Welcome to my guide, and if you are returning, thanks for both being patient with me and for playing the game endlessly.

The main point of this guide has been completed, the game now has a wiki over at:
https://cardsurvival.fandom.com/wiki/CardSurvival_Wiki

I will be moving my help over there since I found out about it from Neomare

I took a break from the internet a few months ago, and a bit before that I was struggling with updating this guide due to how 'in progress' the game was at the time, overhaul of some systems, addition of new locations and just the density of information the devs have managed to put into this game.


Now for the overview. This guide was built as an early wiki, designed for beginners and people who just needed a bit more information who didn't want to jump into game files to learn every single part of the game.

Moving forward I will be attempting to keep a bit of that spirit in the guide with a few exceptions.
I no longer plan to add a complete crafting guide, due to the intensity of work that would require from me, if I had additional help it would be more viable, but for one person it is unrealistic.


Moving towards the future is going to be an interesting prospect. At this moment in time the Devs haven't expressed any intent to 'complete' this game to my limited knowledge, not directly following the games developers on media platforms and the like. The game wiki will be the new hub of information for players.

THIS GUIDE IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING UPDATED TO V29

SPOILER WARNING
So, believe it or not this guide has SPOILERS. Yeah you heard that right, SPOILERS. The kind that SPOIL things by overly explaining that which doesn't need explaining.

THIS GUIDE WILL SPOIL YOU. I will be displaying information, progression, areas and information that you would normally find out yourself. I would recommend playing till AL LEAST day 30-50 before reading this guide if you intend to keep yourself away from the majority of spoilers. I considered making a fandom wiki but honestly I'm not sure I care enough to do even more html editing and formatting, this was the best accessible place to help the most people.

Now we have the SPOILER warning out of the way (And yes I'll stop doing that bold/underline thing), Lets talk about this guide, and the game.

Card Survival is a pretty interesting game, it has some interesting interactions, is being actively developed and even though its in early access, the Dev has been working on helping it develop. IT seems to be a solo dev and I haven't found a way to directly contact them, joining a discord or anything of the sort. So instead I'll be leaving ideas, concepts and other stuff in the final chapter of this 'guide'. Things I hope could have some consideration among other things.

Now we only need more people writing 50,000 word essays to remind me how to do recipes I did once by accident. This guide won't be the answer to life, the universe and everything but it'll try and come close, a sort of 41 out of 42 maybe.

THIS IS AN IN DEVELOPMENT GAME, Information in this guide will get outdated pretty quickly without YOUR help, I can't check everything in the game after every new update. I will (hopefully) try to keep things in exact values. This means using the game files to find the exact number of a condition like hunger, and use those as a descriptor.

Disclaimer This guide was started in version 6, the game has updated 23 times since I started, I will be recompiling all the features, skills and tips for game version 29-30 due to having time to put work back into this. I am still looking for collaborators who wish to assist in this task.

For people wondering on the current progress of the remake, currently I need to replay the game to visit every location again, a lot has changed map-wise in the game as well as the developer facilitating people to play differently in some cases with new tools and materials.

Currently finished section, working from top, down is [Contt. Stats interactions and details]

These next two/three 'Chapters' will be a ton of text about the 172 counted variables the game tracks, which are directly impacting your character, I only plan to show the statistics the player directly has control over, or become values you actively manage, like hunger.
I might miss a few but I have no intention of revealing mechanics that are not in the game yet. If I miss one this was intentional due to not having encountered it myself, please tell me and I will add it once I know it is current.

It is worth noting there is 'population' stats for things like bugs and boars, I have no idea how these impact the game at all, I may do some testing later with an extremely high boar population.

For people who care to spoil all 173 variables along with their save file, I found mine in:
Users/User/AppData/LocalLow/WinterSpring Games/Card Survival - Tropical Island


THESE ARE THE VALUES AT GAME START, Day 1, 6am (No traits) (Split due to character limit)

The list of skills, including what I expect are hidden ones and currently unused skills are as follows


The skills you can buy to raise your skills, are only the list that follows however:
Archery
Climbing
Cooking
Crafting
Fishing
Herbology
SpearFighting
SpearFishing
Swimming
Tailoring
Trapping

All of these skills if you take the relevant perk will instead start at 75.

