Spring Festival Update

The Spring 2016 update was released on the 18th of April 2016 for Kindle players; on 20th of April 2016 for Android players; and on the 4th of May 2016 for iOS devices, with release still pending on other platforms.

The Spring 2016 update introduced 2 new pictures - Spring Festival and Rock Stage; 16 new collections; and 100 new quests, as well as a new set of timed challenges.

Celebration of Spring Challenge
The Celebration of Spring 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 Celebration of Spring timed event contains 3 challenges. Players had a set number of days to complete the following tasks:


 * Collect 500 Sakura Blossoms by winning games of Gem Match to win open the Magic Casket and win a number of rewards (Pandora's Chest, some Talismans and some Energy items).
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Talisman of Spring Talisman which increases the rate of energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Sakura Talisman Artefact, which decrease the amount of Energy required to play Pictures and Puzzles for24 hours.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Spring Festival to win a unique avatar.

For the duration of the Celebration of Spring challenge, Origami special items are required in addition to energy points to play Spring Festival. Origami are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Origami cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Spring 2016 collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.

Important: The amount of time available for the Celebration of Spring 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 Sakura Blossoms
Players can open the Magic Casket and win a number of rewards by collecting 500 Sakura Blossoms. Sakura Blossoms can only be won by successfully completing the Gem Match puzzle. For each successful win of Gem Match, you can potentially win between 1-5 Sakura Blossoms 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 Sakura Blossoms listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Sakura Blossoms 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 Sakura Blossoms in order to complete the challenge. Once you have collected all 500 Sakura Blossoms, you will be able to open the Magic Casket and collect your rewards.

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



Once you have collected all 500 Sakura Blossoms, then an 'Open' option will appear in the Magic Casket's information window. Tapping on this will open the Magic Casket and the rewards will automatically go into your inventory. The Magic Casket will be replaced by the inkwell placeholder decoration that is usually in that position on the Home Desktop (when there are no holiday decorations or challenge chest in that location).

The Magic Casket contains the following rewards:




 * Pandora's Chest x1 (Chest)
 * Scroll x1 (Talisman)
 * Fortune Talisman x1 (Talisman)
 * Money Bag x1 (Talisman)
 * Winged Lightning x1 (Talisman)
 * Cappuccino x1 (Energy Item)
 * Ice Cream x1 (Energy Item)
 * Donut x1 (Energy Item)
 * Lunch box x1 (Energy 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 value in the game. Higher value items, like the Sakura Blossoms needed to open the Magic Casket, are weighted in such a way that they are less likely to be won than low value items such as some low level collection items and most combining elements.



Since the mechanism that rewards Sakura Blossoms 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 you will not win a high number of Sakura Blossoms every single time you win a Gem Match Game, often you will only win 2.

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

Hints/Tips for Collecting Sakura Blossoms
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Sakura Blossoms, 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 Seeker's Eyes and Time Machines when playing Gem Match. Using a Seeker'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 Seeker'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 when 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 Sakura Blossoms per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the lunch chest with the other challenges in the Spring 2016 event (playing Spring Festival 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 Sakura Blossoms, 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 Sakura Blossoms 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 Sakura Blossoms 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 Sakura Blossoms won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Sakura Blossoms for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play, by using luck talismans, will not change anything. The number of Sakura Blossoms 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 Spring Festival to Academician Level
Players can win the Unique Avatar by playing the new picture, Spring Festival, until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the Spring 2016 Update's time sensitive challenge.

For the duration of the Spring 2016 update, Origami special items were needed for each play of the Spring Festival picture.

While the Timed Challenges are active (before you complete all three, or the timer expires, whichever happens first), Origami were given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture in the game. At least one Origami is given for every game you win, but winning 2 or 3 Origami at a time is also possible.



