Card Survival: Fantasy Forest News

Hello again!

Today we have another patch and also a message to tell you what our plan for the first stage of the Early Access is.
You can find the patch at the end of this message. ;)



[h2]The Road Ahead:[/h2]

As you know we are working hard to address the most important issues reported.
Here is a list of them and what we are doing to correct them:


- Quests are too Constraining:
We have added the ability to skip the tutorial quests, added a free mode, and we are now working on implementing the Research System we had in Tropical Island. We believe we should have it up and running a few days from now. :)

- Screen too Dark:
We will be adding a brightness slider to the options as soon as we are done with the Research System.
While we know this will not solve all related issues it should hopefully help make things better.

- Food Rots too fast and Starving all the time:
We have substantially increased the shelf-life of most edibles in the game. We have also reworked satiation so that it now takes 10 additional hours to reach the ravenous (hungriest) state which we believe is more realistic than what we had before and works much better.

- Getting Lost in the Woods:
We're already working on the first update (called the Exploration Update) which should include many new landmarks for the forest, some special things to find while foraging and a way to find your way if you get lost. We believe these things will help enrich the forest and make it more interesting to explore.

- Not Enough Content:
Once the other main issues have been addressed, the plan we have is to keep releasing regular content updates every 1-2 weeks while we work on improving performance.
Here are some of the things you can expect from the next updates;
- Squirrel and Partridge Spirits.
- Archery with different arrow types and enchantable arrows.
- Toxins for weapons and arrows.
- Household Spirits.
- Salves, Soap and Candles.
- Bread Making.
- Beer Brewing.
- Snow Shoes.

Once performance is in a place we are happy with and we feel we have released enough updates we will proceed to release the first big update (the Mountain one), which should increase the map size and add a good amount of additional content, including new animals (normal and legendary), a metallurgy system featuring multiple metals and a lot more.


[h2]Patch Notes for EA_0.09[/h2]

- Fixed a bug where dropping cards into other rooms in your mud hut would make them disappear.
- Updated the Chinese and Korean localizations.
- Cellar inside the mud hut can no longer be built in a river or wetland location.
- Physical trait no longer gives you wellbeing when entering and exiting the Waterfall Caves.
- Kiln Now reaches max Temperature in 6 hours.
- Fresh, cooked and dried Forest Caps can now be boiled.
- Added dismantle action to all the leather and fur items and they now return the exact materials they were made from.
- Tweaked Satiation status visualisation.
- It is now possible to collect unsafe water in flooded tunnel. Boil it to make it safe.
- River, Frozen River and Ice Hole now show up in Food filter.
- Carnivore and Herbivore perks are now mutually exclusive.
- Knife Sheath can now be enchanted and properly reduces the weight of its contents.
- Pine areas temporarily spawn Oak Trees until the Pines are fully implemented.
- Ice holes now disappear when a frozen river thaws.
- Fixed the missing art for Dormant Appleweed.
- Fixed spirits having weight.
- Flute Compose action will no longer Compose songs which were already composed.
- Frostbite and Frostnip should no longer happen if you warm up when you wake up from the Cold.


[h2]Final Notes:[/h2]

To all the players that were disappointed with Fantasy Forests, we will be working on ways to improve our communication with you, so that we can get to know each other better and not disappoint you again.

And, to all our players, thank you for giving us your support, and please let's all be nice to each other and not fight!
We'll do our best so that this game keeps being or becomes a good game for all of you.

We are very excited for the months, and years to come!
We hope you'll all stay with us and help us make Fantasy Forest one of the largest and most complete survival simulation games out there. :)

Hello everyone!

Version EA_0.08 is live!

- Fixed several bugs related to blueprints not unlocking properly, especially ones existing inside items like the yarn in the spindle (it might require to do at least one action to refresh things when loading a save).
- Herbology Skill now gives a bonus chance of finding herbs when Foraging (but foraging aid has been nerfed at low levels).
- Workplace bonus now properly gives Wellbeing (instead of Morale).
- Dismantling a Flint Spear no Longer drops a Rope.
- Fixed the issue with Squirrels having 0 Quality.
- Leather Shoes, Leather Gloves and Fur Mittens now provide a bit of protection in combat.
- Leather and Fur Clothing now properly give wellbeing based on their quality.
- Fur Coat no longer makes you warm if it is stored inside your equipped bag.
- Fixed inconsistencies with durability when drying raw and cooked meats.
- Turnroot now properly turns into dormant Turnroot when reaching 0 health.
- Added art for the Field.

See you in the next patch!

Hello everyone!
Hope you're all doing well.

Here's the patch notes for today.

[h2]Version EA_0.07:[/h2]

• Fixed a bug that would get the game stuck when travelling to an area where a fox carcass had rotted.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "confirm" popup for certain actions would appear too high on the screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Eat All" action would appear on bowls that only contained a liquid (like tea for instance).
  
• Satiation overhaul: After having a big meal it takes significantly longer for the player to drop all the way down to 0 satiation.
  
• Washing yourself in a River or with a Water Container no longer makes your clothes Wet.
  
• Oven can now be Extinguished just like Campfire can.
  
• Cellar passive effect for food preservation is not working as intended and is temporarily disabled.
  
• Quite a few perk combinations such as Social/Loner are now mutually exclusive.
  
