Bunny here. Putting on my glasses, getting out my pocket protector, and getting my magic fingers and thumbs ready to type those zeroes and ones. Basically…it’s Nerdy Time!!
For whatever various reasons, our game likes to frak with our minds and heads and nothing seems to quite go right. We panic. Throw our device. Scream. Yell. There may be many tears as well. Just slowly take your thumbs/fingers off the device or you may crack the screen. Lol. It’s ok. I am here to help. All of us are. Promise.
In this post, I will be going over the basics of using the New Main Menu EA put into our games a lil bit back. Help you find and locate items easier and make sense of it all. So sit back as we dive on in.
There are a lot of cool new changes to the Menus now and it can be kind of overwhelming to try and find information. To help, I am going to break down each icon section to make a bit more sense of where everything is tucked away now and how you can find it.
In your game in the lower right corner is the Hammer and Saw icon. This is your Main Menu. Tap on it to bring up the Main Menu Pop Up Screen. (THIS IS NOT THE INVENTORY.)
Once inside the Main Menu Pop Up Screen aka “The Store”, you will see a basic layout. On the left, 3 icons of main items. Characters, Buildings, and Decorations. Right along side of them an arrow that when swiped will open all the icons.
In the center you will see items that the game Recommended you may want to get as well as bring your attention to any Limited Time Items. It will vary by player. This is also the same screen that will show you the quick link to Event Items if one is going on.
In the upper left corner is the Back Button.
In the upper right corner are two Feature areas.
The Movie Clips Video Camera Icon (Cut Scenes). That will let you rewatch the lil videos from the very start of the game.
The Settings Cog Wheel Icon (Options). This is where you can adjust the in game volume, Character/Sound Effects volume, Push Notifications, set Confirm Donut Spend, Language, and more.
Now that you have the basic outline, let’s look into The Store Menu a little bit more in details of what you will see when you tap on them. These sections will vary on where YOU are in walkthroughs and what YOU have/have not purchased. Also keep in mind that many items will be in MORE than one place. So tap on that arrow and drag it across your screen to open up ALL the icons.
TOP ROW
Homer, Bart, and Santa’s lil Helper Icon (Characters). This will give you a list of ALL available Characters that are left for YOU to currently purchase.
Star Icon w/! (New!). This will give you anything NEW to YOUR game. This can be anything from Event items to regular items you just unlocked as you finished a walkthrough and/or leveled up.
Homer Buddha Icon (Premium). This is where you will find all the Premium Items that YOU have currently available for purchase in your game. Pretty much if it costs Donuts, it will be here.
Donuts & Money Icon (Currency). This is what the Icon shows. The place for you to buy Donuts or In Game Cash. There are other places too.
Squidport Icon (Squidport). This is where all things Squidport will be located. So if you want to know if you can put something on Squidport, it will be here for sale.
Event Icon. This one will come and go and the image will vary by the Event, but when it is there you can tap on it to locate all the current event items available for you to get.
MIDDLE ROW
Simpsons House Icon (Buildings). This is where you will find a complete list of ALL buildings. For some reason the Fortress of Choclitude is here too.
Kwik E Mart Icon (Businesses). This is where you will find any building classified as a business. Like Grocery Store, Peanut Carts, Aztec Theater, etc.
Brown House Icon (Houses). This is where you will find all Houses like the Brown, White, Orange, Apu’s Apartment, etc.
Town Hall Icon (Civic). This is where you will find Civic items like the Museum, Mental Hospital, and Observatory.
Cubic Zirconia Icon (Aspirational). The majority of Apirational Items can be found here like the Escalator to Nowhere, Magnifying Glass, and Sunsphere.
BOTTOM ROW
Tree & Bench Icon (Decorations). This is where you will find anything considered a decoration in the game. Training Walls are in here too.
Land Icon (Land & Roads). This is where you will find the Land Expansion icon to purchase land if any is currently available. It is also where you can locate one of the places to get roads, pavement, and rivers to lay down.
Tree Icon (Nature). This is where you will find outdoors and nature type of items. Like sculptures, ponds, hillsides, fountains, flowers, and trees.
Fences Icon (Walls). This is where you will find anything you can make a wall with. Walls, barricades, and Entrances.
Patio Set Icon (Leisure). This is where you will find Leisure items like camp fires, Hot Tubs, Swings, lawn chairs, and benches.
Lady Justice Icon (Miscellany). This is where they tucked stuff that just didn’t fit in the other categories. You can find things like cars, Statues, billboards, and many other just random items.
On a side note, you will also see icons under the pop up. One to take you back to the other menus and one with a Homer Golden Statue.