Origami are also given as rewards from banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Origami cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Spring 2016 collections. Players with the Pyramid of Wonder or Sphere of Miracles also have a 1 in 6 chance of receiving Origami from these Desktop Awards when collecting their rewards every 12 hours. The number of Origami needed for each play of Spring Festival increases as you increase the Picture Levels of Spring Festival (+5 Origami per Level increase), starting at 5 Origami per play when the picture is opened at Novice Level and increasing to 40 Origami per play when the picture is at Professor Level.

As a guide, in order to reach Academician Level on Spring Festival, and win the new Avatar, you will need to play the picture approximately 150 times, which will require approximately 3,285 Origami! (or 2,628 Origami if using the Amulet of Santa artefact).

You will win an average of about 1.8 Origami for every play of other Pictures during the challenge so will need to play roughly 1,825 other pictures to collect enough Origami (or 1,571 other pictures to collect enough if using the Amulet of Santa when playing Spring Festival). This works out at 79 plays of other Pictures per day over the 23 days of the challenge. A simple way of looking at this challenge is to aim to play all non-special item pictures (29 total) 3 times each day, if possible.

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 Spring Festival 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 Origami, as by winning cappuccinos and restoring the energy you are using to play, you are basically collecting Origami 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 Origami needed to play Spring Festival. The Amulet of Santa artefact reduces the number of Special Items needed to play paid scenes like Spring Festival by 20% per 24 hours once activated. Using Amulet of Santa artefacts when playing Spring Festival could potentially reduce the total number of Origami 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 Spring Festival 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 Spring Festival (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 Talisman of Spring, you will be able to combine 5 new collections added as part of the update. These quests will reward Origami once combined, and both the Talisman of Spring and also the Sakura Talisman Artefact that you win when completing these quests help with energy consumption while playing.

The Challenge Quests, the Talisman of Spring and the Sakura Artefact
The Talisman of Spring Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Spring 2016 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 Talisman of Spring 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 Talisman of Spring, but you must go to the Talisman section of the Inventory itself to see and use the new Talisman.

Once activated, the Talisman of Spring will increase the rate of energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours.

In addition to winning the Talisman of Spring, players will also be able to combine the Sakura Talisman 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 Sakura Talisman Artefact. To do this, open the Collections Window and select the Artefacts tab. Locate the Sakura Talisman 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 the combined, the Sakura Talisman Artefact automatically goes into the Talisman tab of your inventory, where it can be activated.

Once activated, the Sakura Talisman Artefact will decrease the amount of energy required to play Pictures and Puzzles by 5% for 24 hours.

Winning the Talisman of Spring
A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Talisman of Spring. 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 Spring Festival picture. However, this quest does not count towards the 30 quests needed to win the Talisman of Spring. 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 Spring Festival (which this quest opens).

The special 30 quests that must be completed in order to win the Talisman of Spring 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) Tea ceremony (combines to create "Set for tea ceremony" and rewards 10 Origami when combined)
 * 2) Garden equipment (combines to create "Watering can" and rewards 15 Origami when combined)
 * 3) Blooming garden (combines to create "Sakura seedlings" and rewards 20 Origami when combined)
 * 4) Japanese garden (combines to create "Tea house" and rewards 25 Origami when combined)
 * 5) Traditional Japanese clothing (combines to create "Kimono" and rewards 30 Origami 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 Talisman of Spring are:

