pine areas, a continuation of the river and a new cave, which comes with a resident: the bear!
The bear is a very dangerous animal that should not be bothered! It sleeps during winter and wanders the northern pine woods the rest of the year.


[h2]What's coming next:[/h2]

Next week we'll be further expanding the new northern area and adding new plants that grow in the pine woods.
After that we are preparing a big update that will introduce the Trader, the Rye crop, and its products.
Following that, we will continue to expand to the north, add new content, improve our existing systems (cooking and construction in particular) and add copper once the necessary areas have been introduced.


[h2]Version EA_0.38:[/h2]

- Fixed a bug where an amulet enchanted with a spirit would apply its effect if you had it stored inside a sack.
- Fixed a bug where some pinned stats would stay visible after being unpinned.
- Fixed a bug where Last Season and Last Year checkpoints would be wrong and point to earlier than the actual last season or year.
- Fixed a bug where overwriting a custom save file would delete another custom save file.
- Custom saves in the Save and Load menu are now sorted with the most recent saves at the top.
- Made some fixes to the "Brace" spear action so that it now can be activated properly against charging enemies.
- Added Bear Cave and Bear.
- Added 3 new locations.
- Boars with high Weight stat no longer consume additional food.
- Traveling North from Wind Grove now shows the proper fadeout message.
- Weapon Coatings no longer spoil faster if stored inside Storage Containers.
- Fixed a bug which caused eating fresh and boiled turnroot to give you big amounts of negative wellbeing.
- Raw bugs now show boiled and cooked durabilities hinting at that they can be roasted and boiled.
- Fixed a bug which prevented the player from placing down sharpened stone blueprints.
- Charcoal can now be Milled in Quern Stones.
- Added help sections to nettle cards.



That's all for now.
See you on the next announcement!



Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there and are likely to undergo balance changes quite frequently!
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/

Hello everyone!

Hope you're doing well.

Today's highlights are:


[h2]Map Expansion:[/h2]
4 new areas have been added to the map.
These areas can be reached through the old pine areas, or by climbing from Greenfalls and Secret Grove. They feature a new river location (the southern rapids) which counts as an acidic river and is great for fishing trout, and a new Shrine, called the Wind Pine.
Next week we will be expanding these areas further and adding a new animal to them! Can you guess which?

[h2]Wind Spirits:[/h2]
With the addition of the wind Shrine, players will now be able to get Wind spirits. These spirits increase your alertness, help you dodge and help you recover stamina faster.
The wind shrine was supposed to be more complex (requiring you to climb to use it) but it was a bit buggy and we decided to push a simplified version of it. You should get the proper one next week once we've had more time to work on it. :)

[h2]Weapon Enchantments:[/h2]
Weapons and arrows can now be enchanted with spirits to improve their effectiveness in combat. Different spirits will give you different bonuses. If you enchant an arrow with a wind spirit for example, it will be more likely to hit its target, while a wolf spirit might help an arrow pierce its target better.
Be warned though, weapon enchantments will only grant you combat bonuses, and not the usual practical passives.



[h2]Version EA_0.37 and Hotfixes since the last Announcement:[/h2]


- Fixed a bug which caused Springberry Syrup to turn into Birch Wine.
- Fixed a bug which prevented making another ice hole if an old one disappeared.
- Tweaked the requirements Water Spirit Summonings so they match the Storage Pot capacity.
- Poor Quality Leather Tunic, Leather Trousers and Fur Coat no longer give negative wellbeing.
- Added Dry Needles to the game. You get them by waiting for fresh needles to dry.
- Animals now properly visit the location between the Shady Grove and Deer Grove
- 4 new Pine New Areas in north part of the map: High Grove, Mountain Grove, Cliff Thicket and Southern Rapids
- Changed the location of Wind Grove, High Grove its in its location and Wind Grove is now one location to the North
- New Spirit Shrine: Wind Pine with Wind Blessings, Enchantments and Summoning availables.
- Spirit now improve the combat values of the weapons they have enchanted.
- Some Spirit Enchants now repair the durability of an item they are enchanted on a bit.
- Sealing and unsealing the Fermentation Bin no longer pushes items out.
- Fixed the blueprint issue which prevented funnel traps from being built.
- Dried nettles now take much longer to spoil.
- More Water types can now be used to make Tanning Water.
- Funnel Trap Blueprint fix.
- Fishing out a Minnow no longer displays "No Luck..."
- Placed Clay storage Pots now cool down properly.
- Fixed a bug which caused Salves and Ointments to lose their spoilage faster when stored inside Storage Containers.
- Added sugar saturation to the saturations tab.
- Fixed a bug which sometimes prevented sap and must from turning into a Syrup.
- Fishing Bait now shows proper message when it spoils.
- Fixed a bug which prevented the Boar Female to progress the first stage of its pregnancy while the player was away.
- Added a fix so that old saves get a fish population boost to compensate for their rivers being empty.
- Extinguished Fireplace now accepts Cold Resin.



That's all for now!
See you next week with more new content!


Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/

Hello everyone!

New update!

The highlights are all fish oriented.

[h2]Fishing Improvements:[/h2]
Areas have been made a bit more distinctive fishing-wise and now have their own more limited fish populations. As a result fishing is now generally easier provided you alternate your fishing spots and don't overfish too much, so that populations can have a chance to recover.

In addition to this we've also added a couple artificial lures and a funnel trap that can be deployed in the river and passively catch fish for you.


[h2]Version EA_0.36:[/h2]

- Further reduced the occurrence of the "payload is too big" error in the bug report system.
- Food items should no longer increase spoilage when being processed and there have been new tweaks to the amount of bacteria removed when cooking or boiling.
- Improvements and rebalancing of the fishing system.
- Added the funnel trap and the two new lures.
- Fixed an issue which made it hard for Female Boars to get pregnant in the open.
- Animals no longer get a happiness penalty from feeling overcrowded when outdoors.
- Animals are now properly getting a happiness bonus when grazing outdoors.
- It is no longer possible to place live boars inside storage pots, baskets and sacks.
- Tranquilizer Coating now has proper name when applied to a Weapon.
- Milling Bones inside a Quern now gives proper amounts of Bonemeal.
- Burnt stones can now be milled inside Querns.
- Unsafe and River Water now display a proper message when boiled.
- Significantly reduced liquid capacity of Storage Pots.
- Rain Cistern is now much bigger and collects Rain Water faster but the liquid capacity of Storage Pots has been reduced.
- Eating Foods Spiced with Frostleaf Powder now properly gives the Frostleaf Effect.
- Tweaked Egg saturation.


That's all for now!
See you all for the next patch!


Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/