You must be the change you wish to see in your Springfield

How ya doing Tappers? Hopefully good. Wookiee here with yet another post about my lastest redesign journey.

Bet ya didn’t know that Ghandi loved TSTO too, eh? Well, he probably would not have enjoyed the violence in The Simpsons but today’s post isn’t about non-violent civil disobedience anyway (Sorry Lisa, maybe next time).

What I wanted to talk to y’all about is the concept of a REDESIGN. With Halloween looming in the very near future (Oh me, oh my, 2-ish days…Woohoo!), you may have wondered what you are going to do with all the new things you’re bound to be getting. The easiest answer is to redesign your town and/or buy more land.

About 5 weeks ago, for no other reason then it brings me joy, I decided to completely redesign my town. This REDO was my fourth since I started playing last October. In between these massive undertakings, I would tweak my town and move around items as it fitted my fancy/was required by new levels.

There are a couple things I had to do before I began. The main thing was to make sure I wouldn’t miss my old town. To help with this, I just had a stitch made so I could look back fondly at my old “ugly” baby.

This town was my first real attempt at making a cohesive town. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd and thought out what I believed made sense in a functioning Springfield. I just wish I had images of the first two versions. There are many things I really liked about version three but as Confucius say… “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”

With an image saved, I was off to recreating Springfield. To get in the mood, I watched this clip to take me back to the good old days before I ever placed a single building or shrub.

Hard to believe that a year ago I had no clue what characters or buildings were coming, didn’t know I’d actually have 70 plus worldwide friends visit my town at least weekly and that I’d spend my nights actually blogging about my tiny yellow characters. My how the time has flown Addicts, Even without all this awesome stuff, I still had a desire way back when to make my Springfield aesthetically pleasing (even if it was only for myself and 3 co-workers).

First step in the redesign was to store all my decorations. I did this by hiding all my characters and buildings and then tediously storing every single one of them. I then took every building and placed them closely to each other on the bottom right area of my town. I then built a strip of road for all my characters. With all the buildings tucked away and my character exodus begun, I had a lot of green space to play with.

I began by actually taking a blank piece of paper and sketching out how I wanted my town to look. (It actually looks a lot different from the original sketch but this gave me somewhere to begin). I knew from the start I wanted some big things in my town so I started with these. I figured the easiest way to explain the whole process is to show what my finished redesign looks like and then take you through a brisk summary of how I did everything.

My first work was my landing screen. I logged out of my game and when I got back into my town, I placed a bush where I felt the center was. Of course, I tossed my signature 2D (one of the first I ever completed) there for all my neighborinos to see. Placed water all around it and this seemed like a natural place to start building a town square.

Below this, I wanted a large area for creating any 2Ds and for a while, had Emperor Moe place holding this.

Next, at the top left of my town, I started building my Springfield dam. I’d seen designs similar to this in other towns and dam it, I wanted my own version of it. I knew I wanted the water to flow using my waterfall and then meander to a riverwalk restaurant area down by the beach. The Buddhist Temple ended up being my first building I placed to hide the ugly transition between the waterfall and the river.

The tranquility of this led me to build my nature park area since I wanted the northern part of Springfield to be peaceful. All buildings and decorations in this vein were placed up there and I connected my Springfield Park with them. Placed a wall around the area I wanted for the park to re-attack later.

Due to a 2D I was working on for fun (Duffman), the Duff area ended up being built on the top right next and I ended up liking it so much, I kept it.

Wanting the top of my town to be complete, I started my graveyard area to connect to the park and once this was done, the church seemed like it needed to be close by.

Level 33 dropped on me, so next I built my super prison and then worked on the hospital area to go right next to it. Figured these two areas might need to be close for some reason.

Things were slowly coming together so I headed over to work on the Restaurant Riverwalk area near the beach. While placing my fooderies, I decided a family fun area should go there too.

Not really sure which came next, Level 34 stuff being placed or my nerdy nuclear science area but both were completed close to each other. I believe the addition of the High School prompted the build of that area first to include all the municipal buildings. I liked how both schools were close to the park.

Towards the bottom of the municipal area, I put all the sciencey stuff. Figured Frink would want to be close to the particle accelerator and Power Plant. Volcano Lair HAD to be near there too and to fluff out the area, O knocked out my hotel/apartment area too. While I was down there, I redid my Squidport which was the one area I didn’t end up storing/moving before this undertaking. Behind the plant, I placed my entertainment studios and my 2D work area.

Tweaked my town square again and placed my gyms and bowling alley.

With the gym area done, built my Sprawlmart complete with a garden center. I figure it’s a Super Sprawlmart too because Marge has to buy groceries somewhere, right?

Lastly, I created Evergreen Terrace. I messed around with a lot of different ideas for the houses and placed the 3 mansions in the bottom right. This seemed appropriate because these land squares are the most expensive in the game and rich folks like expensive real estate.

Thankfully I had most of my town finished before Level 35 dropped. All I had to do when this came out was figure out where I wanted Disco Stu’s place and the DMV. I’d left blank spaces in my town just for new buildings so it was fairly easy. Patty and Selma’s apartment fit in great down by the beach-side hotel and Miss Krabappel’s apartment building. With these new items placed, I considered myself done. Here are the before and after screenshots just so you don’t have to scroll back up through all my verbal artillery shelling.

Just to illustrate how much minor tweaking can be involved creating a town you love, I thought I’d point out that I’ve done two major tweaks since my latest town stitch was done. I messed around with my DMV for fun and I revamped my Squidport to include my new sushi joint. Winston Churchill probably said it best… “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

OK… here’s my last thing. If you decide to completely re-do your Springfield like crazy old me or just start revamping what you have, IMHO, the devil is in the details. I love the little touches every one comes up with just to make everything that much cooler or “believable”. Here are a few of the little things I love in my town.

I geek out at the idea that CBG would have his very own vintage poster above his shop.

Boxes and boxes and boxes of Fireworks right next to Homer’s regular stopping point… epic.

A bomb shelter big enough for tons of townsfolk… paranoid much Herman?

Movie in the park. Didn’t have the space for a Drive-In but thought this would be cool too.

A real community center just like the ones where I grew up AND it’s near the schools (stupid 2 mile walk uphill both ways).

Wiggum’s house. I really enjoyed making this one.

Lastly, the Simpsons home with decorations close to how they were in the show.

Well, hope this ramble helped you out regarding redesigns. If I inspired one of you to take on this beast, let me be the first to say Good Luck. They really are a massive thing to do and take a lot of time, patience and switcharooing. All told, mine probably took over a month. Definitely a labor of love but something that can fill up time AND renew your love of the game. I think my favorite part of doing this post is just having the opportunity to show y’all what my town looks like. Obviously I can’t be game friends with every one so it’s nice to share to a larger audience.

If you have any questions… please comment below. Also, if there’s a special place in your town you’d like to share, definitely show it off! Feel free to use any of the ideas in my town. I wouldn’t put it all up here if I wanted it to be only for me lol. Until next time… you stay classy Addicts… Wookiee out!

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” ~ Ronald Reagan (I think Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are good on this one Ronnie.)