Magic Tour Update

The Magic Tour Update was released on the 3rd of November 2016 for iOS players, the 5th of November 2016 for Android players, the 16th of November 2016 for Facebook players, the 18th of November 2016 for Windows players, the 20th of November 2016 for Kindle players and the 21st of November 2016 for Mac players.

The Magic Tour Update introduced 2 new pictures - Wigwam and Luxury Express; and 19 new collections.

Although there is no mention of the Christmas 2016 Event in the release notes, all the content needed to create the second set of timed challenges exist within the original install file for the update. This means that when players install this update, they are installing both sets of challenges and all content needed for them. The Magic Tour Update is the third update in a row that contains two separate timed challenge events.

The second event is usually set to start on a specific date for each platform, typically this date is a couple of weeks after the official timer for the first event expires. Finishing the first event early will not force the second event to start early. The second event will only start when the device reaches the predetermined start date for that platform.

However, it is worth noting that the implementation of this second event does not always go smoothly. There were many user reports of false (early and incomplete) starts of the second event in the last two double event updates, and this may happen again with the Magic Tour Update. Players are advised to be cautious about forcing the events to start as there are desktop awards on offer during both events, which they may not want to miss out on.

The Magic Tour Update is also the third update in a row containing 2 different avatars - one male and one female - were given to players for completing the Magic Tour timed challenge. Two avatars were given as rewards for reaching Academician level in the Luxury Express picture.

When the update was released, the Magic Tour Update triggered automatically.

Magic Tour Timed Event
The Magic Tour timed challenges begin when a player reaches game level 7 in the game (or automatically after downloading the update if the player is already above level 7).

The "Magic Tour" timed event contains 3 challenges. Players had a set number of days to complete the following tasks:


 * Collect 500 Postcards by winning games of Gem Match to open the Souvenir Jewelry Box and receive a number of rewards (Tool case chest x1; Lunch box and donut energy items x1; Golden weight disk Talisman x1; and Much weight power item x1).

For the duration of the Magic Tour challenge, Train Ticket special items are required in addition to energy points to play Luxury Express. Train Tickets are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture (except Luxury Express itself!), and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Train Tickets cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Magic Tour and Christmas collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Railroad Talisman which increases the experience points when playing pictures and puzzles by 100% for 24 hours when activated. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Engineer's Amulet Artefact, which increases the amount of time available to play Pictures and Puzzles by 60 seconds for 24 hours when activated.
 * Achieve Academician level in Luxury Express to win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

Important: The amount of time available for the Magic Tour timed challenges will vary across platforms. It is important to note that the Challenge timer begins counting down from the moment the update is released in a device's app store, and not from the moment a player downloads the update. Delaying installing the update will not give you extra time to play the challenges.

The Gem Match Challenge - collecting Postcards
Players can open the Souvenir Jewelry Box and win a number of rewards by collecting 500 Postcards. Postcards can only be won by successfully completing the Gem Match puzzle. For each successful win of Gem Match, you can potentially win between 2-5 Postcards as one of the rewards for completing the puzzle.

When you open the Research Window for Gem Match by tapping on the Gem Match puzzle icon on your Home Desktop you will see Postcards listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Postcards are available to win for every play of the puzzle at every puzzle level.

You must keep playing (and winning) Gem Match until you have collected 500 Postcards in order to complete the challenge. Once you have collected all 500 Postcards, you will be able to open the Souvenir Jewelry Box and collect your rewards.

The Souvenir Jewelry Box is located in the top right of the Home Desktop, between the Pipes and Memory Match Puzzles. You can tap on the Souvenir Jewelry Box at any time to bring up its information window. While you are collecting Postcards, your progress towards 500 will be shown in the information window.



Once you have collected all 500 Postcards, then the Souvenir Jewelry Box will automatically open and the rewards will go directly into your inventory. A notification window will appear to say the box is opened.

The opened Souvenir Jewelry Box will remain on your Home Desktop, in the same position. Tapping on this will still bring up the information window, however the Postcard counter will be replaced with a congratulations message.

