Card Survival: Fantasy Forest News

Hi everyone!
I hope you all had a good start of the year!

We wanted to say hi and update you on how we're doing.
As some of you know, we started a small closed beta in December and over the past few weeks we've been gathering feedback, fixing bugs and continuing to add features. We're happy with the reception the game has gotten so far and are really looking forward to releasing it!

The main things stopping us from releasing at the moment are:

• Missing Art (yes, I'm still not done... there's just too many cards...)
  
• Some visual improvements to how the game looks (some people have complained about the visuals being too dark, saturated and overwhelming).
  
• A few annoying bugs we wouldn't feel comfortable releasing the game with.
  
• Some balancing issues regarding farming and fishing.
  

Once these issues have been solved we'll be releasing the game at the earliest possible opportunity. We're hoping this can be done in February.

Thank you all very much for your patience!
We really hope you'll enjoy Card Survival: Fantasy Forest, once it's finally out!

Hello everyone!
I hope you're all well.

Delays...

We wanted to tell you that unfortunately, we won't be able to release Fantasy Forest at the end of November like we wanted.

We have been working hard for a long time now and we really tried to make it for this date, but here we are... I should admittedly have been more conservative with my time estimations. We make games in an iterative way that is hard to plan and organize things around, and, as it's often said, the last 10% usually takes as long as the rest...
We hope you're not too disappointed by this, we're very close to being ready... just not there yet.

The content is basically there, and things are relatively well balanced (at least for an early access title that's going to be receiving lots of updates) but I'm still quite behind on art, and there are some polishing issues we wanted to have ready for release that have been taking longer than expected.

What to expect.

We're definitely not going to be releasing in November and we don't really want to give another date again, for fear of not making it. What we can tell you is that we are close. It might happen in December, it might happen in January. But it's not far.
We are also thinking of starting a small closed beta soon. Probably in December. So some of you on Discord might receive some DMs in the near future.

That's all we had to say, See you all soon, hopefully for the release.
Now we'll get back to work!

Hello everyone!
I hope you are all doing well. It's been a while since the last announcement, and we wanted to give you a new update.

First, we're happy to announce that we're finally ready to share an official-ish date for our Early Access release.
If all goes according to plan, Card Survival: Fantasy Forest will technically be available by the end of November.

Once the game is out, we'll start rolling out new updates with additional content, just like we did with Tropical Island. However, unlike the mini-weekly updates of the past, we plan to launch larger, more significant updates every few months. These updates will be unlocking 3 additional forest regions, new items and structures to craft, new animals, plants, agents and more.

That said, here's a full list of all the things that you can actually expect in the first version of the Early Access:

- Lots of Survival Content:
Enough content to last you for at least 3 in-game years if not more (each year lasting 120 days).
From Wooden Cabins that can be expanded with cellars and interconnected rooms, a food flavour system that allows for creative cooking, or a complete combat overhaul with lots of moves, feints, and many other features, to fully improved systems for food preservation, herbalism, gardening, leatherworking, farming, animal rearing, weaving, hunting, general crafting and more.
The character creator will also be available, with enough perks to let you create your desired character.

- Exploration & Central Forest Region:
Exploration has been fully overhauled, featuring a less abstract system that lends itself better to foraging, tracking and the discovery of new places.
The available region features a river, a cave complex with multiple flint veins, wet forests to the south, oak groves at the center and pine groves to the north, as well as numerous clearings.
Future updates will include the regions adjacent to this central area, including a large swamp, a higher altitude pine forest and a mysterious oak expanse.

- New Weather System:
Featuring four separate seasons, humidity and cloud formation mechanics, different interacting winds and numerous weather phenomena including rainfall, snowfall, storms and blizzards.
Areas can get progressively covered in snow to the point of making travelling difficult and water bodies can freeze. Animals also adapt their behaviour based on temperature and season. For instance, stags may become more aggressive during autumn while wolves may expand their territories as they grow hungrier during winter.



- Forest Fauna, Hunting and Husbandry:
The starting region features many animals, including squirrels, mice, badgers, foxes, partridges, deers, boars and wolves.
Most of them real agents capable of moving across the forest on their own, leaving tracks for those skilful enough to see them.
They can all be hunted and trapped, and some like the Partridges and Boars can be tamed and bred with a new more robust animal husbandry system that lets them graze on their own among other things. Combat and tracking have also been made substantially more realistic and interesting.



- Forest Flora, Gardening and Farming:
A new gardening system that replaces the old crop plots and is best for growing wild plants and smaller amounts of vegetables. Different plants have different requirements in terms of nutrient levels, humidity and acidity and can lend you their medicinal and culinary properties.
Crop Fields can be built on forest clearings (be them natural occurring or artificially created) and harvested for substantial yields of food and fodder. Different crops will have different effects on the soil; like damaging or repairing its structure or depleting or restoring its nutrients. For this reason special attention needs to be paid on what to plant each year in order to avoid depleting or damaging the soil.



- Digestive System Overhaul:
The digestive system has been greatly improved and now tracks vitamins, proteins and fibers. Vitamins and proteins affect your immune system, mood, energy levels and wound recovery among other things. While fiber plays a role with a newly added and fully functional excretory system capable of passing stools and urine.
This new system should increase realism and immersion while also giving you incentives to eat varied foods. Especially during winter when less food is available!

- UI Improvements:
The UI has been improved to make it less confusing. Stats now appear with numeric percentages instead of bars and cards can now be made visually smaller on command among other things. Bookmark numbers have been increased and enhanced tutorial elements have been introduced to help users navigate the game more effectively.
Individual cards now display their stat information and present artwork in an enlarged format. Stacks can now be expanded or collapsed. This and many more UI and quality of life improvements.

- Player Progression:
For new players or those who like to have a more guided or streamlined experience the game includes a Quest Mode that gradually unlocks blueprints as you complete objectives. That way players can better learn how to survive in the forest with less trial and error.
Veteran players or those who like more of a challenge or simply to discover things on their own can go on Free Mode where all blueprints are unlocked from the start and there is thus a lot more freedom when it comes to survival strategies.

- Mystic Content:
For those of you interested in the things that lie in the metaphysical, spirits can be found when in the right state of mind and can help you with blessings, spells and rituals. There will be a minimum of 10 unique spirits available on the first release, including animal spirits that can provide you with some of their traits, earth fertility spirits that can help you with your gardens and crops as well as other spirits like fire, water and darkness ones. Numerous shrines, charms and ritual objects can also be crafted.

***

We have decided to not include the main agents (hunter and maiden) in the first early access release as we would like to have more time to get them to the right place and we don't want to compromise on other things. We will aim to release them in one of the first few updates.

In the meantime, we will be focusing on balancing, polishing, adding missing art (still a lot missing ;_; ) and implementing some additional minor content.

If any of you have any sort of things that you would like to see in the game, be it animals, spirits, mechanics, items to craft or really just anything please join our discord server for discussion. As usual we can't promise anything but we'd love to hear from you and if we see any way to implement your ideas in a cost effective way, or at least features inspired by them, we'll be more than happy to do it.

You can join our discord here:

https://discord.gg/dURZTmeEaN

See you in the next announcement! :)

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all well.

We wanted to share some updates on the development of Card Survival: Fantasy Forest and also use the opportunity to tell you about one of its new main features.

The game continues to progress well, with new features and content being added on a weekly basis. We do have to say however, that despite this we won't be able to release the game as early as we had originally wanted. It seems we're not the smartest or fastest Devs around...  our original plan with the Card Survival series was to streamline production using the engine from the first game; however, instead of doing this we've mostly just been adding new features or improving existing ones... -_-u
We really hope we haven't disappointed any of you too much with not being able to release the game sooner! Hopefully the new features, content, and quality of life additions will be worth the wait!We will make an announcement as soon we are confident enough about an official release date.

Now, for those of you interested here's some details on one of our main new features:







[h2]Basics:[/h2]

Fantasy Forest features new complex NPC's to interact with. These agents are designed to simulate simplified social interactions and assist with daily chores and activities.

Agents, much like players, are equipped with many stats reflecting both their physical and emotional states. They need to manage basic needs like hunger and hydration and are also susceptible to illness, stress and even mood fluctuations. In addition to this, they also have a lot of stats that define their relationship with the player. Things like self-worth, trust, resentment, fear, gratefulness, and even infatuation. All these stats help make their interactions systemic, rather than scripted, which helps make things more nuanced and realistic.


[h2]Duties:[/h2]

One of the main features Agents have is the ability to perform "duties". Duties can be simple self-assigned things like drinking or eating, or also more complex activities like foraging, wood-gathering or even cooking.

This system allows players to delegate tasks to companions or helpers. For example, if a player doesn't like cooking they might prefer to focus on hunting and foraging for ingredients and let their companion cook them into meals.

Agents are not robots however. They track how helpful they've been, how grateful they are to you, how much they trust you, as well as many other things to determine how often they will help you or whether they will even want to help you at all. An agent that feels mistreated or unwanted will do less to help than one that feels valued. An agent that is overwhelmed with demands may grow resentful or depressed, affecting their productivity and loyalty.
Agents can also get angry, leave you or even act against you if things go badly enough.


[h2]Personalities:[/h2]

While we had originally planned to have many agents (basically an entire village), we ended up having to make a reality check and decreasing their number to a more manageable level of just two main agents and a number of minor, simpler ones.

The minor agents are mostly helpers that have the potential to aid with different aspects of your life. The two main agents however, can be befriended and their relationships improved over time. They can move into your house and live with you, helping you with your chores and daily activities. 

Each agent is unique, with their own personalities, skills, hobbies, likes and dislikes. So keeping a good relationship with them will require a different approach. One agent might like cooking, while another might hate it. One agent might be more independent and react negatively to excessive attention for example, while the other might appreciate any attention you can spare. 

Agents can also become your partners and start a family with you if you invest enough in the relationship. While not implemented yet, the idea is that babies you have with them will even grow up over time and become new proper agents themselves. 



Hope you liked what you've read. We feel that with the addition of agents, Card Survival can become a life simulator with a lot more potential than what we had in Tropical Island.
And speaking of potential, we have some good news about something many of you have been asking for. After some thinking and discussing, we've decided to go ahead with making Fantasy Forest properly mod compatible! This should make finding, getting and creating new custom content for the game a lot easier. 
We can't promise that this feature will be ready in time for Early Access, but we can confirm that we are definitely planning to include it in the game. We will let you know more about this in the future. :)

That's all for now.
Thank you for reading, we'll see you in the next announcement!

Hello everyone!

We hope you are all well.

We have some news for you: we're happy to announce that the store page for Card Survival: Fantasy Forest is now publicly accessible on Steam!

You can find it here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2868860/Card_Survival_Fantasy_Forest/

The game is not ready to be published yet, but we feel that we have made enough progress to give you a glimpse at it. If you like what you see, make sure to add it to your wishlist to get notified when it does come out 🙂

Regarding the release date, we cannot give any precise dates yet but we maintain our estimation that the game will come out (in Early Access) in the first half of 2024. We will keep you updated when we have a clearer picture of that 😉

As usual don't hesitate to share your impressions and feedback, they are always welcome!

That's it for now, until next time, take care!

WinterSpring Games