We’re excited to announce the release of Ember Island! This major update features an entire new expedition island for you to discover, plenty of new enemies and bosses to slay, and it contains more than 30 brand new story events! As Alex and his friends explore Ember Island, there will be plenty of new Skills for them to master. And all is not what it seems...something strange is afoot, and our heroes need to find out what mysteries the ruins on Ember Island are hiding. STORY UPDATES: [list][*]Get to know your friends and the inhabitants of Paradise Island more in-depth! There’s 20 new Dating events, most of which have doubled in duration compared to the first chapter. Every Date now features several moments of interaction. [/list] [list][*]Reach up to Rank 6 with the main cast and up to Rank 4 with the side characters. There's more than 7 days of dating awaiting you! [/list] [b]BATTLE UPDATES: [list][*] Easy, Normal and Hard Mode are now available. The game, due to balance testing, was set to Hard. You can now adjust the difficulty at any time outside of battles. [/list] [list][*] Loaded games from before this update will automatically switch to Normal. If you’d like to keep the challenge, you can change it back to Hard in the settings menu. [/list] [list][*]From now on, your party’s HP will recover after battle. In Easy Mode, SP will mostly recover as well. On normal, SP has a small recovery, while on Hard, SP does not auto-recover. Additional SP can still be recovered by eating at a campsite or using Spirit Fruit-type consumables, either during or outside of battles. [/list] [list][*]You can now collect vital information on your enemies by defeating them, learning more about their strengths and weaknesses in the process. Click the Beast Book Icon in the game menu to find out more. [/list] [list][*]During expeditions, it’s now possible to travel to Paradise Island from certain coastal locations. When you return to Ember Island, you’ll start in the same spot where you left. [/list] [list][*]You can warp to any campsite you have discovered before, allowing quicker travel across expedition maps. Active camps will glow, unexplored camps will not. [/list] [list][*]Dolores’ Town Shop will sell new crafting materials every new week in case players are missing resources from previous islands. [/list] [list][*]Combat and reward balance have been refined, and there’s a minor increase in healing as well as increase in damage toward higher levels. [/list] [list][*]Guarding is now implemented as well and shows a special FX. [/list] [list][*]Mining and herb gathering on Paradise Island now include more varied and useful drops. [/list] [list][*]Cocktail mixing has been made more user-friendly. [/list] [list][*]Players only have 6 days to clear an island. Not clearing the island in time will result in a game-over. [/list] [list][*]Music will be streamed from your drive, lowering the RAM usage of the game by more than 50%. [/list][/b] We hope you’ll enjoy Ember Island! This update contains the second out of three chapters of Tropical Hearts. Once we’ve finished the third and final chapter, the game will leave Early Access and be officially released. Feel free to join our Discord for feedback, bug reports and meeting other fans of Tropical Hearts! Find us at https://discord.com/invite/jqSqN5DHhf Cheers, KokoLori Studios