The Souvenir Jewelry Box contains the following rewards:


 * Tool case x1 chest
 * Lunch box and donut x1 energy items
 * Golden weight disk x1 Talisman
 * Much weight x1 power item)

Note: Just because an item is on a picture/puzzles 'Can be Found' list, it is not guaranteed you will win that item every time you play that picture/puzzle. There is an element of chance in the game that determines what items you will win when you successfully complete a picture/puzzle. All items are weighted based on their perceived value in the game. Higher value items are weighted in such a way that they are less likely to be won than low value items.



Since the mechanism that rewards Postcards is set up so that they are always included as one of the rewards for winning games of Gem Match, it is the number that you win per play that is weighted (with low numbers more likely than high numbers). This means that while you are always guaranteed to win at least 2 Postcards, you may not win a very high number of Postcards (e.g. 5) every single time you win a Gem Match game.

However, all of the Timed Challenges are designed to be completed within the given time limit, so it is possible to collect 500 Postcards well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting Postcards
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Postcards, there are things you can do to make the challenge easier:
 * 1) Read the Gem Match article on this wiki for tips on playing Gem Match, including how to make special gems and combine them to create special moves to clear the board faster.Seekerseye_inventory.png
 * 2)  Use tools when playing Gem Match. You can use Explorer's Eyes and Time Machines when playing Gem Match. Using a Explorer's Eye will remove one yellow border from the game board at random. This can be particularly useful for tricky corner pieces. However, since you cannot control which border is removed by the Explorer's Eye, it is better to wait until you only have a few left to remove to increase the chances of it removing the difficult one. Time Machines add 45 seconds to the puzzle timer, which can be a great help for the more difficult board configurations. Use the List of Collections, List of Collection Items and List of Collection Item Locations pages here to find out which collections give out these tools when combined, and where you can find the items needed to combine those collections.
 * 3)  Don't just play Gem Match over and over again; try to play a variety of pictures and puzzles as much as possible. The more you play a single picture/puzzle repeatedly, the worse the rewards for each win gets. In order to keep your chances of getting many Postcards per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Souvenir Jewelry Box with the other challenges in the Magic Tour event (playing Luxury Express and completing the 30 challenge quests). This will also help avoid feelings of frustration with the game and challenge.
 * 4) Don't rely on Luck Talismans/Artefacts. Luck talismans (e.g. Horseshoes) and artefacts (e.g. Symbol of Success) do not increase your odds of winning a particular item, such as Butterflies, i.e. they do not change the weighting of items. However, they do increase the number of items you will win for each successful play of a picture/puzzle. Because you can win more items for each play, you essentially get more rolls of the dice each time you win. Since Postcards are rewarded using the same mechanism as Christmas balls/Pumpkin Lanterns/Tokens special items etc during holiday themed timed challenges (i.e a number of Postcards are awarded for each play, it is the amount you win that is weighted not whether or not you win them) instead of using the same mechanism as collection items/combining elements (i.e. you may or may not win the item each play, it is whether the item will be won or not that is weighted), Luck talismans and artefacts will not affect the number of Butterflies won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Postcards for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play, by using luck talismans, will not change anything. The number of Postcards given is also based on chance, with higher numbers weighted to appear less often than lower numbers, but Luck talismans/artefacts cannot help with this since they do not affect weighting.
 * 5) Use the Time Talisman artefact. If you are struggling to win Gem Match in the time given (particularly at lower puzzle levels, where less time is allotted to each play) then try to use a Time Talisman artefact. Once activated, this artefact adds 1 minute to every picture/puzzle for 24 hours.

The Unique Avatar - Getting Luxury Express to Academician Level
Players can win the Unique Avatar by playing the new picture, Luxury Express, until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the Magic Tour Update's time sensitive challenge.

For the duration of the Magic Tour update, Train Ticket special items are needed for each play of the Luxury Express picture.

While the Timed Challenges are active (before you complete all three, or the timer expires, whichever happens first), Train Tickets are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture in the game. Between 2 and 3 Train Tickets is given for every game you win. Note: This is less than in previous challenges.