For the skill perks, interestingly some skills aren't granted checkpoints.
People cannot have a potter backstory, hobbyist gunman nor be skilled at throwing things like knives or rocks. These are skills you will always have to level up per run, and for the most part, might not be worth focusing on some of them like rock throwing when spears replace many of its functions and later bows with archery.

I won't go over what things like 'hunger' are, but I will note a few about wounds and damage.
It is worth noting, unless you are bleeding to death directly, everything should be killing you slowly. The only reason for 'sudden death' is entirely due to you taking actions that further hurt you. Even events like stepping on an urchin or falling from things high up, will not outright kill you unless other factors are also at play.

Interestingly, some of the variables are stationary when I would usually expect them to change, such as the ones related to sun damage/sun burns which would usually be expected to 'heal' over time. It is also worth noting you gain stamina by default meaning resting isn't the only answer to regaining it. An important end game note is that 'Courage' has no base gain rate.

As a side note/survival tip, food seems to be represented by both Satiation and Nutrition. Nutrition is likely the variable which allows you to stay hungry without starving to death. Water on the other hand has no 'protection in this manner, making food something you can ignore early in the game if needed.

From my testing, you can change these values to make yourself gain/lose things like Skills. It is amusing to see every skill grow at the same time but the popups get overwhelming when all of them trigger at once. The game seems to have developed a very good crafting menu now however which has streamlined a lot of searching. The addition of a search bar however and giving some items tags like 'container' might facilitate that further.

As far as I know, each 15 minutes counts as a 'turn', this means all values in this list, and the ones I didn't show; change by the BaseRate per 15 minutes/One Turn in game.

Now people are gonna ask "What about the 9 skill traits"
Lets be honest, they are all the same so I'll boil it down like this
Each 'Main' skill requires you to max that skill out by surviving and training it up, its worth -500 points per trait

Some special items have additional uses:
[Life Raft] can be cut up into two [Plastic Sheets] if you take an hour with a cutting edge.
The [Tourist] perk gives you a free backpack, which could arguably be the best item in the game for 4 free inventory slots, without taking up a hand slot due to it being an equippable.
[Military Knife]s similar to copper tools can be sharpened once their durability reaches 0%.

For the next few sections I will be using a bit of save file editing to gather information. I will note the areas, their checkpoints, and the outcome of 100 searches in the location at 100% progress. I will be also making sure all my skills remain at 0 by giving them a negative gain value.
I was going to put all of the locations into one section but separating each location is smarter.

For people who are unfamiliar with save editing or game file manipulation, it can completely ruin the game for you, this game has a few issues if you raise some stats too high, you will not get the 'checkpoints' for that area, making it impossible to progress potentially. I do not recommend it if you value having a fun experience in this game, exploring and learning on your own.

Each 'location' will be split up into 3 groups:
Special things revealed at 'checkpoints' while exploring increases to 100%
Random events, whatever random stuff will be found at the location
Area limitations, objects in the top bar which have a limit to their count, like the inability to find another Palm tree on the beach till the first is gone. (Might be a bug, will check back next update for this)
A final note I didn't realise till just now: Discovering new areas gives a slight bit of happiness.

In this section I'll be listing things I've noticed, realised or some to appreciate in the game as potentially really smart actions to take.

• Using a stone axe in place of a sharpened stone for things like peeling Coconut husks doesn't damage the axe (Possibly a bug?)
  
• Altering ANY item resets all durability's associated with it. A sharpened stone for an Axe will reset the durability, same goes for cooking any food or transferring water between containers.
  
• Conches should be a last resort for food. They never decay till they are broken, and have use near clay sources. They should potentially be a priority to collect
  
• Mining Copper veins should be done with a random stone where needed. They take the same duration as using an axe but have none of the penalties against durability.
  
• Diving on the Beach has a small chance to find a rock if you need one in a hurry but can't risk Urchins from the Rocks location.
  
