Christmas 2014 Update

The second Halloween update was released on the 11th of October 2014 for IOS players, 24th October 2014 for Android players, 29th October 2014 for Kindle players, and 4th November for Windows players. Release still pending for Mac computers.

The Halloween update introduced 2 new pictures, Theater and Forest House, new collections, new quests, and fixed problems with visiting introduced by the Treasure Island Update as well as iOS 8 incompatibility problems.

The 2014 Halloween update also introduced a new set of holiday challenges, which gave players a second chance to win the Sphere of Miracles desktop award (originally up for grabs in the first Halloween Update in 2013). Players who already have the Sphere of Miracles on their Home Desktops from last years Halloween timed challenges have the opportunity to increase the Sphere of Miracles desktop award to a new award level.

The Halloween2014 Timed Challenge
The Halloween2014 timed event had 3 challenges. Players had a set number of days to complete the following tasks:


 * Achieve 'Academic' level in Forest House to either earn the 'Sphere of Miracles' desktop award, or increase it to the 2nd level if you won it last year.
 * Combine the 5 Halloween collections to create 'Witch's Talisman' artefact, and receive an unique avatar.
 * Complete 30 holiday quests to unlock a special Halloween Chest, and receive its rewards.

For the duration of the Halloween challenge, Pumpkin Lantern special items were needed in addition to energy points to play Forest House. Pumpkin Lanterns were given as rewards for every successful investigation for every picture, but not for playing puzzles, nor as a reward for banishing anomalies. Pumpkin lanterns cannot be gifted between friends, however they are given as rewards for combining some of the new Halloween2014 collections.

Note: The amount of time available for the Halloween timed challenges varied across platforms. iOS players had 30 days to complete the challenge, Android and Kindle players had 21 days, and Windows players had 15 days.

How to Win the Sphere of Miracles
Players can win the Sphere of Miracles desktop award by playing the new picture, Forest House, until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the Halloween2014 time sensitive challenge (during the first 30 days after the update is released for a platform).

Pumpkin Lantern special items are needed for each play of the Forest House picture. The number of pumpkin lanterns needed for each play of Forest House increases as you increase the picture's level. As a guide, in order to reach Academician Level on Forest House, and win the Sphere of Miracles, you will need to play the picture approximately 165* times, which will require approximately 3,500 pumpkin lanterns!

Note: The Haloween2014 update has changed the percentage increase for Detective level from 7% per play to 4% per play (equal to the progress on pro level), which is why the estimated number of plays (and hence special items) has increase compared to previous updates using the same 'Academic' challenge.

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

When discharged, the Sphere of Miracles gives out a number of one of the game's special item (e.g. fireflies, ladybugs, carrots or cupid arrows) at random. During Holiday challenges the sphere may also reward special items needed to play the holiday picture, such as the Pumpkin lanterns needed to play the picture Forest House. This means that in normal play, there is a 1 in 4 chance of receiving any one of the regular special items every time you discharge the Sphere, but during Holiday challenges there is a 1 in 5 chance of getting a specific special item when discharging the Sphere.

The Sphere of Miracles was originally offered as part of the 2013 Halloween Update. Players who have already won the Sphere of Miracles during the 2013 event have the opportunity to increase its level to the 2nd award level.

Level 1 Rewards every 12 hours:
Level 2 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 - 10 items if 1 special item type plus 100 coins
 * Regular reward - 7 items of 1 special item type
 * Rewards when award charged by any visiting friend - 14 items if 1 special item type plus 100 coins

The Halloween Chest and Witch's Talisman
The Halloween Chest can be opened once a player completes all 30 of the special Halloween quests introduced as part of Halloween2014 update. The quests must be completed within the 30 day time limit of the Halloween Challenge in order to unlock the chest.