Train Tickets are also given as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Train Tickets cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Magic Tour collections. Players with the Pyramid of Wonder or Sphere of Miracles also have a 1 in 6 chance of receiving Train Tickets from these Desktop Awards when collecting their rewards every 12 hours. The number of Train Tickets needed for each play of Luxury Express increases as you increase the Picture Levels of Luxury Express (+5 Train Tickets per Level increase), starting at 5 Train Tickets per play when the picture is opened at Novice Level and increasing to 40 Train Tickets per play when the picture is at Professor Level. As a guide, in order to reach Academician Level on Luxury Express, and win the new Avatar, you will need to play the picture approximately 150 times, which will require approximately 3,285 Train Tickets! (or 2,628 Train Tickets if using the Amulet of Santa artefact or the Amulet of Rarities artefact).

You will win an average of about 2.5 Train Tickets for every play of other Pictures during the challenge so will need to play roughly 940 other pictures to collect enough Train Tickets (or 750 other pictures to collect enough if using the Amulet of Santa when playing Luxury Express). This works out at 34 plays of other Pictures per day over the 28 days of the challenge. A simple way of looking at this challenge is to aim to play all non-special item pictures 2 times each day, if possible, which will allow you to win the challenge with plenty of time to spare even if the drop rate of Train Tickets in your game falls below the 2.5 average.

As soon as you return to your Home Desktop after playing Luxury Express for the 150th time, a notification screen will appear to say that the avatar challenge is complete and you have won both of the unique Avatars.

Both avatars will automatically go into the Avatar section, but will not automatically replace your current Avatar. To use either of the new Avatars, you must tap on your current Avatar to bring up the Avatars window and scroll to the end of the list to find the new Avatar. Tap on the Avatar to select it.

Hints/Tips for Winning the Unique Avatar

 * 1) Try to play a variety of pictures as much when possible when playing, instead of just playing Luxury Express over and over again. The more you play a single picture/puzzle repeatedly, the worse the rewards for each win gets. Additionally, the bigger variety of pictures you play, the bigger variety of collection items you can potentially win. This will greatly increase the number of regular collections you will be able to combine, which will potentially give you more tools, energy items, talismans and artefacts that will all help with completing the quest.
 * 2) If you are low on energy, but close to leveling up (at which point your energy will restore), play Buddha's Square until you level up. At higher picture levels Buddha's Square potentially rewards a cappuccino for each successful picture investigation. Cappuccinos restore 30 energy points when used, and Buddha's Square only requires 31 energy points at most to play (at professor level). This means you can play for free or next to free if you have a good success rate of winning Cappuccinos. Using Luck talismans and artefacts, like horseshoes, while playing Buddha's Square will increase your odds for winning Cappuccinos. This also means that Buddha's Square is a great picture to play when collecting Train Tickets, as by winning cappuccinos and restoring the energy you are using to play, you are basically collecting Train Tickets for free in terms of energy costs.Santa_amulet_2014.png
 * 3) If you are low on energy, avoid playing the newest pictures in the game too often (Tavern, Treasure Island, Theater, Forest House, Excavations, Winter Street, Flower Shop, Observation Deck, Banquet Hall, Spooky Yard, Wonder Shop, Mountain Resort, Rock Stage) as these pictures do not reward combining elements and usually have a high energy demand (except for Forest House and Winter Street). Although some of the collections rewarded by some of these pictures (especially Tavern) are tempting, the lack of combining elements means you will struggle to combine the collections they reward, and the majority of collection items they reward are for collections with lesser rewards than the original pictures in the game.
 * 4) Use the Amulet of Santa artefact to decrease the number of Train Tickets needed to play Luxury Express. The Amulet of Santa artefact reduces the number of Special Items needed to play paid scenes like Luxury Express by 20% per 24 hours once activated. Using Amulet of Santa artefacts when playing Luxury Express could potentially reduce the total number of Train Tickets you need to find to reach Academician level from 3,285 to 2,628. Artefacts_portal.png
 * 5) Use the Valentines Amulet artefact to decrease the amount of energy needed to play every picture/puzzle when you are ready to play Luxury Express a number of times. The Valentines amulet reduces the amount of energy needed to play by 10% for 12 hours, so will enable you to play Luxury Express (and other pictures) more times with your available energy.
 * 6) Use luck talismans and artefacts, such as horseshoes, in conjunction with the Valentine's Amulet, and make sure to play Tree of Dates in rotation when you are playing the pictures. This will increase your chances of finding all the collection items needed to combine another Valentine's Amulet as you play.
 * 7) As you play through the 30 challenge quests to win the Railroad Talisman, you will be able to combine 5 new collections added as part of the update. These quests will reward Train Tickets once combined.

