Christmas 2015 Update

The third Christmas update was released on the 9th of December 2015 for Android and Kindle players, with release still pending on all other platforms.

The 2015 Christmas update introduced 1 new picture, Wonder Shop, 16 new collections, and 100 new quests.

The 2015 Christmas update also introduced a new set of holiday challenges, which gave players a third chance to win the Pyramid of Wonder desktop award (originally up for grabs in the first Christmas Update in 2013 and then again in the Christmas Update in 2014). Players who already have the Pyramid of Wonder on their Home Desktops from previous year's Christmas timed challenges have the opportunity to increase the Pyramid of Wonder desktop award to a new award level.

The 2015 Christmas Update is unique in the game, in that it was the first update to be released simultaneously on 2 platforms on the same day, being released both on Kindle devices and Android devices together.

The 2015 Christmas Timed Challenge
The 2015 Christmas 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 2015 Christmas timed event contains 3 challenges. Players had a set number of days to complete the following tasks:


 * Collect 500 bells by winning games of Gem Match to either earn the 'Pyramid of Wonder' desktop award, or increase it to the award level if you have previously won it.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Wonder Shop to win a unique avatar.
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Christmas Talisman and be able to combine the newest incarnation of the Amulet of Santa Artefact.

For the duration of the Christmas challenge, Christmas ball special items are required in addition to energy points to play Wonder Shop. Christmas balls are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Christmas balls cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new 2015 Christmas collections, and they can be giving as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.

Important: The amount of time available for the 2015 Christmas 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 devices app store, and not from the moment a player downloads the update. If an update with a set of timed challenges is released in your app store with 20 days to complete the challenges and you wait 15 days to download the new update, when you download it you will only have 5 days left to complete the challenge, not 20.

Kindle and Android players have been given 28 days to complete the challenge.

The Pyramid of Wonder Desktop Award
The Pyramid of Wonder desktop award sits in the centre of the top row of players home desktop. The Pyramid of Wonder gives out rewards on a 12 hour timer. The first 12 hour timer starts from the moment the Pyramid of Wonder is won, and after that the 12 hour timer resets every time the award is discharged.



When discharged, the Pyramid of Wonder gives out a number of one of the game's special item (e.g. fireflies, ladybugs, carrots, cupid arrows, or Tokens) at random. During Holiday challenges the Pyramid of Wonder may also reward special items needed to play the holiday picture, such as the Christmas balls needed to play the picture Wonder Shop. This means that in normal play, there is a 1 in 5 chance of receiving any one of the regular special items every time you discharge the Pyramid of Wonder, but during Holiday challenges there is a 1 in 6 chance of getting a specific special item when discharging the Pyramid of Wonder.

The Pyramid of Wonder was originally offered as part of the 2013 Christmas Update. With a second opportunity to win the Pyramid of Wonder offered as part of the 2014 Christmas Update. Players who have already won the Pyramid of Wonder during the 2013/2014 events have the opportunity to increase its level to the next award level by completing this years challenge. Players who already have a level 1 Pyramid of Wonder from completing one of the previous events, will be upgraded to a level 2 Pyramid of Wonder, and players who aleady have a level 2 Pyramid of Wonder from completing both of the previous events will be upgraded to a level 3 Pyramid of Wonder. Higher levels of the award give higher numbers of special items as rewards every 12 hours.

Level 1 Rewards every 12 hours:

 * Regular reward - 5 items of 1 special item type (e.g. 5x fireflies or 5x ladybugs etc.)
 * Rewards when award charged by any visiting friend - rewards doubled (i.e. 10 items of 1 special item type) plus 100 coins

Level 2 Rewards every 12 hours:

 * Regular reward - 7 items of 1 special item type (e.g. 7x fireflies or 7x ladybugs etc.)
 * Rewards when award charged by any visiting friend - rewards doubled (i.e. 14 items of 1 special item type) plus 100 coins

Level 3 Rewards every 12 hours:

 * Regular reward - 9 items of 1 special item type (e.g. 9x fireflies or 9x ladybugs etc.)
 * Rewards when award charged by any visiting friend - rewards doubled (i.e. 18 items of 1 special item type) plus 100 coins

How to Win the Pyramid of Wonder
Players can win the Pyramid of Wonder by collecting 500 Bells. Bells 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 Bells as one of the rewards for completing the puzzle. You are guaranteed to win Bells for every game of Gem Match you win, it is just the number of Bells you win each time that changes and is up to chance.