Hints/Tips for Winning the Talisman of Spring and Sakura Talisman

 * 1) Use the strongest Luck Talismans/artefacts you have available whenever you are playing. This will increase the number items you win for each play, which will increase you chances of winning the quest item. Diamond_horseshoe.pngnd Horseshoe talismans (+90% chance of winning items for 120 minutes) and the Symbol of Success artefact (+50% chance of winning items for 24 hours) are the most powerful luck talismans available in the game, so when playing other pictures choose pictures which award items needed for collections that reward these talismans. You will need to play other pictures during the challenge anyway to collect Origami to play Spring Festival, so by making sure that Tavern (rewards items for collections that reward Diamond horseshoes) and Venice; Buddha's Square; Throne Room; Mayan Temple; Ghost Town; Joy Cafe; Amusement Park; Bungalow; Misty Shed (rewards items for collections needed to combine Symbol of Success) are in your rotation while you increase your chances of getting more of these powerful luck talismans to use for the quests. Note that using powerful luck talismans will not guarantee that you win the quest item on your first attempt, as all they do is give a percentage increase to the coded 'chance' of winning the item in the game. If an item normally has only a 10% chance of being won per play of the correct quest requirements, then using luck talismans that give you a 100% increase will not give you a 100% chance of winning the item. It will just increase the 10% by 100%, giving you a 20% chance of winning the item. Hard to get items will still be hard to get.
 * 2) Use your Magic Crystal Talismans during the challenge. The Magic Crystal Talisman works as a luck talisman (it increases your odds of finding objects by 12% when activated), and the Social Events Update has fixed the problem where no other luck talisman could be activated while using it, so now you can use them again together again. This means you can add an additional 12% increase in odds of finding objects to other Luck Talismans that you use during the challenge. You can only use one other Luck Talisman once the Magic Crystal Talisman is activated (as you cannot use more than one Luck Talisman at a time), but you can use one of any other Luck Talisman or the Symbol of Success Artefact at the same time as Magic Crystal Talisman again. The Magic Crystal Talisman lasts for 10 days.
 * 3) The Challenge quests usually ask for you to play Spring Festival, so it is best to continue to work on Spring Festival as normal when playing and not to worry too much about the quests themselves, they will be completed as you go. That is, it is better to concentrate your resources just working on the Avatar challenge - getting Spring Festival to Academician level. You will complete the quests naturally as you increase the picture to Academician level. The hints/tips for that challenge will therefore also aide in completing this challenge.
 * 4) Read the quest instructions carefully. Most quests just ask you to play Spring Festival, but some will specify a mode. The item will only be available to win when the picture is in the correct mode. Most modes cannot be 'forced', which means you cannot make them appear in rotation. However, 'Text' mode can be triggered by banishing (not playing) an anomaly in the picture. If the quest asks for Text mode in Spring Festival, then play other pictures until an anomaly appears in Spring Festival. You can then banish the anomaly, making the next mode Text mode. (Make sure the picture is not in Night mode while waiting for an anomaly, play it to change the mode if it is in night mode).
 * 5) The items needed to complete the quests cannot be gifted between friends. However they may 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. Whether this happens or not will be completely up to chance, but in order to increase your odds it is a good idea to visit your friends every day when doing the challenge.
 * 6) You can complete a quest by combining the collection involved in the quest. E.g. if you already have all 5 items for a collection and are currently on the quest for the 3rd item in the collection, then combining the collection will automatically complete the quest. The next quest to start will be the quest for the 4th item in the collection and you will have to find both the 4th and the 5th item in the collection as normal, but the 6th quest in that sequence - to combine the collection - will also complete automatically when it starts. However, it will be rare to be able to complete any of these collections early since the items do not have a regular play location, so do not rely on being able to do this to skip difficult quests.

After the Challenge is complete
Once you complete all three Spring 2016 Update Challenges, or after the challenge timer expires, Origami may be restricted so that they will only be won in a couple of Pictures (instead of in all the Pictures like during the Timed Challenges).

This restriction of the challenge quest special items after completion has been a feature of the last few timed update challenges (e.g. Christmas2014, Halloween2014), Travel Time Update, Mountain Vacation Update) and is designed to allow players to collect enough to complete the challenge within the short time frame but not amass a large quantity after the challenge is over in the months leading up to the next update. The game does not want players to have an excess of these items as they would give an big advantage in the game after the update.