The Challenge Quests, the Railroad Talisman and the Engineer's Amulet Artefact
The Railroad Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Luxury Express challenge quests introduced as part of update. The quests must be completed within the time limit of the Timed Challenge in order to unlock the Talisman.

Once the quests are completed, the Railroad Talisman automatically goes into your inventory, and a new page of the Diary page will open.

A notification screen will appear to say that the 30 challenge quests are complete and you have won the Railroad Talisman, but you must go to the Talisman section of the Inventory itself to see and use the new Talisman.

Once activated, the Railroad Talisman increases experience gained from investigating photographs and solving puzzles by 100% for 24 hours.

In addition to winning the Railroad Talisman, players will also be able to combine the Engineer's Amulet Artefact once they have completed the 30 challenge quests since the collections combined as part of the 30 quests create the 5 items needed to combine this new Artefact.



Once the quests are completed, players must manually combine the Engineer's Amulet Artefact. To do this, open the Collections Window and select the Artefacts tab. Locate the Engineer's Amulet artefact and press the green combine button.

You will need 20 each of the following combining elements to combine the Artefact - Second Hand; Minute Hand; Hour Hand; Clock Face. All artefact combining elements can be won by combining collections in the game. Every time you combine a Collection you will be awarded an artefact combining element at random. You can also be given these combining elements as Free Gifts by your Friends. Like Collection combining elements, Artefact combining elements are Free Gifts, and do not come out of your inventory when you send them as gifts to your Friends.

Once combined, the Engineer's Amulet Artefact automatically goes into the Talisman tab of your inventory, where it can be activated.

Once activated, the Engineer's Amulet Artefact will increase the time allowed for each picture investigation or puzzle played by 1 minute for 24 hours.

Winning the Railroad Talisman
A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Railroad Talisman. Other quests added by the update, with regular gold borders, do not count towards the 30 when completed.



Note: the very first quest that displays the special decorative border is the quest to find the picture pieces needed to unlock and open the Luxury Express picture. However, this quest does not count towards the 30 quests needed to win the Railroad Talisman. This means there are actually 31 quests that display the decorative border, but only the last 30 of them count towards the challenge. But importantly, you will need to complete this first quest in order to complete the challenge as the 30 quests that make up the challenge will not start until this quest is completed (there is only ever one quest with a special decorative border active at any one time) and the other quests require you to play the picture Camping Site (which this quest opens).

The special 30 quests that must be completed in order to win the Railroad Talisman consist of 5 collection sequences of 6 quests each. The first 5 quests of each sequence are to find each of the 5 items belonging to one new collection added by the update. The 6th quest is to combine the collection.

The 5 collections players gather as they complete the 30 quests are: All the items that make up these collections cannot be gifted between friends (they do not have green plus signs to add them to your wishlist and they will not appear in the 'Send a collection item' tab when sending gifts to your friends.
 * 1) Traveler's belongings (combines to create "Train Ticket" and rewards 10 Train Tickets when combined)
 * 2) Radiotelegraph (combines to create "Radiotelegraph" and rewards 15 Train Tickets when combine
 * 3) Messages from the past (combines to create "Morse code" and rewards 20 Train Tickets when combined)
 * 4) Model train (combines to create "Luxury Express" and rewards 25 Train Tickets when combined)
 * 5) Engineer's uniform (combines to create "Engineer's uniform" and rewards 30 Train Tickets when combined)

They are all also 'Quest only' items, which means that they cannot be won normally by playing pictures/puzzles. They are only available to win in pictures while the quest for the particular item is activated and will stop being available to win in that picture once the quest is completed. They may also drop as random items when you are visiting your friends and charging their desktops; from the Collectors Desktop award when collecting its rewards; and from opening Pandora's Chests, however whether or not you get any of these items in those ways is completely up to chance.