When you open the Research Window for Gem Match by tapping on the Gem Match puzzle icon on your Home Desktop you will see Bells listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Bells 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 Bells in order to win the (or upgrade an existing) Pyramid of Wonder. Once you win the Pyramid of Wonder it will automatically appear in the central spot of your Desktop Awards along the top of the playing board (to the left of the Lucky Seeker Desktop Award). If you have won a Pyramid of Wonder in a previous Christmas Update, the award will change in appearance to represent it's new award level at this point instead.

Once it appears on your Desktop, the Pyramid of Wonder will be sparkling, indicating that it is fully charged and its rewards are ready to collect. Tapping on the award will release the rewards, at which point the Pyramid of Wonder will start its 12 hour timer, after which more rewards will be ready.



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 Bells needed to win the Pyramid of Wonder, 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 Bells 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 Bells 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 Bells well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting Bells
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Bells, 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 Bells per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Pyramid of Wonder with the other challenges in the Christmas event (playing Wonder Shop 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 Bells, 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 Bells 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 Bells 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 Bells won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Bells for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play, by using luck talismans, will not change anything. The number of Bells 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 Wonder Shop to Academician Level
Players can win the Unique Christmas Avatar by playing the new picture, Wonder Shop, until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the 2015 Christmas update's time sensitive challenge (during the first 28 days after the update is released for a platform).

For the duration of the 2015 Christmas update, Christmas ball special items were needed for each play of the Wonder Shop picture.

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

Christmas balls are also given as rewards from banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Christmas balls cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new 2015 Christmas collections. Players with the Pyramid of Wonder or Sphere of Miracles also have a 1 in 6 chance of receiving Christmas balls from these Desktop Awards when collecting their rewards every 12 hours. The number of Christmas balls needed for each play of Wonder Shop increases as you increase the Picture Levels of Wonder Shop (+5 Christmas balls per Level increase), starting at 5 Christmas balls per play when the picture is opened at Novice Level and increasing to 40 Christmas balls per play when the picture is at Professor Level.

As a guide, in order to reach Academician Level on Wonder Shop, and win the new Avatar, you will need to play the picture approximately 150 times, which will require approximately 3,285 Christmas balls! (or 2,828 Christmas balls if using the Amulet of Santa artefact).

You will win an average of about 1.8 Christmas balls for every play of other Pictures during the challenge so will need to play roughly 1,825 other pictures to collect enough Christmas balls (or 1,571 other pictures to collect enough if using the Amulet of Santa when playing Wonder Shop). This works out at 65 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 (26 total) 3 times each day, if possible (which will have you complete the challenge ahead of schedule).

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 Wonder Shop 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 Christmas balls, as by winning cappuccinos and restoring the energy you are using to play, you are basically collecting Christmas balls 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) 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 Christmas balls needed to play Wonder Shop. The Amulet of Santa artefact reduces the number of Special Items needed to play paid scenes like Wonder Shop by 20% per 24 hours once activated. See note below about the new collections needed to create this artefact if you do not already have one in your inventory to use for this challenge, as they are now harder to obtain. Using Amulet of Santa artefacts when playing Wonder Shop could potentially reduce the total number of Christmas balls 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 Wonder Shop 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 Wonder Shop (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 Christmas Talisman, you will be able to combine 5 new collections added as part of the update. These quests will reward Christmas balls once combined.

The Challenge Quests, the Christmas Talisman and the Amulet of Santa Artefact
The Christmas Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special 2015 Christmas challenge quests introduced as part of 2015 Christmas update. The quests must be completed within the 28 day time limit of the Timed Challenge in order to unlock the Talisman.

