Wildlife Photography Season Update

The Wildlife Photography Season Update was released on the 13th of April 2017 for Android and iOS players, with release pending for all other platforms.

When the update was released, The Wildlife Photography Season Update triggered automatically.

The Wildlife Photography Season 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 Wildlife Photography Season Update introduces 1 new picture - Forester's Base; 30 new quests and 5 new collections.

The Wildlife Photography Season Event
The Wildlife Photography Season timed event contains 3 challenges. Players have a set number of days to complete the following tasks:



For the duration of the Wildlife Photography Season challenge, Candlestick special items are required in addition to energy points to play Forester's Base. Candlesticks are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Candlesticks cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Wildlife Photography Season collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.
 * Collect 500 Cedar Branches by winning games of Blocks to open the Forest Jewelry Box which contains: energy boosters (Cappuccino, Ice Cream, Donut); and chests (Medium Pandora's Chest, Talisman Chest).
 * Complete 30 special quests to win the once-off Forest Keeper's Talisman which accelerates power recovery by 5 times for 24 hours. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Amulet of the Forest Artefact which increases rewards for visiting and helping friends by 50% for 48 hours.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Forester's Base and win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

The Blocks Challenge - collecting Cedar Branches
Players can open the Forest Jewelry Box and win a number of rewards by collecting 500 Cedar Branches. Cedar Branches can only be won by successfully completing the Blocks puzzle. For each successful win of Blocks, you can potentially win between 1-5 Cedar Branches as one of the rewards for completing the puzzle.

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

You must keep playing (and winning) Blocks until you have collected 500 Cedar Branches in order to complete the challenge. Once you have collected all 500 Cedar Branches you will be able to open the Forest Jewelry Box and collect your rewards.

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



Once you have collected all 500 Cedar Branches, the Forest 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 Forest Jewelry Box will remain on your Home Desktop in the same position. Tapping on this will still bring up the information window, however the Cedar Branches counter will be replaced with a congratulations message.

The Forest Jewelry Box contains the following rewards:


 * Cappuccino x1 (Energy Item)
 * Ice Cream x1 (Energy Item)
 * Donut x1 (Energy Item)
 * Medium Pandora's Chest x1 (Chest)
 * Talisman Chest x1(Talisman)

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 Cedar Branches needed to win the Forest Jewelry Box awards 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 Cedar Branches is set up so that they are always included as one of the rewards for winning games of Blocks, 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 Cedar Branches every single time you win a Blocks 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 Cedar Branches well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting Cedar Branches
Although it will take many plays of Blocks to win 500 Cedar Branches, there are things you can do to make the challenge easier:
 * 1) Read the Blocks article and PDF on this wiki for tips on playing Blocks. Seekerseye_inventory.png
 * 2)  Use tools when playing Blocks. You can use Explorer's Eyes and Time Machines when playing Blocks. Using an Explorer's Eye will remove one block from the game board at random. This can be particularly useful for tricky pieces. 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 Blocks 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 Cedar Branches per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Forest Jewelry Box with the other challenges in The Wildlife Photography Season event (playing Forester's Base 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 Cedar Branches, 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 Cedar Branches 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 Cedar Branches 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 Cedar Branches won per win of Blocks. Since the game is coded to give out Cedar Branches for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play by using Luck Talismans will not change anything. The number of Cedar Branches 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 Blocks 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 Avatars - Getting Forester's Base to Academician Level
The avatars won for reaching Academician level in Forester's Base. Players can win the unique Avatar by playing the new picture Forester's Base until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the Wildlife Photography Season's time sensitive challenge.

For the duration of the Wildlife Photography Season update, Candlestick special items are needed for each play of the Forester's Base picture.

While the Timed Challenges are active (before you complete all three, or the timer expires; whichever happens first), Candlesticks are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture in the game (except Forester's Base itself). At least 1 Candlestick is given for every game you win, but winning up to 3 at a time is also possible.



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

As a guide, in order to reach Academician Level on Forester's Base and win the new Avatar, you will need to play the picture approximately 150 times, which will require approximately 3,285 Candlesticks! (or 2,628 Candlesticks if using the Amulet of Santa/Amulet of Rarities Artefact).

