Travel Time Update

The Travel Time update was released on the 13th of July 2015 for iOS players, with release still pending for all other platforms.

The Travel Time update introduced 1 new picture, Observation Deck, 20 new collections, 120 new quests, and finally introduced a search function to the collections tab to mobile platforms (was available on Facebook version of the game since its release August 2014) and also introdued a rudimentary way for players to sort their friends lists.

The Travel Time Update also introduced a new set of non-holiday themed timed challenges, which gave players a chance to win a lunch chest along with a once off talisman, the Traveller Talisman, and a new unique game avatar.

The Travel Time Timed Challenge
The Travel Time timed event introduced 3 new challenges for players to complete within a set time frame:
 * Achieve 'Academic' level in Observation Deck to win an unique game avatar.
 * Collect 500 Flowers by winning games of the Gem Match puzzle to win and open the special Lunch Chest
 * Complete 30 challenge quests to win a special once-off Talisman - the Travellers Talisman.

Note: The amount of time available for the Travel Time timed challenges will vary across platforms. iOS players have 26 days to complete the challenge.

How to Win the Lunch Chest
Players can open the Lunch Chest and receive its rewards by collecting 500 Flowers. Flowers 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 Flowers 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 Flowers listed as the first item in the 'Can be found' list for the puzzle. Flowers 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 Snowflakes in order to Win the Pyramid of Wonder or increase it to the second level Pyramid of Wonder.

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 Flowerss needed to win the Lunch Chest, 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. This means you will not win multiple Flowers every single time you win a Gem Match Game. However, all of the Timed Challenges are designed to be completable within the given time limit, so it is possible to collect 500 Flowers well within the time given. The task is designed to be challenging, but it is not impossible!

Hints/Tips for Collecting
Although it will take many plays of Gem Match to win 500 Flowers, 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.
 * 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.
 * 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 Flowers per play high, try mixing other pictures/puzzles into your playing rotation. Perhaps rotate trying to get the Lunch Chest with the other challenges in the Travel Time event (playing Observation Deck and completing the 30 challenge quests)
 * 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 Snowflakes, 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. However, since Flowers are rewarded using the same mechanism as Christmas balls/Pumpkin Lanterns etc during holiday themed timed challenges (with the number of Flowers awarded for each play) instead of using the same mechanism as collection items/combining elements, Luck talismans and artefacts will not affect the number of Flowers won per win of Gem Match. Since the game is coded to give out Flowers for each play, increasing the number of items won per play will not change anything. The number of Flowers 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 Observation Deck to Academic
Players can win the Unique Travel Time Avatar by playing the new picture, Observation Deck, until they increase its scene progress level up to Academician Level during the Travel Time update's time sensitive challenge (during the first 26 days after the update is released for a platform).

Hints/Tips for Winning the Unique Avatar

 * 1) Try to play a variety of pictures as much when possible when not playing, instead of just playing Observation Deck 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.
 * 3) If you are low on energy, avoid playing the newest pictures in the game too often (Tavern, Treasure Island, Theatre, Forest House, Excavations, Winter Street, Flower Shop) 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 Valentines Amulet artefact to decrease the amount of energy needed to play every picture/puzzle when you are ready to Observatio Street a number of times. The Valentintes amulet reduces the amount of energy needed to play by 10% for 12 hours, so will enable you to play Observation Deck more times with your available energy.
 * 5) 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.

The Challenge Quests and theTravellers Talisman
The Travellers Talisman can be won once a player completes all 30 of the special Travel Time challenge quests introduced as part of Travel Time update. The quests must be completed within the 26 day time limit of the Timed Challenge in order to unlock the Talisman. Once the quests are completed, the Traveller Talisman automatically goes your inventory, and can be activated from the Talisman tab of the inventory like any other talisman/artefact.

A special decorative border in the quest list marks the 30 quests needed to win the Travellers Talisman. 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.

Search Function in the Collections Tab
The Travel Time Update finally introduced a search function to the collections tab to mobile platforms. This function was available on Facebook version of the game since its release August 2014.

Sorting of Friends by 'Activity Level'
A sorting feature for player's friends lists is one has always been one of the most requested features by players of the game. Players have asked for different ways to sort their friends, such as alphabetically or to be able to group their friends them selves uing their own criteria. The Travel Time Update has finally introduced a simple way to sort friends in your friends list. When enabled, this feature will sort your friends based on their activity level. This will group active friends together and away from inactive friends, which will definitely give players more control in managing their friends list.

Other Changes Made by Travel Time Update
coming soon

Glitches Fixed by the Travel Time Update
coming soon. (Heres hoping the venice level 0 glitch is finially fixed or at the very least visiting points are put back up.)

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

More coming soon.... (there are always new problems!)

Related

 * SS Home
 * Updates
 * Holiday Updates
 * Halloween Update
 * Christmas Update
 * Valentines Update
 * Tavern Update
 * Treasure Island Update
 * Halloween Update 2014
 * Christmas Update 2014
 * Valentines Update 2015
 * Spring 2015 Update
 * Observation Deck
 * Quests
 * Collections
 * Artefacts