Once the quests are completed, the Christmas Talisman automatically goes into your inventory, and a new page of the Diary will open. A notification screen will appear to say that the 30 challenge quests are complete and you have won the Christmas Talisman, but you must go to the Talisman section of the Inventory itself to see and use the new Talisman. Once activated, the Christmas Talisman will increase the rate of energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours.

At this point, you can also combine the latest incarnation of the Amulet of Santa Artefact. Once the quests are completed, you will have gathered all 5 collections needed to combine and create the Amulet of Santa. At this point, you must go to the Artefacts tab of the Collections Window in order to combine the Amulet of Santa in order to complete this portion of the timed challenges. Combining Artefacts requires a set number of clock parts to use as combining elements as well as the 5 collections needed for the artefact.



Once combined, the Amulet of Santa automatically goes into your inventory, and you must go to the Talisman section of the Inventory itself to see and use the new Artefact. The Amulet of Santa can be activated from the Talisman tab of the inventory like any other talisman/artefact. To activate the Talisman, open the Inventory, the Talisman tab will automatically be open (default open tab). Scroll to the Amulet of Santa and tap on it to bring up its information box. Press the green 'use' button at the bottom of the information box to activate the Talisman or the brown 'cancel' button to return to the Inventory without activating the Talisman. Once activated, the Amulet of Santa will decrease the number of Special Items required to play Pictures by 20% for 24hrs.

Important: This latest version of the Amulet of Santa, which now requires new collections to combine, is slightly different than the last two versions of the artefact. All the collections required to combine the Amulet of Santa in the past could be won by playing pictures (Christmas Eve for the 2013 Amulet of Santa, and Winter Street for the 2014 Amulet of Santa). But the new Collections that now make up the Amulet of Santa comprise of collection items that cannot be won by playing Pictures. These are quest only items, so you will only be able to easily win one each of the items while playing the game, after which combining new Amulets of Santa will be very difficult! These items also do not have green plus signs, so cannot be gifted between friends, but you may win them occasionally as random items that drop when visiting Friends; from the Collectors Desktop Award, or from opening Pandora's Chests. Amulets of Santa will now be very difficult to obtain, unless they open up and become available through normal play of Wonder Shop after the event is over.

Winning the Christmas Talisman and Amulet of Santa Artefact
A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Christmas 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 Wonder Shop picture. However, this quest does not count towards the 30 quests needed to win the Christmas 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 Wonder Shop (which this quest opens).

The special 30 quests that must be completed in order to win the Christmas 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:


 * 1) Present for Alfred (combines to create "Present for Alfred" and rewards 10 Christmas balls when combined)
 * 2) Present for Howard (combines to create "Christmas plaid" and rewards 15 Christmas balls when combined)
 * 3) Present for Christy (combines to create "Assorted chocolates" and rewards 20 Christmas balls when combined)
 * 4) Christmas Atmosphere (combines to create "Symbol of the year" and rewards 25 Christmas balls when combined)
 * 5) Christmas parfait (combines to create "Christmas parfait" and rewards 30 Christmas balls when combined)

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.

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.

These are also the 5 collections needed to combine the latest incarnation of the Amulet of Santa artefact, so once a player completes all 30 quests they are automatically able to combine Amulet of Santa artefact.

The Amulet of Santa itself is the same artefact that was offered in the 2013 Christmas update and the 2014 Christmas update, however the collections needed to combine it have been changed to the new quest collections (from the last Christmas quest collections).

The artefact reduces the number of Special Items needed for every play of a Picture that normally requires them, in addition to energy points, to play (e.g. ladybugs for Mill or Tokens for Observation Deck). Once combined, it can be found in the Talisman section of the Inventory and can be activated any time by tapping on it there.

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

Hints/Tips for Winning the Christmas Talisman and Amulet of Santa Artefact

 * 1) All of the Collections that you will combine when working through the Special Quests require the 'Christmas' combining elements to combine (Snowflake; Christmas stocking; Streamer; and Tinsel) so make sure you stock up on these combining elements so that you do not get stuck on one of the combine quests. All of these combining elements can be won by playing Christmas Eve, and they can also be given as free gifts between Friends (they do not come out of your inventory when you send them to friends).
 * 2) 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 Christmas balls to play Wonder Shop, 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 gaurantee 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.
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) The Challenge quests usually ask for you to play Wonder Shop, so it is best to continue to work on Wonder Shop 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 Wonder Shop 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.
 * 5) Read the quest instructions carefully. Most quests just ask you to play Wonder Shop, 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 Wonder Shop, then play other pictures until an anomaly appears in Wonder Shop. 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).
 * 6) 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.
 * 7) 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.

