Winter's Tale Update

The Winter's Tale Update was released on the 12th of January 2017 for Android and iOS players, with release still pending for all other platforms.

When the update was released, the Winter's Tale Update triggered automatically.

The Winter's Tale 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 Winter's Tale Update introduces 2 new pictures - Orangery and Saloon; and 28 new collections.

The Winter's Tale timed event contains 3 challenges. Players have a set number of days to complete the following tasks:


 * Collect Decorative Stones by winning games of Gem Match to open the Fairy Jewelry Box, which gives a chest containing a Large Pandora's Chest, energy boosters (Ice Cream, Donut, Lunch Box) and talismans (Fortune Amulet, Leprechaun's Pot o' Gold).


 * Complete 30 quests to win the once-off Gardener's Talisman which decreases energy consumption from exploring locations and puzzles by 10% for 24 hours. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Woodlander's Amulet Artefact, which increases energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours.

For the duration of the Winter's Tale challenge, Rare Flower special items are required in addition to energy points to play Orangery. Rare Flowers are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Rare Flowers cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Winter's Tale collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Orangery to win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

Important: The amount of time available for the Winter's Tale 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.

Winter's Tale Event
The Winter's Tale timed event contains 3 challenges. Players have a set number of days to complete the following tasks:



For the duration of the Winter's Tale challenge, Rare Flowers special items are required in addition to energy points to play Orangery. Rare Flowers are given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, and as rewards for banishing anomalies, but not for playing puzzles. Rare Flowers cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Winter's Tale collections, and they can be given as rewards by the Sphere of Miracles and Pyramid of Wonder.
 * Collect 500 Decorative Stones by winning games of Gem Match to open the Fairy Jewelry Box which contains: a chest - Large Pandora's Chest, energy boosters (Ice Cream, Donut, Lunch Box) and talismans (Fortune Amulet, Leprechaun's Pot o' Gold).
 * Complete 30 special quests to win the once-off Gardener's Talisman which decreases energy consumption from exploring locations and puzzles by 10% for 24 hours. Upon completing these quests you will also be able to combine the Woodlander's Amulet Artefact, which increases energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours.
 * Achieve 'Academician' level in Orangery and win 2 unique avatars, one male and one female.

The Gem Match Challenge - collecting Decorative Stones
Players can open the Fairy Jewelry Box and win a number of rewards by collecting 500 Decorative Stones. Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones in order to complete the challenge. Once you have collected all 500 Decorative Stones, you will be able to open the Fairy Jewelry Box and collect your rewards.

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



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

The Fairy Jewelry Box contains the following rewards:


 * Large Pandora's Chest x1 (Chest)
 * Ice Cream x1 (Energy Item)
 * Donut x1 (Energy Item)
 * Lunch Box x1 (Energy Item)
 * Fortune Amulet x1 (Talisman)
 * Leprechaun's Pot o' Gold (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 Decorative Stones needed to win the Fairy Jewelry Box award 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 Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting Decorative Stones
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Decorative Stones, there are things you can do to make the challenge easier:
 * 1) Read the Gem Match article on this wiki for tips on playing Gem Match, including how to make special gems and combine them to create special moves to clear the board faster.Seekerseye_inventory.png
 * 2)  Use tools when playing Gem Match. You can use Explorer's Eyes (formerly Seeker's Eyes) and Time Machines when playing Gem Match. Using an Explorer's Eye will remove one yellow border from the game board at random. This can be particularly useful for tricky corner pieces. However, since you cannot control which border is removed by the Explorer's Eye, it is better to wait until you only have a few left to remove to increase the chances of it removing the difficult one. Time Machines add 45 seconds to the puzzle timer, which can be a great help for the more difficult board configurations. Use the List of Collections, List of Collection Items and List of Collection Item Locations pages here to find out which collections give out these tools when combined, and where you can find the items needed to combine those collections.
 * 3)  Don't just play Gem Match over and over again; try to play a variety of pictures and puzzles as much 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 Decorative Stones per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Fairy Jewelry Box with the other challenges in the Winter's Tale event (playing Orangery 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 Decorative Stones, 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 Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones 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 Decorative Stones won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Decorative Stones for each play, increasing the number of different items won per play by using luck talismans will not change anything. The number of Decorative Stones 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 Avatars - Getting Orangery to Academician Level
Winter's_Tale_Academician_Avatars.jpeg during the Winter's Tale Update's time sensitive challenge.

