Harvest and Halloween Update

The Harvest Festival update was released on the 5th of September 2016 for iOS players; with release still pending on all other platforms.

The Harvest Festival Update introduced 3 new pictures - Farm, Curiosities Room and Haunted Attraction; 25 new collections; and 208 new quests, as well as 2 new sets of timed challenges. The update also introduced a new Picture Level - Grand Magister level - which begins after a player reaches 100% on Professor level.

The Harvest Festival Update is also unique as it is the first time that 2 different Avatars - one male and one female - were given to players for completeing a Timed Challenge. Two avatars were given as rewards for both timed challenge events added to the game by the update.

One Update, Two Timed Challenge Events
The Harvest and Halloween Update is the second update in a row that that contains two separate Timed Challenge Events.

The Celebration by the Bonfire Update was the first update to do this, and contained the events Celebration by the Bonfire Timed Challenge (started immediately when update installed) and the Vacation by the Sea Timed Challenge (started a few weeks after the first event's official timer expired on each platform).

After the success of the Celebration by the Bonfire Update, the developers have once again added enough content for two separate events in the install file for the "Harvest and Halloween Update" (version 1.21 of the game).

The timed challenges are: The Haunted Attraction Picture and the 5 additional collections needed for the Halloween 2016 Event do not currently appear in the game, but all their information and images do appear in the game files as they are just be hidden on purpose until the trigger date for the event.
 * Harvest Festival Timed Challenges - launches when update is initially installed, 5th September 2016 for iOS players. Introduces the Farm and Curiosities Room hidden object pictures. Contains 3 different challenges with unique prizes for players to win.
 * Halloween 2016 Timed Challenges - set to on a set date a short period after the Harvest Festival Challenge's official timer ends on a device(currently set to 11th of October at 23:59 UTC for iOS devices). Introduces the Haunted Attraction hidden object picture. Contains 3 different challenges with unique prizes for players to win.

When a player downloads and installs the 1.21 update file, available in September 2016, all the content required for both events is installed on their devices. However, some of the content required for the Halloween 2016 Event remains hidden (not openly visible when playing the game) until the trigger date for this Event. The second event is usually set to start on a specific date for each platform, typically this date is a couple of weeks after the official timer for the first even expires. Finishing the first event early will not start the second event early. The second event will only start when the device reaches the pre-determined start date. However, the Celebration by the Bonfire Update did lead to may user reports of false starts of the second event, and this may happen again with the Harvest and Halloween Update.

Harvest Festival Event
Main Page: Harvest Festival Timed Challenges

The Harvest Festival Timed Challenges are currently set to trigger as soon as the Harvest and Halloweeen Update is installed on a device.

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



For the duration of the Harvest Festival challenge, Harvest Basket special items are required in addition to energy points to play Farm. Harvest Baskets are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Harvest Baskets cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Harvest Festival collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.
 * Collect 500 Apples by winning games of Gem Match to win the new "Magic Cube" Desktop Award, which gives one random Anomaly bansihing tool every 24 hours.
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Harvest 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 Harvest Talisman Artefact, which decrease the amount of Energy required to play Pictures and Puzzles for24 hours.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Farm to win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

Important: The amount of time available for the Harvest Festival 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.

Halloween 2016 "Celebration of the Spirits" Event
Main Page: Halloween 2016 Timed Challenges

The Halloween 2016 "Celebration of the Spirits" Timed Challenges are currently set to trigger on the 11th of October 2016 at 23:59:59 UTC for iOS devices.

The Halloween 2016 "Celebration of the Spirits" timed challenges are potentially the second of two sets of timed challenges introduced by the Harvest and Halloween Update. These timed challenges are set to trigger on a predetermined date a few weeks after the Harvest Festival timed challenges end on each platform.

The Celebration of the Spirits timed challenges is set to begin when a player reaches game level 7 in the game (or automatically after triggering if the player is already above level 7).

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


 * Collect 500 Feather by winning games of Blocks to win the Sphere of Miracles Desktop Award or upgrade an existing Sphere of Miracles
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to win the once-off Halloween Talisman, which Decreases energy consumption from exploring locations and puzzles by 10% for 24 hours.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Haunted Attraction to win 2 new unique avatars.

For the duration of the Celebration of the Spirits challenge, Pumpkin lantern special items are required in addition to energy points to play Haunted Attraction. Pumpkin lanterns are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture (except Haunted Attraction itself!), and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Pumpkin lanterns cannot be gifted between friends, however they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.

The Celebration by the Bonfire Updates's Dandelions and Sunglasses
The Celebration by the Bonfire Update was a unique update since it added two different Timed Challenge events to the game, both of which involved players collecting a Special Item in order to play a new picture:


 * 1) Dandelion special Items were required to play Camping Site as part of the Celebration by the Bonfire Timed Challenges.
 * 2) Sunglasses special Items were required to play Tropical Evening as part of the Vacation by the Sea Timed Challenges.