Christmas Cartoons
Like the 2014 Valentines Update, the Christmas update contains a series of 3 cartoons that players unlock as they progress through the Challenge Quests. Cartoons will trigger at different stages as players complete the 30 special Quests introduced by the update's timed challenges.

Once a cartoon is unlocked, it can be viewed again at any time by tapping on the Christy icon on the right hand side of their Home Desktop (under the Challenge timer) and choosing which Cartoon to revisit.

The first cartoon is unlocked when players complete the first quest of the challenge - find all pieces of the Wonder Shop picture (Quest 0 in the table of challenge quests above):

After the Challenge is complete
Once you complete all three 2015 Christmas Challenges, or after the challenge timer expires, it is very likely that Christmas balls will be restricted to being rewards for playing just one or two 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, Social Events Update, Halloween2015) 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, Christmas balls are used as the Special item for Christmas updates (like Pumpkin lanterns are used for Halloween updates), so they do not stay in the game once the next update is released.

When the next update is released, then usually the Christmas balls are removed from the game, and any remaining in the players inventory may be converted to other special items (such as Fireflies, Ladybugs, carrots, cupid arrows and tokens).

This means that, keeping the number of Christmas balls 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.

This is why players being able to accumulate a large amount of Christmas balls (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, and so 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 Wonder Shop (including some of the very last quests of the new crop you will work through). And Christmas balls will continue to be a requirement for playing Wonder Shop, even after they have been restricted, so you will need some to be able to complete these other regular quests. In order to maximise how many Christmas balls 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 Christmas balls can be won in every picture in the game open as long as possible.

Normally, the best Challenge to leave incomplete is the Gem Match challenge of finding 500 items by winning games of Gem Match (in this case Bells). However since this particular Challenge gives the Pyramid of Wonder as a reward, most players will probably want to complete it as quickly as possible to get the coveted desktop award (or upgrade it if they already have one).

So, for this update, it is better to leave one of the other challenges incomplete instead. The best option is the 30 Special Quests, as this is the easier of the other 2 challenges to control. As you work through the 30 special quests, or other quests from the update you may reach Academician level in Wonder Shop, so sometimes it is difficult to avoid finishing the Avatar challenge.

The 30 Special Quests consist of 5 'collection sequences' of 6 quests each, where you first complete 5 quests, each asking you to find an item from one particular collection and the 6th quest then asks you to combine the Collection. This means that the last special Quest (30th quest) needed to finish this challenge is to combine a collection.

To avoid completing all the Timed Challenges, and having Christmas balls restricted, just don't combine this collection (you will need to be careful when combining collections normally with sorting enabled, to be sure you don't accidentally combine it).

By leaving this last quest, you will have already gathered all the items needed and will not need to play Wonder Shop again. Combining the collection can be done in seconds, so you will not accidentally leave it too late to finish the challenge. Just make sure that you have the right amount of the correct combining elements available when the time comes, or you could be stuck trying to play Christmas Eve over and over to gather combining elements in time.

By leaving this Challenge to the last possible moment, you can complete the other two challenges and still continue to collect Christmas balls in every picture to build up a stockpile of Christmas balls to use after they become restricted (while still being confident that you can complete all 3 challenges before the timer expires).

The Halloween 2015 Update Pumpkin Lanterns and Spooky Yard
As part of the Halloween 2015 Update the picture Spooky Yard required special items called Pumpkin lanterns, in addition to energy points, for each play. These Pumpkin lantern special items were removed from the game as part of the 2015 Christmas update and Spooky Yard is now a regular picture that just requires energy points to play. The Halloween 2015 collections that rewarded Pumpkin lanterns as rewards for combining changed to reward regular game items instead.

