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:
Q&A 1:
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!