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

Both the Dandelions and the Sunglasses were removed from the game as part of the Harvest Festival Update and both Camping Site and Tropical Evening are now regular pictures that just require energy points to play. The Celebration by the Bonfire and Vacation by the Sea collections that rewarded Dandelions and Sunglasses 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 Harvest Festival Update, any remaining Dandelions and Sunglasses 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 Picture Level - Grand Magister
Exactly 24 months after Professor Level was added to the game by the Treasure Island Update, a new Picture Level for progress above 100% Professsor has been added to the game by the Harvest Festival Update.



Grand Magister level is represented by an orante gold frame around a Picture or Puzzle on a Home Desktop. Once a player reaches 100% progress in Professor Level, then the next level in that Picture/Puzzle will be Grand Magister Level. The rate of progress for playing a Picture or Puzzle that is on Grand Magister Level is 1% every 8 plays. This means it will take 800 plays to reach 100% Grand Magister.

Once a player reaches 100% Grand Magister on a Picture or a Puzzle, they will receive a Lunch Chest as a reward.

For Pictures, the energy required to play at Grand Magister increases by 3 energy points from Professor Level, and the Experience points and coins earned for completeing the picture increases by 10 (just like with any other picture level increase). For Picutres that require Special Items, e.g. Fireflies for Night Garden, 45 of the Special Item is required, in addition to energy points for each play of the Picture at Grand Magister Level.

Just like when Academician/Magister and Professor Levels were introduced in the past, no new collection items are retroactively added to exisiting pictures at Grand Magsiter Level, however new Pictures do have new items in their rewards list once Grand Magister level is obtained.

Once the Harvest Festival Update is installed, any Pictures and Puzzles that are already over 100% progress in Professor level will not automatically complete. Instead, the Picture/Puzzle must be played one time to trigger the conversion to Grand Magister level.



The conversion is not seamless, like the conversion to Professor level when it was introduced (all progress above 100% Magister at release of update being conversted to Professor progress) during the Treasure Island Update. Instead it behaves like the conversion to Acadmecian level when it was introduced (all progress above 100% High Seeker at release of update being completely lost).

This means that any progress above 100% Professor level on a Picture or Puzzle will not be converted into progress at Grand Magister Level. All Pictures and Puzzles will start at 0% Grand Magister Level once converted, regardless of their original progress (above 100%) in Professor level. For example, see the image above of Tavern at 415% Professor becoming 0% Grand Magister Level.



Male Avatar Reward for Timed Challenges
For the first time since the game introduced Timed Challenge Events, two Avatars are given as the reward for completing the Harvest Festival Event, and two Avatars will also be given for the Halloween 2016 event.

Seeker's Eye renamed Explorer's Eye
The Seeker's Eye Tool has been renamed "Explorer's Eye", presumably to make life difficult for people who curate over 400 pages of information about the game who will now have to change hundreds of "Seeker's" into "Explorer's" for no good reason.

New Artefacts
Two new Artefacts have been added to the game by the Harvest Festival 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 Farmer's Amulet, which players will combine and win as they work through the Harvest Festival Timed Challenges, increases the amount of rewards when visiting friends by 50% for 48 hours when activated.



This Artefact works exactly the same as all Talismans/Artefacts related to visiting friends (e.g. past time challenge reward Artefacts and the current Talismans available to buy in the Shop). The 50% increase only applies to the coins and the experience points awarded, both from daily visiting bonuses and from charging items on Friends' Home Desktops whilst visiting them.

Special Items (e.g Ladybugs for the Mill) that are awarded as part of the daily bonuses while visiting friends do not appear to benefit from the amulets 50% increase. Collection Items that "drop" while charging items on Friends' Home Desktops may also not be affected, though this is open to additional analysis.

The Photographer's Amulet, which players can win by combining non-challenge related and giftable collections added by the update, increases rewards items after completing Pictures and Puzzles by 50% for 24 hours when activated.

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

Glitches fixed by the Harvest and Halloween Update
...tbc...

Related

 * SS Home
 * Updates
 * Holiday Updates
 * Halloween Update
 * Christmas Update
 * Valentines Update
 * Tavern Update
 * Treasure Island Update
 * Christmas Update 2014
 * Valentines Update 2015
 * Spring 2015 Update
 * Travel Time Update
 * Social Events Update
 * Halloween Update 2015
 * Christmas Update 2015
 * Mountain Vacation Update
 * Spring Festival Update
 * Celebration by the Bonfire Update
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts
 * Farm
 * Curiosities Room