• Added fat chunk to the food filter.
  
• Extended the duration of dried meat.
  

That's all for now.
See you tomorrow!

Hello again everyone!

Another day, another patch.

The main addition we have today is a proper Free Mode. Basically it makes you start with all blueprints and improvements unlocked without having to deal with the quests. So if you want to be completely free to play in any way you want, this is the mode for you.

Currently we are working on addressing some of the main concerns that have been raised, finishing the remaining art, and focusing on fixing as many bugs as we can.

The next improvement is going to be a balance pass to hunger/satiation.

Thank you all for reporting bugs and issues and for giving us your trust and support!

[h2]Patch notes version EA_0.06:[/h2]

- New Free mode is now available.
- The All Knowing Perk now also unlocks improvements.
- Nesting Box is now buildable in the Enclosure again.
- Fixed a bug that was causing some construction quests not to complete (Enclosure, Cellar).
- Added some cellar art as well as art for the snow pile.
- Meats can now be boiled.
- Fixed a problem that was causing Foxes to have negative quality.
- Mittens now also protect you from rashes when harvesting Nettles.
- Animal Rituals no longer hide a button when a carcass doesn't have a spirit.

That's all for now.
See you tomorrow!

Hello everyone!

What a day!
It started good, then turned into a bit of a roller coaster, then crashed and burned!
We didn't expect that wave of negative reviews from China and it has affected us quite a bit.
At the current rate, if things don't change we'll probably be reaching a negative reception rating this Saturday. I suspect we may even reach a record in negative reviews!
We're still alive and working though! And, on the bright side, for what's worth our reception in the rest of the world is sitting at good 91% approval rating!


[h2]Negative Reviews:[/h2]

There's a combination of factors that lead to this situation, one is that our Chinese community had joined Tropical Island as it was just out of Early Access, and we think they didn't have a measure of the progress that our games go through from EA to release.

We know Fantasy Forest is still far from finished, and that it's far from the goals and ambitions we have for it. But we also know that it already has more content than Tropical Island did when it first came out in Early Access, and having played the game for hundreds of hours, we trust in our vision. To those of you who might be harbouring doubts, we would like to ask that you have faith in us. We will continue to work hard and iterate, and with the feedback of the community we can really make the game a lot better than its predecessor.

This is how we work, we start small, and then grow from there.

Your feedback is very valuable, but sending it to us in the form of a negative review can really be detrimental to the future of the game. With us being a small team and the game having a relatively small audience, every negative review has a lot of impact, including on us as individuals. If you want to let us know what you think, please consider doing it through our Discord server, the Steam forums, the QQ group or our personal email. Of course you are free to leave a review if you didn't enjoy the game, but please keep in mind that these alternatives exist if you want to communicate your feedback to us.

As it stands, we have been greatly affected by this wave of negative reviews from our Chinese playerbase, so if you like our game and think our project is worth it but have yet to leave a review, please consider doing so. It would greatly help us retain some visibility on Steam during these important days after the release.

And to those of you who have written positive reviews, thank you for your support, we're very happy that you like the game, you really keep us going. 🙂

Speaking of feedback, we wanted to address some of the main recurring themes that we found in the reviews:



[h2]Feedback:[/h2]


- Getting lost in the woods...
I understand that many of you don't like this, so we'll be working on some features to alleviate some of those concerns, including drawing more art for the locations.

- Food rots too fast!
We hear you! This is something we've been tweaking again and again, but perception is that things are still rotting too fast. This has been fixed as of now.

- Quests vs Freedom!
We understand some players perceive that quests are too constraining.
We will be working on releasing a quest-less mode soon for those of you who want it. In the meantime, if you really dislike quests, you can also equip the "All Knowing" perk, which should unlock all blueprints from the start.

- The game is not finished enough:
Unfortunately there's not much I can say about this one. We are going to be working hard on adding more content, but know that there is already a large amount of new things to experience in Fantasy Forest. The game has enough content for dozens of hours and you should definitely try to survive winter and try the magic system.



[h2]Tonight's Patch:[/h2]

We have just pushed a new patch with some nice new additions that we believe should address some of the issues mentioned before.

- Tutorial Skipping:
The tutorial can now be skipped when starting a new game. This should unlock all basic blueprints, unlock the first branching quests and make you start directly in the river clearing.

- Rot Nerf:
We have substantially increased the time carcasses, meats, mushrooms and nettle leaves take to rot.

- Fishing Buff:
It should now be easier to catch fish in Summer. Both in terms of chances and fish variety.

- Help Screens:
We've added 3 help screens to help players learn the basics of the UI and well as many tips on how to get the most of the advanced interface features.




[h2]Official Patch Notes since release:[/h2]


- Added help screens.
- Added the possibility to skip the tutorial.
- Improved Chop Wood subquest text to make it less confusing.
- Eat actions no longer costs any stamina.
- Boiled Moss is now shown in the food filter.
- Improvised Bed now drops the materials it was made from.
- Deconstructing an Improvised Shelter no longer destroys its inventory contents.
- Increased Fish variety and doubled catch rates of Fish in Summer.
- Significantly increased the amount of time carcasses, meat, forest caps and nettle leaves need to rot.


That is all for now.
See you in the next announcement!