Typically, one of two things may happen to the Origami when the next update is released:


 * 1) The Origami may be removed from the game by the future update, and any remaining in the player's inventory could be converted to other special items (such as Fireflies, Ladybugs, carrots, cupid arrows and tokens). In this case, keeping the number of Origami a player can accumulate down will keep the number of other special items the player can win down, since these items are meant to be rare.
 * 2) The Origami could be kept in the game as a requirement for playing Spring Festival, like the Cupid Arrows were kept in the game as a requirement for playing Tree of Dates after the Valentines Update and Tokens were kept in the game as a requirement for playing Observation Deck after the Travel Time Update (which introduced them in an identical quest). In this case, the game would want to keep the number of Origami a player can win down after the challenge so that Spring Festival would work the same way as any other picture with a special item requirement - where the special item is rare and can only be won in a few pictures.

Either way, players being able to accumulate a large amount of Origami (by winning them in every picture) after the challenge is over but before the new update arrives would give them too large a boost in game resources compared to what would normally be accomplish-able in the same time period, which is why recent updates have introduced the restriction after the challenge quests are complete or the timer expires (whichever happens first).

It is worth noting that some of the regular quests that were introduced with the update require you to play Spring Festival (including some of the very last quests of the new crop you will work through). In order to maximise how many Origami you can earn to aid in these quests, it is best to not complete all 3 of the timed challenges until the challenge timer is nearly finished. Keeping one of the 3 challenges incomplete for as long as possible will keep the time period that Snowdrops can be won in every picture in the game open as long as possible.

The Gem Match challenge of collecting 500 Sakura Blossoms is the easiest of the 3 to leave uncompleted (both of the other challenges require you play Spring Festival so you will naturally complete one as you complete the other, whereas the Gem Match challenge is kept entirely separate from the others).

Alternatively, players could opt to complete the Gem Match challenge in order to open the Magic Casket and instead leave the final challenge quest (to combine the Traditional Japanese clothing collection) incomplete by simply not combining the collecton. However, by using this approach players must remember not to combine the collection, which they may do by accident whilst combining other collections.

It does not matter which challenge is left incomplete, Origami will still be available to win in every Picture in the game (except Spring Festival itself), as long as one part of the timed challenges isn't finished. Players opting to leave one challenge incomplete in order to more easily collect Origami should remember to keep an eye on the challenge timer if they do wish to complete the final part before the event ends. If players do want to finish the part of the challenge they have left incomplete to collect Origami, then they should be particularly cautious around extensions added to the challenge as these have ben known to be inconsistent (some timers unexpectedly ending early during the extension period).

The Mountain Vacation Update's Snowdrops and Mountain Resort
As part of the Mountain Vacation Update, the picture Mountain Resort required special items called Snowdrops, in addition to energy points, for each play. The Snowdrops were removed from the game as part of the Spring 2016 Update and Mountain Resort is now a regular picture that just requires energy points to play. The Mountain Vacation collections that rewarded Snowdrops 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 Spring 2016 update, any remaining Snowdrops in a player's Inventory are converted into equal parts Fireflies, Ladybugs, Carrots, Cupid arrows, and Tokens, the 5 main special items needed to player the regular paid scenes in the game.



New Artefacts
Two new Artefacts have been added to the game by the Spring 2016 Update. These can be seen in the Artefacts tab of the Collections Window (at the bottom of the list if sorting is disabled), and, once combined, can be activated from the Talismans tab of the Inventory Window.



The Sakura Talisman, which players will combine and win as they work throgh the Spring Timed Challenges, decreases the amount of energy required to play Pictures and Puzzles by 5% for 24 hours when activated.

The Amulet of Peace, which players can win by combining non-challenge relateed and giftable collections added by the update, increases rewards won by 50% for 24 hours when activated.

Changes to gifting friends
After sending a gift to a Friend, the gifting window now does not automatically close. Instead it must be manually closed using the 'x' in the top right hand corner of the window. This allows players to send more than one gift to that friend at a time, without having to reopen the gifting window for each gift sent.

This change will most likely slow down gifting for players who play within the game rules and having limited gifting allowances that need to be spread out among all of their friends, but will likely speed up gifting for players who cheat to get around those game defined gifting restrictions and are more likely to be sending multiple gifts to each of their friends. What this change says about the game developers attitude towards such practices is open to interpretation.