Homer Golden Statue (Character Sets). If you are curious of what all has been released into the game vs what YOU have in the game, this is the place to go. It will show ALL the Character sets from ALL events and releases. You can see what ones you have completed and what ones you did not.
So that about breaks down the Main Menu Store and the Categories inside of it. I will be posting similar for the Inventory and Krustyland as well. So stay tuned.
As always, we are here to help in anyway we can. (I even try to harass…errr…I mean contact EA on our readers behalf to see if there is anything more I can find out too.) Just keep hanging in there. Changes happen. We will all get used to it eventually. 😉
***Bunny****
Howdy there! I only would like to say that it would be great to have more cut-sceens added to the game. For instance one introducing each seasonal event, or even introducing a special character. How cool would that be?
Yes. If it wasn’t for this site, I wouldn’t have had any idea what was going on when Stonecutters started, and other events would have been totally confusing as well. Cut scenes explaining what was starting would have been very helpful.
Thanks for the tutorial. I love the new changes.
Help, please. I got another Update Available! Want! Want! Want! This update is required to continue. For two days I have tried everything I can think of to get back into the game. It is installed. It tells me so. I’ve rebooted several times. What can I do to get back int the game? Thanks!
Try this…only if your game is linked and saved to an Origin account of course.
Clear cache/data, uninstall app, restart device, reinstall app through your app market, relaunch game and log back in.
Need more Krusty Land stuff. Did they forget that its there?
They just launched Princess Penelope not too long ago.
Do you have a 101 guide on friendship points and visiting neighbours? What’s the difference between graffiti and other actions? Thanks!
Navigating neighbors is in the works too. 🙂
For now…the original information is still on our tips n tricks section and some in the new tappers section of the main menu.
http://tstoaddicts.com/guides-to-tsto/new-tappers-guide/
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/02/26/social-currency-event-rundown/
I wish we could have our inventory items from events in their own “file” so I don’t have to sort through the CoC items I will probably rarely use to get to that phone booth I accidently stored and like my garage at home has Halloween, Christmas, Spring decorations in boxes so I can take them out when that season arrives.
Suggest it to them. 😉
I noticed there is a menu for inventory just like the main menu outlined above but I think it only comes up if you tap the inventory icon while already in the main store.
The breakdown for that menu and all the rest is coming. It is just a lot of information, so better broken into parts instead of a HUGE post to read all at once. 😉
Hi,
I hope you don’t mind me asking this here but is there any way to stop the game notifications making a noise without putting your phone on silent? I’m caring for someone at the moment so need to keep my phone on loud in case I’m needed in the night but I don’t like being woken up by the notifications! I turned off push notifications and turned off the sound effects using the options screen thinking this would stop them but I still get noisy alerts during the night.
I have an android phone if that’s relevant.
Thanks for all your great posts!
Mel
If you take a peek at this very post you are commenting on…you will see the feature icon in the menu to raise and lower sound as well as turn notifications OFF in the game. You can also go into your device itself and turn off notifications for apps or sound for apps (most have this feature, it may vary).
Hi, sorry if I din’t make myself clear, I already did this as shown on the post above, I turned off the push notifications and turned off the sound but I still get both. I was therefore wondering if there something else I should be doing, or perhaps if it is a glitch that I still get sound notifications. I will try the device option however, thanks.
Did you do it in your device though? There is a secondary spot in your device itself where they app can still push notifications. So make sure that is off too.
Here is a post that shows where mine was in my device.
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/04/07/name-notifications/
Some notifications may be embedded on devices, so if that does not work…reach out to EA.
Yeah if u go on ur hm screen of ur phone and
Hold down left button so menu shows
Click on settings
Scroll til u find applications
Click there find tsto app
Hold it down and another menu will appear
Click off the notifications bx thts checked
I like the way the new build menu is set up if you know what you want you don’t have to scroll through the whole menu to find a fence or bush… for me it was just a matter of figuring out certain decor items that can be used on squidport and SF (ex. the SP fence doesn’t show in the fence menu but it can be used in SF)… I also like the random suggestion star icon feature
I would love to pressure you guys to start a revolution, but rather beg you deeply. Many players consult these and other tsto websites.
We should all demand a $-icon, that will harvest all buildings and finished characters AT ONCE. I even dream of an added Town Hall icon to send all characters on the same amount of work hour tasks. All of this mandatory of course, if people want to tap on each and every finished building/character, it should still work.
But from my point of view, it became a tedious ‘feels-like-working’ thing and i absolutely loathe it now, it’s just too much, too big, too often. I can’t believe I am the only one feeling that way about it.
So this goes out to everybody, but esp. to you guys, bunny/alissa/wookie.. you have the power to make this snowball roll into a snowslide. Maybe even dedicating a seperate website entry, asking players to communicate their wish to EA.