For the duration of the Winter's Tale update, Rare Flowers special items are needed for each play of the Orangery picture.

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



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

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

As soon as you return to your Home Desktop after playing Orangery 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 when possible when playing, instead of just playing Orangery 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 Rare Flowers, as by winning cappuccinos and restoring the energy you are using to play, you are basically collecting Rare Flowers 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 Rare Flowers needed to play Orangery. Both the Amulet of Santa artefact and the Amulet of Rarities artefact reduce the number of Special Items needed to play paid scenes like Orangery by 20% per 24 hours once activated. Using either artefact when playing Orangery could potentially reduce the total number of Rare Flowers 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 Orangery 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 Orangery (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 Gardener's Talisman, you will be able to combine 5 new collections added as part of the update. These quests will reward Rare Flowers once combined, and the Gardener's Talisman itself helps with energy consumption while playing.

The Challenge Quests, the Gardener's Talisman and the Woodlander's Amulet Artefact
The Gardener's Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Winter's Tale 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 Gardener's Talisman automatically goes into your inventory, and a new page of the Diary page "Forbidden Text" will open.

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



Once activated, the Gardener's Talisman will decrease energy consumption from exploring locations and puzzles by 10% for 24 hours.

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



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

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

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

Once activated, the Woodlander's Amulet Artefact will increase energy restoration by 5 times for 24 hours.

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

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

The 5 collections players gather as they complete the 30 quests are:

All the items that make up these collections cannot be gifted between friends (they do not have green plus signs to add them to your wishlist and they will not appear in the 'Send a collection item' tab when sending gifts to your friends).
 * 1) Lost jewelry (combines to create "Jewelry box" and rewards 10 Rare Flowers when combined)
 * 2) Midday tea (combines to create "Midday tea" and rewards 15 Rare Flowers when combined)
 * 3) Invisible guest (combines to create "Fairytale house" and rewards 20 Rare Flowers when combined)
 * 4) Nature corner (combines to create "Asian bleeding heart" and rewards 25 Rare Flowers when combined)
 * 5) Multifarious snowflakes (combines to create "Magic snowflake" and rewards 30 Rare Flowers 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 Gardener's Talisman are:

Hints/Tips for Winning the Gardener's Talisman and Woodlander's Amulet 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 Rare Flowers to play Orangery, 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 Magic Crystal Talisman again. The Magic Crystal Talisman lasts for 10 days.
 * 3) The Challenge quests usually ask for you to play Orangery, so it is best to continue to work on Orangery 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 Orangery 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 Orangery, 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 Orangery, then play other pictures until an anomaly appears in Orangery. 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 you are gathering items from 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.

The Magic Tour Update's Train Tickets and Christmas 2016 Update's Christmas Balls
The Magic Tour 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) Train Ticket Special Items were required to play Luxury Express as part of the Magic Tour and Christmas Update.
 * 2) Christmas Balls Special Items were required to play Festive Dinner as part of the Magic Tour and Christmas Update/Christmas 2016 Timed Challenge.

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, Amusement Park and Bungalow.

Both the Train Tickets and the Christmas Balls were removed from the game as part of the Winter's Tale Update and both Luxury Express and Festive Dinner are now regular pictures that just require energy points to play. *Note* Festive Dinner is still active on some platforms pending the Winter's Tale Update. The Magic Tour and Christmas 2016 collections that rewarded Train Tickets and Christmas Balls as rewards for combining them were also changed to reward regular game items such as Talismans, Tools etc.

At the beginning of the Winter's Tale Update, any remaining Train Tickets and Christmas Balls in a player's Inventory are converted into equal parts Fireflies, Ladybugs, Carrots, Cupid's arrows and Tokens, the 5 main special items needed to play the regular paid scenes in the game.

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
 * Halloween 2016 Update
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts
 * Farm
 * Curiosities Room