• You are able to divide rope back into yarn and cords making it an efficient way to move a large amount of things.
  
• Hammocks are the most portable bed, with no back pain, only costing a large piece of cloth and 2 ropes.
  
• Sunburn only goes away after applying Aloe, Aloe cannot be cut using an axe, only a sharpened stone or potentially a knife. (Might be an oversight)
  
• Birds Nests are a source of tinder. Not gonna solve all your problems, but can be useful up in the highlands.
  
• A campfire with charcoal prepared can be harvested for ash, but placing charcoal back inside the fire will reset that, allowing you to generate 2 ash every 15 minutes/1 turn in game without spending any fuel.
  
• Copper tools along with the military knife can be sharpened once they reach 0% durability
  
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Heres a quick list of locations and the time it takes to travel between them, I'll be listing groups of 0 time along with if you take walking damage, as well as skill checks and time required / time of day

I'm going to make a little key
/ = Free travel
\\\ = Harmful free travel (Like foot damage)

Each 'turn' taken is 15 in game minutes, the 'penalties' column specifically applies in order for any harmful effects.



Rocks/Beach causes slight foot damage, otherwise movement is free. If there was some long term method of making a path the beach cave would be a great spot to live. if you can put up with a lot of loading between each zone.

It is also worth noting there is almost no reason to settle in the highlands due to it becoming impossible to traverse during any wet weather, even at maxed skill. Due to there being no rope ladder or otherwise that can be installed.


This means that in my mind the Dark cave, along with the Wetland jungle and rarely the Deep jungle makes one of the best locations to stay, due to the quick access to mud and clay, as well as shelter, and later water.
The only downside would be the lack of salt, something you could make a stockpile of in the Jungle outskirts to haul boars across for half an hour of travel. It would be recommended to make a large stockpile of salt (10 per boar) to just salt all the meat for the future. Can be applied quickly and turn a nearly decayed boar meat into a fresh one processing to salted. It might also be worth making up to 12 cloth bags to aid transporting objects between the Outskirts and Deep jungle since this is the only actual time limitation you will encounter frequently.
By the time the player is able to fully set up a partridge coop in the highlands or elsewhere, you could likely be investing the time into getting off the island with boar hunting.

From what I've noticed through multiple playthroughs, Conches do not appear till after 100% exploration. The beach has many valuable resources but seems to be lacking a few potentially important items the developer has yet to include. (Will be put in final notes)



Random Events:

Area Limitations:

If you have an [Axe] you can always 'Cut Wood' at the [Jungle Outskirts]


Random Events:

Area Limitations:

This category will be for all the items you have to pick up, and what it unlocks by doing so. Crafts gained from skills will be in another table.

This section will be later about my notes on mechanics like illness, wounds and otherwise. As well as noting things like the bandage plant being just as effective as the life raft trait bandages for some reason, making them nearly useless besides the lack of a decade timer.

Basic summary of fuel consumption, timings and otherwise to make planning easier.

Kiln - 25 hours / 100 turns
Campfire - Approx 23 hours?

Heres my rambling section, where I with my survival knowledge, list off way too many things for a single Dev to do or include in a game. Most of them being things players should be able to do with a bit of knowledge and/or luck.
It is also worth noting, the Dev has made some of their intentions clear, such as not adding a river to the island among other things. Suggestions here are at best that, suggestions. I do not expect them to get added to the game at all. At best they might be a nice read for survival-minded people who got interested in this game due to how well it shows some of the survival aspects.

AGAIN from v6, it is worth noting I made this list and only plan to add to it, things might be added/removed, not my problem. Just take it as some interesting survival-centric ramblings.




For people wondering about other things, heres a few things and why they wouldn't fit into the game

Berry Bushes, plantain, nettles, cattails, wild onion/garlic, dandelions, Burdock, Amaranth, Asparagus. The list goes on; these are Temperate plants, they do not fit in with the style of a tropical deserted island. There might be one or two places you might find a few, but they would be extremely rare and in poor health.