This means that the only way to complete these quests is to follow the quest instructions as you get the quests. This makes these 30 challenge quests slightly more difficult than the challenge quests in some other Timed Challenges, all of which could be gifted between friends or won in regular play of certain pictures.

The Challenge Quests
The 30 quests that are needed to win the Railroad Talisman are:

Conversion of Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin Lanterns
The Harvest Festival Update and Halloween 2016 Update added two different Timed Challenge events to the game, both of which involved players collecting a Special Item in order to play a new picture:


 * Harvest Basket special Items were required to play Farm as part of the Harvest Festival Timed Challenges.
 * Pumpkin lantern special Items were required to play Haunted Attraction as part of the Halloween 2016 Timed Challenges.

Both of these Special Items were still required for each play of their Picture once the Timed Challenges were completed, and once the events were over both of these items were restricted so that they could only be won by playing games of Japanese House and Bungalow.

Both the Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns were removed from the game as part of the Magic Tour Update and both Farm and Haunted Attraction are now regular pictures that just require energy points to play. The Harvest Festival Update and Halloween 2016 Update collections that rewarded Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns as rewards for combining them were also changed to reward regular game items such as Talismans and items to banish anomalies.

At the beginning of the Magic Tour Update, any remaining Harvest Baskets and Pumpkin lanterns in a player's Inventory are converted into equal parts Fireflies, Ladybugs, Carrots, Cupid arrows, and Tokens, the 5 main special items needed to play the regular paid scenes in the game.

Throne Room Updated
The Throne Room picture has been given a make over:

Server Problems Gifting and Visiting
As with all large updates released for the game, the Magic Tour Update will cause an overload in the games servers during peak times for a couple of days immediately following the release of the update on any platform. During this time players may encounter problems visiting and gifting, and be given a "Failure to connect to the servers" error message when trying to interact with the Friends portion of the game. The servers normally go back to normal after a couple of days once all players on that platform have downloaded the new update.

Mode Collection Items (again)
This glitch existed in the game since the Valentines 2014 Update until it was fixed by the Celebration by the Bonfire Update two years later, making it one of the longest existing problems in the game before the Celebration by the Bonfire Update finally fixed it.

This glitch has returned to the game with the Magic Tour Update, just a few months later. Mode dependent Collection Items can now only be won the play before the mode for that collection.

This glitch impacts Collection Items whose regular play locations are determined by the mode the picture is in. Mode dependent items can only be won when playing pictures in a certain game mode, but can be won in any picture as long as it is in the correct mode. Originally introduced by the Valentines 2014 Update, this glitch resulted in mode dependent items being won when playing a picture the game before the picture changes into the right mode for those items instead of during the play of the correct mode as expected. This glitch impacted all mode dependent collections, but in particular, made it incredibly difficult to obtain collection items from the mode dependent collections related to anomalies.

The problem has now been solved and the items from these collections can now be won by playing the modes specified in their descriptions. Below is a list of all mode dependent Collections currently in the game, and expected mode required to be in with a chance of winning their items, and how to actually win them:

Visiting Friends (again)
When visiting Friends, players are returned to the first page of their Friend's list each time they finish a visit. This was how visiting and gifting originally worked in the game, but had previously been fixed so that players would return to the same page they started on when visiting a friend, so this is another example of the game going backwards instead of forwards in terms of fixing problems.

Glitches fixed by the Magic Tour and Christmas Update
...tbc...

Glitches not fixed by the Magic Tour and Christmas Update
...tbc...

Related

 * SS Home
 * Updates
 * Holiday Updates
 * Halloween Update
 * Christmas Update
 * Valentines Update
 * Tavern Update
 * Treasure Island Update
 * Christmas Update 2014
 * Valentines Update 2015
 * Spring 2015 Update
 * Travel Time Update
 * Social Events Update
 * Halloween Update 2015
 * Christmas Update 2015
 * Mountain Vacation Update
 * Spring Festival Update
 * Celebration by the Bonfire Update
 * Harvest and Halloween Update
 * Magic Tour Timed Challenge
 * Christmas 2016 Timed Challenge
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts
 * Luxury Express
 * Wigwam
 * Festive Dinner