Once unlocked, the chest can be opened at any time by tapping the chest icon on the top of a players home desktop, and choosing the 'open' option beneath the photo of the chest in the window that opens. Once opened, the chest gives the following items: The 30 quests needed to unlock the Halloween chest are marked by a special silver border in the quest list. Other quests added by the update, with regular gold borders, do not count towards the 30 when completed. The special 30 quests 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: These are the 5 collections needed to combine the new Witch's Talisman artefact, so once a player completes all 30 quests they are automatically able to combine Witch's Talisman artefact and win the Unique Avatar offered by the update. This completes the third task in the Halloween 2014 challenge.
 * 1x 'Potion of cheerfulness' energy item (gives 36 energy points)
 * 1x 'Sugar skulls' energy item (gives 60 energy points)
 * 1x 'Candy apple' energy item (gives 120 energy points)
 * 1x 'Pumpkin pie' energy item (gives 180 energy points)
 * 1x 'Vampire drink' energy item (gives 300 energy points)
 * 1x 'Basket of sweets' energy item (fully restores energy and increases maximum energy by 15)
 * 1) Halloween puppets (combines to create "Witch puppet")
 * 2) Halloween toys (combines to create "Toy cat")
 * 3) Halloween snakcs (combines to create "Halloween cake")
 * 4) Pumpkin soup (combines to create "Pumpkin soup")
 * 5) Invitations (combines to create "Invitations")

The Witch's Talisman itself is the same artefact that was offered in the 2013 Halloween update, however the collections needed to combine it have been changed to the new quest collections (from the last Halloween quest collections). The artefact triples a players energy restore rate for 24 hours once activated. Once combined, it can be found in the Talisman section of the Inventory and can be activated any time by tapping on it there.

A new storyline is gradually opened as a player works through the 30 quests.This storyline appears as a cut scene at different points during the challenge. There are 3 cut scenes in total. The first is unlocked when the picture Forest House is opened, the second is unlocked when the 2nd collection needed for the Witch's artefact has been combined (after the 12th special quest is completed), and the 3rd cut scene is unlocked when the 4th collection needed for the Witch's Talisman artefact has been combined (after the 24th special quest is completed). Once unlocked, these cut scenes can be accessed again at any time by tapping the icon of Christy on the left hand side of a your Home Desktop. Replaying a cut scene will give a small reward of coins, energy points and experience points.

iOS 8 incompatibilities
The release of iOS 8 for apple products created problems with the original game. The incompatibility between the games coding and the new firmware caused the game to crash repeatedly for players. The game would crash at the beginning of every picture or puzzle game. Returning to the game brought the player back to the open picture/puzzle on the pause screen.

The game now runs smoothly on devices using the iOS 8 firmware.

Visiting Limit Glitch
The Treasure Island Update introduced a glitch that limited players visiting to 51 total charges. After charging 51 items on their friend's home desktops, players would get an error message telling them they have reached the limit for charging for the day. This would happen regardless of whether a player had available charges for the friend they were visiting according to the counter on the left hand side of the screen and regardless of whether the player had enough strength to continue charging their friend's home desktops. Fully quitting the app would reset this limit, and a player could charge another 51 items before needing to quit the game again.

This 51 charge visiting limit has been removed from the game, and the normal visiting limits determined by a players reputation level have been reinstated.

Gem Match Puzzle Stuck
The Treasure Island Update also introduced a glitch into the Gem Match puzzle, causing it to 'freeze' on the same puzzle for puzzle levels Academician and above. This meant that the same board configuration repeated over and over again for players once they reached this level.

Gem Match now rotates through a set amount of unique puzzles for all puzzle levels again.

Empty Wish Lists
A day after the Halloween update was released for Android devices, the wishlist feature of the game was partially disabled. This meant that although players are adding items to their wishlists, they are not showing in all of their friends games. This makes gifting incredibly difficult, as there is no way to tell what a friend. The wishlists are more likely to appear between two friends if they are using the same localised servers. Visiting a friend after you change your wishlist forces the servers to update your game files, which can increase the chances of a wishlist showing to at least some of your friends (if they are on the same servers).