As soon as you return to your Home Desktop after playing Forester's Base 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 Avatars

 * 1) Try to play a variety of pictures as much as possible when playing, instead of just playing Forester's Base 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 Candlesticks, as by winning Cappuccinos and restoring the energy you are using to play, you are basically collecting Candlesticks 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, Spring Festival, Tropical Evening, Curiosities Room, Luxury Express, Haunted Attraction, Wigwam and Saloon) 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 or the Amulet of Rarities Artefact to decrease the number of Candlesticks needed to play Forester's Base. Both the Amulet of Santa and the Amulet of Rarities Artefacts reduce the number of special items needed to play paid scenes like Forester's Base by 20% for 24 hours once activated. Using either Artefact when playing Forester's Base could potentially reduce the total number of Candlesticks you need to find to reach Academician level from 3,285 to 2,628. Artefacts_portal.png
 * 5) Use the Valentine's Amulet Artefact to decrease the amount of energy needed to play every picture/puzzle when you are ready to play Forester's Base a number of times. The Valentine's Amulet reduces the amount of energy needed to play by 10% for 12 hours, so will enable you to play Forester's Base (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 Forest Keeper's Talisman, you will be able to combine 5 new collections added as part of the update. These quests will reward Candlesticks once combined, and the Forest Keeper's Talisman itself helps accelerate power recovery by 5 times for 24 hours.

The Challenge Quests, the Forest Keeper's Talisman and the Amulet of the Forest Artefact
The Forest Keeper's Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Wildlife Photography Season challenge quests introduced as part of the 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 Forest Keepers's Talisman automatically goes into your Inventory.

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



Once activated, the Forest Keeper's Talisman will accelerate power recovery by 5 times for 24 hours.

In addition to winning the Forest Keeper's Talisman, players will also be able to combine the Amulet of the Forest 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 Amulet of the Forest Artefact. To do this, open the Collections Window and select the Artefacts tab. Locate the Amulet of the Forest 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 and 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 Amulet of the Forest Artefact automatically goes into the Talisman tab of your Inventory, where it can be activated.

Once activated, the Amulet of the Forest Artefact will increase rewards for visiting and helping friends by 50% for 48 hours.

Winning the Forest Keeper's Talisman
A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Forest Keeper's 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 Forester's Base picture. However, this quest does not count towards the 30 quests needed to win the Forest Keeper's Talisman. This means there are actually 31 quests that display the decorative border, but only the last 30 of them count towards the challenge. Most importantly, you will need to complete this first quest in order to complete the challenge as the 30 quests that make up the event 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 Forester's Base picture (which this quest opens).

There are 30 special quests that must be completed in order to win the Forest Keeper's Talisman. They consist of 5 collection sequences of 6 quests each. The first 5 quests are to find each of the 5 items while 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 wish list and they will not appear in the 'Send a collection item' tab when sending gifts to your friends).
 * 1) Log cabin supplies (combines to create the "Chest" and rewards 10 Candlesticks when combined)
 * 2) Wildlife photography (combines to create the "Camera gun" and rewards 15 Candlesticks when combined)
 * 3) Naturalist's equipment (combines to create the "Naturalist's backpack" and rewards 20 Candlesticks when combined)
 * 4) Rarest animals (combines to create the "Photoatlas" and rewards 25 Candlesticks when combined)
 * 5) Signs of Bigfoot (combines to create "Bigfoot" and rewards 30 Candlesticks 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 Forest Keeper's Talisman are:

Hints/Tips for Winning the Forest Keeper's Talisman and Amulet of the Forest Artefact

 * 1) Use the strongest Luck Talismans/Artefacts you have available whenever you are playing. This will increase the number of items you win for each play, which will increase your 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 Candlesticks to play Forester's Base, so by making sure that Tavern (rewards items for collections that reward Diamond horseshoes), Venice, Buddha's Square, Throne Room, Mayan Temple, Ghost Town, Joy Café, Amusement Park, Bungalow and 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 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 the Magic Crystal Talisman again. The Magic Crystal Talisman lasts for 10 days.
 * 3) The Challenge quests usually ask for you to play Forester's Base, so it is best to continue to work on Forester's Base 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 Forester's Base 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 aid in completing this challenge.
 * 4) Read the quest instructions carefully. Most quests just ask you to play Forester's Base, 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 Forester's Base, then play other pictures until an anomaly appears in Forester's Base. 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) Warning: If you combine the collection items you are gathering before the 'Combine' quest (the 6th quest in each sequence), the game may glitch and not recognize that the collection is combined. If this happens you may be stuck unable to combine the collection again in order to complete the 'Combine' quest and move on in the quests, effectively ending this challenge for you barring finding the collection items a second time from random drops.

Related

 * SS Home
 * Updates
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts