Help - Getting Started

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## **Introduction**

**Welcome to Card Survival: Tropical Island!**

 Introducing your very first guide: Getting Started. Playing such a "small" game like Card Survival may seem too much overwhelming for newcomers, but that shouldn't be a truth so punishing! This game might be "small", but it's just as complex as a real survival experience!

This first guide will help you get started on your journey through your survival. It covers gameplay basics like save files, Character Creation and gameplay mechanics, and it might direct you to other guides for even further advices. If you're interested, keep reading for some step-by-step tutorials on how to play Card Survival: Tropical Island!

* Note: This page will serve as a basic **how to play guide** or simply a **beginner guide**. While here is little information available at this time, we recommend you to check back often, as new information is being added! You can also feel free to edit this guide with any tips, tricks, and/or suggestions. This page is super recommended for the newer players who didn't played the game yet, that will contain valuable informations for the main mechanics of the game, as well as some tips and tricks on how to play.

### But before starting...

We would be very grateful if anyone wants to share this wiki with all your friends, who also plays this game. Increasing the sharing is the key to make this community expand bigger and better!

And if also you know someone who also knows how to edit, and if that person also plays this game, share this to him and show how he can improve the Wiki!

## Starting a "Run": Save Files

On the Card Survival's title screen, you can press play, and you'll be transferred to a selection of 4 empty save files. You can randomly select it, but it's just as righteous to pick the first save file from the upper left, don't you think?

Things that's worth noting to the Save Files:

* After you finish editing a character, there's no option to re-edit the existing save file with new content. Instead, you need to create a new save file (with the perks from the last one, if you prefer) to play with the new stuff.

* Currently, there's no option to cloud save any existing save file from the game, so watch out on clicking a trash can if you don't want to delete your special and precious save file!

### Starting a "Run": Select Your Character

*See article: Character & Perks*
*Despite this title being a straight King Of Fighters' speech reference*, from now on it's simple. After selecting the save file, you'll have to create or select a character. You can now choose from selecting a list of pre-made characters (made by the devs), or you can click the **Create a Character** button on the upper part to open the Character Creation screen.

If you are a newcomer, you should select one of those pre-made characters.
Here's the list:

* To do: resumed citation of all the current characters, and maybe a redirect to the individual page for all of them\*

## Starting a "Run": Beginning Gameplay

    Upon starting a run for the first time, you'll now see a bunch of stuff in the screen. With a orange colored lighting representing the sunrise, you can now play the game. There's different ways to start in different locations, but you always start at the Beach, which might be considered your loyal **Spawn Point**.
You can also see that the Beach has cards called **Landmarks**. Those cards cannot be depleted, spoiled or destroyed in any way/shape/form, but it can concede infinite resources or giving you the ability to perform **Actions**. Those actions can interact and/or affect something in the current location, being that something spoiling, your **Stats** or the main feature of this game: the **Time**.

### Movement and Tool Use

On the desktop version, the game can be controlled using the Mouse. If you are playing on the mobile version, the game can be controlled using your fingers.

* The cursor on the screen is moved using the mouse. You can interact with the card by clicking on the card to see what informations it might show, and by holding the card and drag around to another card, and trigger the specified action.
	+ Currently, there's no special commands with the right-click, and only using the left-click will interact with the card currently selected in the screen (needs verification).

* On the mobile version, there will be some arrows for practical movement, a good way for moving around in the Inventory Rows, except for the Hand Row (alternatively tapping on those arrows makes so you move all the way to the last card showing in the row [needs verification]).

In addition, the game also has the following mechanics:

* Menu Button
* Time, Day & Weather
* Journal, Blueprint & Your Character
* Status Bar
* Location
* Inventory Rows: Location, "Ground" and Your Inventory
* Flag & Category Organization

## Menu Button

A menu where all the current game options and settings are located:

* You can able/disable the Vignette effect, for when it's dark, to make it more realistic.
* You can able/the sound effects or the ambience, if you're bothered with one of those, or both.
* You can customize the game's interface (this option is still being implemented in the game).

## Time, Day & Weather

*Main articles: Time and Weather*

This section shows the current time, the current day and the actual weather at the moment. The time only passes by doing actions in the game, such as exploring, or combining certain cards to make a new one.

The minor amount of the time that you can pass is 15 minutes. A Time Point (TP) is also called and equal to a 15-minute action. The timer is most useful mechanic since you can keep track of the day and night cycle. Click here for more details about the time.

After passing 24 hours (or 96 TPs), the first day is immediately changed to the second day, but it only occurs when you reach 6:00 in the morning (in-game time).

While time passes by, so does the weather, in different moments of the current day. Click here for more details about the weather.

## Journal, Blueprints & Your Character

*Main articles: Journal, Blueprints and Character*
The Journal is the main objectives of the game. From a simple 'Drink and eat from a coconut' objective to a 'Build a raft' one, there's also mid-objectives that you need to complete.