Sphere of Miracles Level 2 in Top1000 Glitch
The game is unable to display the Level 2 version of the Sphere of Miracles next to a players name in the Top1000 players list, which can cause games to quit unexpectedly.

Once a player upgrades their Sphere to Level 2, it will no longer appear next to their stats in the Top1000 list (or when looking at the Top1000 using the 'Friends Only' option). Instead, there will be an empty spot where the original sphere icon used to exist. This empty slot looks exactly like the empty slot that appears in the Sphere's position of a players awards list if that player has never won a Sphere of Miracles (in either Halloween event). However, tapping on this empty spot in the stats of a player with the Level 2 Sphere will cause a players game to crash, bringing them to their devices Home Desktop.

The game does not crash if a player taps on any Level 1 Sphere icon or any empty slot belonging to players who have never won a Sphere. The crash only appears to happen when tapping the empty slot of a player who has a Level 2 Sphere of Miracles. This crash appears to be similar to the Tavern update's FaceBook avatar crash, where the game crashes if it cannot display a picture it is being asked to display. The Top1000 list's small icon version of the Level 2 Sphere picture does not appear at all in the Top1000 area of the game, suggesting that this version of the picture either does not exist in the game files, or is damaged.

The Level 2 Sphere does appear properly on the Home Desktop of players, and tapping on it's icon on your own Home Desktop or on the Home Desktop of a friend while visiting them will not crash the game.

Eastern Bazaar in Pieces Mode Glitch
Similar to the Bubble Blower in Tree of Dates when the picture was first introduced to the game, some items in Pieces mode in Eastern Bazaar fall outside the limits of the screens on some devices after the Halloween2014 update. This means that when these items are in those locations, they cannot be seen in the picture or tapped to be 'found'. Using either a Compass or Seeker's Eye tool will point past the edge of the picture closest to the item, but will not help you get the item. The only solution is to use the Dynamite tool to remove the items from the board. Otherwise, the timer will run out and the picture investigation will be lost.

This only happens when the items are in one of their possible locations in Pieces mode, and any other iteration of the puzzle should be solvable as normal.

This is a problem with screen resolution on certain devices, where some screens will stretch the picture of Eastern Bazaar in such a way as those items are no longer in the displayable area. Not all devices are effected by the glitch, depending on the size and resolution of their screen. To date, the problem has been reported on iPad 2.

Game Crashing When Playing Forest House
Occasionally game crashes have been reported when playing the Secret Society: Hidden Mystery game after updating to Halloween2014. These crashes appear to mostly happen when playing Forest House in pairs mode, when pairs mode appears for the first time in normal picture mode rotation. Upon pressing 'Research', the game crashes and players are returned to their devices desktop. Once the game is re-opened again, Forest House can be played in pairs mode without any issue. If pairs mode appears twice in a row, the crash does not appear to happen on the second game.

This crash does not affect a players picture win streak, and does not happen every time pairs mode appears in Forest House.

Collection Tab Sorting Glitch
The Treasure Island Update also introduced a glitch into the collections tab, which rendered its sorting option useless. Pressing the 'Disable sorting' checkbox returned the collections to their unsorted order normally, but sorting of collections to aid combining new collections was no longer possible.

This sorting glitch has not been fully fixed by the Halloween2014 update, and the collection tab sorting continues to be unreliable. It is recommended to continue to use the 'disable' sorting option when using the collections tab. The 'disabled sorting' tab sorts collections in the order they have been introduced to the game. The List of Collections; List of Collection Items; and List of Collection Item Locations pages also display the collections in this order, and can be used to find collections/rewards of interest, and give a rough guide as to where to find them in the game.

Server Problems Gifting and Visiting
As with all large updates released for the game, the Halloween2014 update caused 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
 * Halloween Update
 * Christmas Update
 * Valentines Update
 * Tavern Update
 * Treasure Island Update
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts
 * List of Artefacts