At the beginning of the 2015 Christmas update, any remaining Pumpkin lanterns in a players 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.



As Spooky Yard has been made into a regular Picture, it has been upgraded to a high Level Picture (to bring it in line with new Pictures being higher and higher levels). When the Picture was introduced to the game, it was used as a Timed Challenge Picture. All Pictures used as part of Timed Challenges can be opened at experience level 7 in order to allow all players to take part in the Timed Challenges. They are given the energy point requirements and experience points/coins rewards to match this level, in addition to the rate of progress per play of the Picture at different Picture levels to match this low level. This means players can play the Timed Challenge picture for relatively few energy points, and will need fewer plays to increase the Pictures Level for the Novice - Pro Picture Levels (all pictures have the same rate of progress from High Seeker level on-wards).

The 2015 Christmas Update has changed Spooky Yard from a low level picture to a high level picture. It's unlocking level has been increased from level 7 to level (to be confirmed, 100-102). Its energy point requirements have been increased to match this increase in unlocking level, as well as a corresponding increase in experience points and coins earned for every win of the game. It also takes more plays of the picture to work through the first few Picture levels (Novice - Pro) as the percentage increase at each level is lower, like other high level pictures (e.g. 2% per play at Pro level rather than 4% per play).

Changes to Pictures
The 'brush' item in Theater has had its name changed to 'Tassle', which is a more accurate description of the item.

Experience points, Energy points, and Coins, which drop as players find items within any Picture during a Picture investigation, now fall to the left hand side of the Picture rather than dropping randomly beneath the item that was selected to trigger them (often obscuring other items in the picture).

Tokens added to Daily Visiting Bonuses
Tokens can now potentially be won as part of a player's daily bonuses when they are visiting their Friend's desktops. The total number of daily bonuses a player can receive each day is equal to their current reputation level.

Full Picture Level Progress seen in higher Picture Levels
The higher picture levels require more than one play for each 1% increase in progress to the next level (e.g. Academician requires 2 plays of a picture for every 1%). Previously, the current progress displayed for a picture on these higher levels only showed the full rounded percent that a player was on, so the player could not see the progress for each play of the picture. Now the progress for each play is displayed in the form of decimals, for example a player who is on 56% Academician level on a Picture will see it increase to 56.5% if they play the picture once, and then to 57% if they play the picture a second time. This allows players to keep a closer check on their progress at these levels and also helps new players to understand that each play is counting towards the progress (whereas before it was easy to misunderstand and think the play didn't count since it could not be seen in the progress bar.

Talismans/Artefact Timers Running Down Too Fast
This is a problem that has been reported by some players (mostly those on the Kindle platform) since the Christmas Update last year, and became widespread across all platforms during the Travel Time Update and more noticeably the Social Events Update (when number of complaints by users increased exponentially). The problem became very widespread in the Halloween 2015 update, leading to players mistakenly blaming this update for the problem.

Talismans and Artefact timers were running too fast, and so they were expiring long before their advertised time frame. The effect can be small on shorter running Talismans (2 hour Talismans expiring after 90 minutes instead of 2 hours) but is much more noticeable the longer the expected Talisman timer (e.g. 24 hour Artefacts expiring as much as 4 hours before they should).

In an effort to provide a tempory fix, the game was given a server patch that doubled all the Talisman/Artefact timers (e.g. 2 hour Talismans were given 4 hour timers in the patch). So although the timers were still running down too fast, players were in fact getting close to the correct original amount of time in use (and in some cases more time than original amount).

The 2015 Christmas Update has returned all the Talisman and Artefact timers to their original amounts, and the timers now appear to be counting down correctly again, so that players should be able to use each Talisman/Artefact for the correct amount of time.

Mode dependent items won a play early
The 2015 Christmas Update has not fixed the glitch impacting 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 results in mode dependent items being won when playing a picture the game before the picture changes into the right mode for those items. This impacts all mode dependent collections, but in particular, makes it incredibly difficult to obtain collection items from the mode dependent collections related to anomalies.