Like 'Craft a stone axe', or 'Find a water puddle', they are useful because it lets you explore all the island, the different areas, plants, trees, and animals before you leave it or going for another ending.

The Blueprints is where you can build structures, tools and other items to facilitate a specific part of your survival, whether be woodworking, health or your own house.

Your character, or just **You** are located at the upper left corner, below the timer and the Journal and Blueprint buttons. It shows your character portrait, the Weight bar and if you click it, it also shows your equipment.

## Stats Bar

*Main article: Stats*
Stats are numeric values of a certain thing, which simulate your character and his well-being. There's a lot of different stats, but the game shows only the important ones. Values aren't shown explicitly, but it's presented by bars or meters of a different color filled by a certain percentage as well as a unique icon on the left of the bar.

Some of them you need as full as possible, some of them empty and some of them are best around the middle. To do well in the game you will need to learn which ones are which and how they interact with each other. Luckily enough, most of them are very intuitive, for example the Satiation, Thirst and Body Weight bars you want as full as possible most of the bad things you want them empty, and they also start empty and invisible.

Hovering your cursor at the icon or the meter shows it's current stat and situation of how they are in. Next to them there is a trend arrow showing how they change with passage of time. When the arrow is pointing down, it'll gradually decrease over time. The same goes for the arrow pointing up, but it'll increase over time. The minus sign means they'll remain where they are.

Some of the stats you affect directly by doing actions inside the game while the others slowly change over time based on other stats.

* The Thirst bar is easily filled up by drinking coconut water or normal fresh water, while mood for example is hard to influence directly and will go up or down depending on how you are taking care of your character, with good stats going up or bad stats going down. Click here for extra details about the status effects of the game.

## Location

*Alternative article: Exploration*
A location card is shown next to the Menu Button, with a white outline, which also shows the current location you are. Clicking on it, you can explore the surroundings to gather resources and plants for your survival.

Certain locations can be interacted with your tools, rewarding you with related materials.

## Inventory Rows

*Cited article: Encumbrance*
Most of the interface is covered in the playable area. It is divided into three rows:

* The top one has the location card, and the findable cards gathered by exploring, such as plants and trees. They are strongly connected to it and cannot be moved to any other row besides its own row.

* The middle one, also called **"Ground"**, has the gathered item cards present at the location, which can be moved freely to any other slot and your main inventory row.

* The bottom one, your main inventory, is the one you can store and carry the cards while traveling through other locations. Having only 6 slots, it has a limited amount of different cards you can carry, but not the amount of the same cards that you can carry.

The items you find in other locations can be dragged to the ground or kept in your inventory for later uses or interactions.

You move these cards between rows by dragging and dropping or using the right-click on them, also for the card interactions and combinations that they may have.

## Bookmark & Category Organization

The **bookmark** or **flag organiser** are located at your inventory, with different colors, which can be interacted by using the respective number keys of your keyboard, up to 6.

This type of organization is better to use instead of using the scroll bar in order to find what you want.

Tapping in the number key will show only the cards that are marked with the respective flag. So, you have freedom to separate the colored flags for different uses and purposes.

Another thing that's worth noting is if you're creating multiple cards of the same one to use the same flag, it'll automatically be put with the flag on it

The **category organiser** are located at the ground, which can be interacted by using the 4 different icons that are related to the cards that has its main usage: Water, Food, Crafting and Camp.

* The Water organiser has only the items that may contain water, such as the coconut shells or your clay containers, or any other item that naturally concedes water, such as the coconuts.

* The Food organiser has only the items that are related to food, like coconut meat or any other item that naturally concedes food, such as the conch or wild animal carcasses.

* The Crafting organiser has only the items that can be interacted to obtain newer cards, like using a stone on another to sharpen it or any other item that be used to make any special tool with.

* The Camp organiser has only the items that are related to fire, like fibers, any other item that can produce fire or an item that is naturally flammable, such as the nests or wood shavings.

Later in the game, you'll notice that you have too many cards in the ground, and it obviously means a big mess. So it's very recommended to use one of these organisers or both of them.

### Rearranging the Inventory

1/2
Items in the inventory can be moved using the cursor/finger. Pressing and holding the upper part of a card will move it from its slot to the Ground. Doing again on the lower part will move it from the Ground back to your Hand. It's a good way to move big stacks of the same card to the Ground, or to a container, since it will gradually increase the speed of the animation, as long as you're holding the upper/lower part of it.

## And last, but not least...

Now that you've learned the basics of how to play, the best thing to do would be to keep reading other guides, or simply continue playing, discovering new things on your own, and if you do get stuck, find something in the game you're unsure about, or simply want detailed information about one of your items, look up what you need on the wiki.

Now, it may be handy to check out the real **Survival Guide** pages for info and for better understanding on what to do next. And remember, you can play this game your way and on your own, so don't feel pushed to only gather informations on this wiki.

# More Guides

This is the end of this guide. If you have finished reading and wants to check other guides, check out the list below. Note that some pages may not have anything to do with the other guides, but they have enough knowledge to accomplish such feat.