Removal of Tavern Update challenge items
As part of the Tavern Update, players were asked to collect 80 items in order to 'restore the broken lock on the Order's chest'. These 80 items consisted of 10 each of 8 unique items added to the game by the Update. Players could win each of these unique items by winning games of specific hidden object pictures. Once a player had collected 10 each of these 8 unique items, they could open the Order's Chest on their desktop and receive a number of rewards. Once a player had opened their Order's Chest, the 8 unique items disappeared from the 'Can be Found' list of the Pictures that they previously could be won in order to stop players winning any more of those items once they where no longer needed (as players could only open the Order's Chest once during the update). However, the mechanism to stop players winning any more of these items contained a major flaw - although players could no longer win the items by playing the pictures, they could win them by banishing anomalies from those Pictures. This meant that players continued to accumulate these unique items in their inventory but had no way of using them. Many players ended up collecting many of each of these 8 unique items, and these leftovers have remained in those player's inventories ever since (the Tavern Update was released in May of 2014!).

The Spring 2016 Update has finally removed these redundant items from players' inventories!

At the beginning of the Spring 2016 update, any remaining Tavern challenge items in a player's Inventory are converted into equal parts Fireflies, Ladybugs, Carrots, Cupid arrows, and Tokens, the 5 main special items needed to player the regular paid scenes in the game.



Server Problems Gifting and Visiting
As with all large updates released for the game, the Spring 2016 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.

Repetitiveness
The Spring 2016 Update follows the same formula as all other updates released in the last 12 months. Although the update does introduce 2 new Pictures instead of just 1, something that has not been done since the 2014 Christmas Update, it does not make much use of the 2nd new Picture added and uses the same timed challenges as many previous updates.

Disproportionate work for rewards in Timed Challenge
Once again, the rewards for completing certain tasks in the timed challenges introduced by the Spring 2016 Update do not reflect the amount of work required to complete the tasks.

Lack of diversity in 'Unique Avatars' rewarded in Timed Challenges
Once again, the main portion of the Timed Challenges introduced by this update is to play a new picture many, many times in order to win a 'Unique' avatar to use in the game. And once again, this avatar is lacks diversity.

Glitches added by the Spring 2016 Update
A page has been created where users can report if they are experiencing any serious or game-progress impacting glitches in their games after installing the Spring 2016 Update. Players who are experiencing issues with the update can use this page to notify their friends.

Anomalous Anomalies
A number of issues with Anomalies have appeared in the Spring 2016 Update.

Players have reported Anomalies appearing without warning in Pictures that are in other game modes. There is no indication that an Anomaly will be present before starting the Picture investigation, but the Anomaly conditions will be present, in addition to the normal mode conditions (e.g. darkness for night mode), once the game starts. When this problem occurs in a Picture, it is likely to repeat for subsequent investigations of that Picture. Fully quitting and re-opening the game (shutting down and restarting a device will do this if unsure of procedure to fully quit rather than just minimise the game) can temporarily remedy the problem.

In addition to Anomalies appearing where they are not expected, issues have been reported with Anomalies that are displayed correctly on a game board. When attempting to banish a visible anomaly from a Picture, incorrect Anomaly banishing information may be displayed in the confirmation window. Players will be told that they must use a 'box of chocolates' to banish the Anomaly rather than the normal Anomaly banishing item.

Hiring Magicians not Working
The Spring 2016 update has introduced a glitch to Hiring Friends. Hiring a Magician Profession Friend should reduce the amount of energy required for the next play of a Picture or Puzzle by 10%. Since the Spring 2016 Update, this no longer works correctly. The amount of energy required for the play listed in the Research Window of the Picture or Puzzle does decrease as expected, however the amount of energy consumed by the play is the same amount as if you didn't hire the magician friend. Other professions appear to be unaffected by this issue.

Keyboard function issues
The problem with the space bar not working in certain parts of the game - e.g. when using the search function in the Collections section or in the Friends section - that was introduced by the Mountain Resort Update, has been fixed.

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
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts
 * Spring Festival