Some items in the game can only be found when playing (any) picture in a certain mode. For example, the items from the Venetian Masks collection can be won when playing a picture in Text mode. This glitch means that a player might win an item from the Venetian Masks collection in any mode, as long as the next mode in that picture is Text mode. Players could potentially win an item from the Venetian Masks collection in any other mode (e.g. Night mode) as a result of the glitch.

Confusingly, the Venetian Masks items will then still appear in the 'Can be found' list for the picture in the following play of the picture as normal (in Text mode, which they are supposed to be won in), but an item from the Venetian Masks collection will only be won in that subsequent play if the next mode after that play is also Text mode (i.e. Text mode repeats), otherwise items from a different mode dependent collection may be won instead.

One useful consequence of this glitch is that you can tell which mode will come next in a picture by looking at the items won during the current play, as if any item from a mode dependent collection is won, then that mode will be the next mode in the picture. Seeing items from the Ghost Town collection (not the picture!), for example, in your rewards after playing a picture, will tell you that Night mode will be the next mode in that picture.

Level Unlocking Glitch
Originally introduced by the Tavern Update, this "glitch" causes the game to change the requirements to open certain pictures. This means that players must reach higher game levels than expected to open these pictures.

This glitch causes the game level stated at the beginning of the game to change to a higher number once the player reaches the original level. For example, for the Flower Shop picture, a new player will see that they must reach level 85 to open Flower Shop. However, as soon as the player reaches level 85 the picture will not 'open' and trigger the quest to open the picture. Instead the requirements to unlock Flower Shop will change to show level 87 instead of level 85. Once the player reaches level 87 the Flower Shop picture will open and they will be able to open it.

In the recent updates (Spring 2015 Update onward) this issue has been extended to nearly every picture in the game in order to hide that it is a recent introduction to the new pictures. This means that nearly every picture in the game now states one 'unlocking' level when a player first starts a new game, and then suddenly changes to state a different 'unlocking' level when the player reaches the first stated level. For early pictures, for which this has been retroactively applied, the increase is only 1-2 levels.

This means that players starting the game now will have to reach a higher level to unlock nearly all pictures than players who originally started the game before this change, as the increase has been added to the original opening level for every picture.



The language in the information box when you tap on the locked picture never changes to suggest that there is a difference between the first and second stated level, or giving an explanation to why the level has changed.

It always says "This photo is closed. You have to achieve level X to open it". But the level stated will change without explanation when the player reaches the first level claimed for 'opening' the picture.

When the first level is reached, then the picture will unlock, allowing players to pay with Crystals (real money) to open the picture. At the second stated level, the picture can be opened naturally through normal game play (a quest will start to find the pieces of the picture, followed by a jig saw puzzle that only costs energy points and coins to open).

The idea is that the first level stated is the 'unlocking' level or, more accurately the 'pay to play' level, at which point players can spend real money to open the picture and the second level that appears (only when you reach the first stated level) is the 'opening' level, where the picture can be opened normally, and for free, through normal game play.

However, the game calls them both 'opening' levels, and does not distinguish between them, just changes the level needed itself in the information box for the locked picture, essentially moving the goal posts on players without explanation once they reach the first stated level.

Prior to this change, the pictures used to always state the true 'opening' level in this information box from the very beginning of the game, and this level never changed. The picture would reach an 'unlocking' level, where players could pay to open the picture with crystals, at some earlier level (not stated directly in the game, but usually 1-2 levels below the stated 'open' level), and could choose to unlock the picture early or continue to play until they reach the 'opening' level. Although the picture did unlock (go from a locked padlock symbol to an unlocked padlock symbol) early, players always knew what level they needed to reach in order to open the picture by playing the game rather than spending real money on Crystals.

Not only does this change mean players do not know what level they must reach to open the picture until they reach the unlocking level, since it was added to the original pictures retroactively in recent update to make them similar to the new pictures in this regard, new players also now have to reach a higher level than players previously needed to reach to open pictures in the game.

This change is solely to earn money from confused players, as it would actually be impossible to earn enough crystals to open a picture early when the 'pay to play' level is reached from simply playing the game, the crystals would have to be bought with real money.

Server Problems Gifting and Visiting
As with all large updates released for the game, the 2015 Christmas update may 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.

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
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts