Swamp and Iron Update!
Card Survival: Fantasy Forest Patch Notes — May 28, 2026
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Hello everyone!
I hope you're all well!!
Today we're introducing a lot of new content:
Save system optimization:
We have changed the way that saves are handled: the game should now use considerably less RAM, the save files will be noticeably smaller in size, and game autosaves should no longer produce the extreme lag spikes they were producing before.
The system should properly convert your saves to the new format, but since there is always a risk of something not going as planned we made it so that the game does a backup of all your saves when you'll start it from the new update. If you notice anything strange when loading your old playthroughs, please let us know on Discord, by email or via the in-game bug report system, and once we fix the issue you'll be able to recover your save from the backup.
Backups will be saved in C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\LocalLow\WinterSpring Games\Card Survival - Fantasy Forest\Backups\Backup_EA_0.64
Swamp Biome:
19 new areas have been added to the map to the south of the oak woods. These areas are more inhospitable than what's been seen so far. The swamp is not only a mosquito hell but also a treacherous place that can be hard to traverse.
Whenever there's rain or when snow is thawing paths will often flood, making travel take longer and getting you wet in the process.
Of course, despite its challenges, the swamp also comes with its unique rewards, such as iron, bog myrtle, peat, beavers and some special landmarks.
Special Note on Flooding:
We have not enabled actual flooding in the swamp areas for now, as we want to redo the flooding system since we're not very happy with it. So keep that in mind if you're building a house in a non-dry area of the swamp!
Swamp Fauna:
Beavers:
Beavers can be found in these areas. They live in flooded locations and build lodges and dams. Their dams have an effect on surrounding water levels and make fishing easier, and can also be dismantled for materials.
When hunted, beavers give a good amount of meat and fat as well as skins with good fur.
Leeches:
These parasites can attach to your skin when swimming or when moving through flooded areas. For now they can just be eaten or used as fish bait, but we'll add some extra uses for them in the future. ;)
They usually drop on their own when full, but they can also be detached by force, or by applying salt or heat.
Other Animals:
The swamp also has a duck a population as well as a new fish, the eel. Eels can be found in some dark waters and provide fatty fish meat.
Swamp Flora:
Bog Myrtle:
A very strong insect repellent that provide mosquito protection when burnt, used as bedding, hung from racks or applied as the new insect repellent salve.
In addition to that, this multi-purpose plant can also be used as seasoning and induce altered mind states at high enough doses (at some cost).
Alder:
A new type of tree, somewhere between a pine and a birch tree. The bark from these trees can be used to tan leather, just like oak, but can also be used as red dye. Red dye worsens your stealth profile, but provide some bonuses when it comes to fighting.
Peat:
Old plant matter that has been turned into peat. This can be dug up with a shovel from certain swamp areas and after letting it dry for some time can be used as a very efficient source of fuel for your fires.
Other Plants:
Kingcup patches can also be found in the swamps and are a very nutritious plant that will later on be also usable by bees. There's also regular moss, which can be used as bedding or as tinder when dry.
Both Bog Myrtle and Kingcup can be grown in gardens too.
Iron:
Bog Iron Patches:
Some parts of the swamp have patches of bog iron. These patches fill up over time and can be harvested by hand. Once extracted, bog iron can be left to dry, then roasted, and then crushed to increase it's ore quality.
Iron is relatively abundant in the swamps, its difficulty instead lying on the fact that it's gated behind some specialized structures, requires a lot of work to make usable and can only be found in inhospitable swamps.
New Structures:
A new structure, the bloomery, can reach high enough temperatures to turn bog iron into iron bloom.
Iron Bloom then needs to be worked into iron nuggets, which can then be turned into bars and tools as usual.
The bloomery can also be used as a regular smelter, for the purpose of smelting greenstone or metal nuggets. It cannot however accept metal casts.
There is also a new additional structure, the forge, which can burn hot enough to heat up iron to workable temperatures. This structure is ideal for working all kinds of metals, as it's an open fire with the capacity to hold many nuggets, bars or blanks.
Iron Tools:
Iron is a powerful metal but its strength varies a lot depending on its quality. Low quality iron is worse than ghost bronze, but high quality iron (closer to steel) is currently much sharper and durable than even tin bronze.
Bog Iron is a poor source of iron, but with good smithing skills and by following the right procedures it can still be turned into relatively high quality iron (better than bronze). Later, once better iron sources and processing methods become available reaching maximum quality and steel will become more feasible.
Iron requires a higher temperature to smelt that what can be achieved with in-game technologies so it cannot be cast like other metals. The only way to craft tools out of it, is to work it with a hammer at a forge.
Fortunately, Iron Forge Hammers can now be crafted. This tool is essential for iron working since it makes the process extremely more efficient.
Iron pickaxes can also be crafted now! Of note is that these two tools only really work with iron, as the other metals are not hard enough for them.
Swamp Landmarks:
As usual, we tried to bite more than we could chew! As a result we had to cut some of the landmark content we had planned. We'll be adding some of this missing content during hotfixes and in future updates.
In the meantime this is what the landmarks currently do:
Hag Pond:
A creepy pond that gives you nightmares and can frighten you during the night. Its inhabitant will be introduced later.
Sacred Willow:
An old willow that makes anyone around it sleepy and can provide some useful painkiller calming blessings.
Mosquito Pond:
A mosquito infested pond that will eventually be the source of some blessings and a creepy spirit.
Rotten Oak:
Another spirit oak that can sometimes get angry and curse the entire forest. When this happens acorns will get diseased and deer and boar populations will start to collapse. Boars will also get extremely hungry. If this happens, a trip to the rotten oak to appease it might be needed to restore the forest to its right balance.
Status Update:
Now, we wanted to talk a bit about the next two updates.
We're running a bit tight with the NPCs so we've decided to use the next update instead as a quality of life one.
The NPCs are not the only reason behind this decision though. I've been playing the game a lot during this update, and I feel like we need to slow down a bit and take some time to polish the existing systems and gameplay.
As you know, we're a very small team and we release updates at a very fast rate. This has its advantages, but it also comes with the side effect of accumulating bugs and unbalanced features over time, which we barely have the time to correct.
So basically, the plan is that we'll focus this next month on improving performance through design mechanisms, improving our existing systems, adding new quality of life tools and playtesting, polishing and balancing the game as much as possible. :)
In the meantime Plissken will be focusing on the NPCs as much as possible so that they can hopefully be released for the update after the next one!
And now, to the patch notes!
Version EA_0.64 and hotfixes since the last announcement:
- Fixed a bug where soup condition messages (not hot enough, not enough liquid, etc.) appeared even when the soup was in a different environment.
- Reduced the frequency of soup condition messages overall.
- Fixed some instances of hunting bugs: animals should drop carcasses and die more consistently
- You can now make low quality twine out of fresh willow bark or dry reeds.
- Compost bins now generate bugs over time (which can be used as bait).
- Liquids being hot no longer ads 15 minutes to the drink action.
- Furnace now holds 12 metal nuggets instead of 10 and it can also fit 2 bars.
- Badger now gives a bit less meat.
- Collecting water from Marshes, Ponds and similar areas now gives unsafe water again.
- It is no longer possible to interact and smith metal items while they are inside a furnace (this will now only work on open fires or forges).
- Old Pickaxe and Forge Hammer items were transformed into their 50% quality Iron equivalents and their buy and sell prices have been adjusted.
- 19 new Areas added to the South of the Map.
- Southern oak woods are now moderate acidity, are no longer considered wetlands and have had their paths tweaked.
- Flooded Grove has been moved to a different position.
- Implemented flooded path system.
- Added bog iron patches.
- Implemented iron processing system, iron metal, bloomeries and forges.
- Added blueprints for forge hammers and pickaxes.
- Implemented peat.
- Implemented beavers and their structures (lodges and dams).
- Added ducks to the swamp and made it so that they no longer leave trails.
- Implemented eels and leeches.
- Implemented Alder trees, Bog Myrtle, King Cup and regular moss.
- Added Mosquito pond, Hag Pond, Sacred Willow and Rotten Oak.
- Fixed a bug that made the location card disappear when getting into an environment.
- Fixed a bug where you would sometimes get stuck with "can't do two things at once" if you spent ticks with spiced food on the board.
- Pie Slices now properly destroy themselves when eaten.
- Water no longer Spoils over time.
- Teas are now made though the overboiling system.
- If you are playing on the beta version, you will now get access to day/week/season checkpoints even if you're playing in realistic mode.
- Nesting Box can now be built outside of Enclosures.
- Adjusted clothing prices.
- Drinking Water from an Ice Hole made in a Lake now completes the Drink Water from the Lake quest.
- Pine Salve now properly unlocks Tranquilizer Coating Blueprint.
- Nettle Stems no longer displays Run out of Fuel Message when fully dried.
- Ovens can now be unstacked.
- Dried Spirit Mushrooms are no longer heavier than fresh ones.
- Fixed a bug which prevented Nettle Leaves from being added to a Raw Pie.
- Added Messages describing why the food is not being absorbed into a stew.
- Kilns, Furnaces and unlit oven can now be unstacked.
- Fixed a bug where the Primeval Wolf was using different animal groups when calculating weight of its actions and actual action executions.
- Tweaks to firepit blueprint duration, fuel burning rate, capacity and smoke production.
- Thick stew now always takes 15 minutes to drink regardless if its hot or cold.
- Added missing Hunting Fences Improvements to the Rocky Bank.
- It is no longer possible to wash your self with water once it absorbs some food.
- Water collected from the Pond now has a lot of Bacteria which take a longer time of heating up to clear.
- It is now possible to use butter instead of fat when frying foods.
- It is now possible to cook in fat and butter.
- Fixed the bug with Extinguished Firepit fuel capacity.
- Fat and Butter can no longer be placed directly on a Fire.
- Added the Shelf and Drying Rack to the Food Filter.
- Fixed a bug where Garlic effect was not showing its status.
- Fixed a bug where teas made from clay jar powders did not give any benefits when drunk.
- It is now possible to increase the thickness ( and strength ) of Teas by drag and dropping powders from your hand or a clay jar.
- It is now possible to increase the thickness ( and strength ) of Teas by right clicking more matching ingredients into a tea container and letting them boil inside it.
- Fixed a bug where Healers Moss would overboil too fast making it impossible to get a boiled version of it.
- Last Piece of Pie now properly inherits flavours from it.
- Fixed the Acidity level of Boulder Grove.
- When building mining shafts game will now prioritize a Pickaxe over a Stone.
- Melting and then cooling down fat no longer resets its spoilage.
- Fixed a bug with Firepit not generating any smoke inside the mudhut.
- Butchering Small Animals now takes a minimum of 3 minutes.
That's all for now.
See you for the next announcement! :)
Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there and are likely to undergo balance changes quite frequently! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/