zwolanerd

My corn crop came in last night. Remember my corn crop? So apparently I’m still playing 90 days later. I’ve made my peace with that. I had every intention of capturing screenshots of the crop being ready and then harvested, as I figured such a momentous occasion should be immortalized in JPEG form. Unfortunately, in trying to get the shot lined up I mis-tapped and accidentally harvested and was therefore unable to get the shots.  I’m more bummed by that than you probably think.

If you’re playing The Simpsons Tapped Out and you’re not regularly reading The Simpsons Tapped Out Tips, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Lots of great info over there, and it makes me ashamed I even tried.

I’ve been formulating a wishlist for the game and I thought I’d share what I have so far:

• A way to keep track of all characters. I’ve lost count of how many characters I’ve got running around my Springfield and when I need to send them all out on new tasks it can be a chore finding them all. One town I visit had all the roads take out except for one square in the middle.  Since the characters look for the nearest road once they’re finished with their job, they all congregated in that loop. It was a good idea, but I felt the town looked a little weird using pavement instead of roads. The Sims Freeplay has a great method for keeping track of all your Sims: a scrollable side menu that shows each Sim and what they are currently doing. Tapping on a Sim highlights them wherever they are, even if it’s in a different building in town. Very handy. Granted, TSTO has a lot more characters, but it seems like there could be something along those lines.
• A farther zoom out. It is possible to take multiple screenshots and piece them together to see an overview of your Springfield, but good night is that ever a pain. Plus, scrolling around is getting to be a pain because my town is getting larger, and a farther zoom out would mean less scrolling.
• Ways to earn donuts in-game. There are very few donuts given out in the game – a couple for cleaning up nuclear waste and a recently-added chance to win a few more at each new level up. I know they rely on people paying actual cash for donuts, so I know they won’t ever implement this, but it’s a wishlist, and that’s a wish I have.
• Co-tasks with larger rewards. When Smithers got added to the game things took an interesting twist. His one-hour task is to exercise for Mr. Burns, but Mr. Burns has to be available for the task to be available and it occupies them both for the hour. The two of them together earn the same amount that both of them doing separate one-hour tasks would, and you have to remember to set Smithers going first or you miss out on the opportunity. I’ve sent Mr. Burns out walking briskly several times accidentally just because I was finding and tasking everyone, and then Smithers just wanders around for an hour not doing anything. What I’d love to see are tasks that involve two or more people and have larger rewards for grouping. For instance, there are several characters that can have a Mensa meeting, but they can all do it separately and it doesn’t matter. To me it would make sense that if they all met together at the same time, the reward could be ever-so-slightly better. Same with giving sermons and church attendance, and teaching and school attendance. There’s plenty of opportunities.

Still, I feel like I don’t have much room to gripe. I haven’t paid a thing for the game and I’ve gotten hours of enjoyment out of it. That’s a pretty sweet deal for me, even if I never get to have Frink’s Lab.

What would you like to see added to the game?

Tags: Simpsons, Tapped Out

Written by: Mark