Please think about it, maybe discuss it in your team. I think this button would make the game more fun again once it grew out of proportion. Thanks.
It is something that has been discussed for a long time. BUT…there is more at work that plays into this than you may realize on a coding stand point. With neighbors visiting, there are handshakes. If characters are inside, there are thumbs up. Etc. They have tried to make the collection go faster. Like seconds now. In the meantime, that is a beast of a coding issue they are still trying to crack without causing havoc and chaos in your game. Great thought. Many do want it. It is just a matter of functionality and IF it will work without glitching or issues or worse.
What if it cost donuts to collect all the task money and re-up all the character tasks in one fell swoop? Like, you know, when it’s tech-free date night and there’s only a minute alone in the bathroom with the phone to click “confirm donut spend,” or, you know, it’s 3 minutes to event expiration or lose the prize and there’s no TIME, man, no TIME!
If EA knew we might pay donuts for the feature’s use…Not talking about me, about a friend. Yeah, about a friend.
Suggest it to them.
I like having to tap each building ,each character itd a grind and is why people dedicated to grinding have much more beautiful, rich and lavish Springfields. I’d hate to see this turned into a lazy mans game.
In another game I used to play, many of the players felt the same way about resource gathering, but the provider never agreed and never implemented a change. Some of the players took matters into their own hands and wrote software to automate the process. They started their own website and made their software available for free download (with voluntary contributions to help defray costs). Their website included a forum for using the software, a FAQ, suggestions, etc. They received suggestion after suggestion for improvements, until the software could play the game without further user input.
The software was often referred to as a bot and, because this was a player-vs-player (PVP) game, it was difficult, at best, to compete with the so-called botters since their bots could react with perfect timing to anything another player did in the game. Botting was against the Ts&Cs of the game, but the provider had a hard time proving allegations of botting, since the programmers even took steps to randomize the timing of some of the bot’s in-game actions.
Meanwhile, the game stopped being fun, and thousands of players no longer play that game. I don’t either!
I’m with LardLad737. Like items together.
i am very disappointed from the Simpsons of missing using the crossover in their episode with futurama and used it in the game!
i like that they introduced level 47 but that doesn’t mean it has anything interesting beside the quest.
on the other hand, there is family guy game where they keep throwing things at you from all sides, fermium and premium and the pace is never slow in that game
i think that the game the Simpsons is losing stamina and slowing down, i didn’t like the Halloween update that much, it was nice, but it could have been done better, not only doing the event in phases!
don’t get me wrong, i love the Simpsons, and it is truly my favorite game
I’m confused – are you saying you wished they had put something about the crossover with Futurama in the Simpsons game? Like maybe a building for the writers and a quest with the show’s creator who becomes a permanent character in the game?
Or you’re disappointed because that’s what they did?
What I definitely do NOT like is that they have removed the circular window in the upper left corner that highlighted the characters who were free to be assigned new tasks. Now you have to hunt for them on the list from the courthouse. Much more time consuming if you have a large cast.
Is anyone else bothered by this?
What are you talking about? I still have that. As long as your characters are free…they show up there. If they are all on tasks, then you have to find them otherwise.
Also If you have your task bar closed in the bottom left corner It also hides the character locator in the top left so make sure you have that open.
I have a design question. When I first open my or my neighbors’ Springfields, I land in a certain spot. It is usually the geographic center of town. But some of my friends have me land in another spot. Is there a way to control this? I wanted my friends to land on the park, not on city hall, but I bought more land and my center changed.
Move your park to that spot. I go out then back into my town and drop items in the corner points of the landing screen (this changes the more land you buy. It will stop once you have all the land and the center is set). Then I decorate around the land zone of what I want my neighbors to first see when they arrive.
FYI…during events where a major point is needed…it may temp change. Like last Christmas we had a metal tree for the event. The game immediately opened on the tree and where it was in the town. So watch for that during events.
Thank you, Bunny!
I personally like it, at first I was taken back but I dig it now. I am still bothered that all the million dollar buildings aren’t all in aspirational together.
I think it may be due to the Choclitude was a Level release and required at that Level, where as all the others are sitting round Level requirement. So for new players it wont show til they get Artie Ziff. It may eventually filter into aspirational.
I am not eure the new lay out is an improvement however with the increase in items I guess it was needed.
The new menu layout is nice, but at some point, they removed the auto-buy feature (where, if you’re placing fences, parking lots, etc, from your inventory and run out, you’ll begin buying them from the store automatically). Am I the only one that misses that?
Maybe too many complaints as it worked also for donut items…so you could end up with a ton and not realize it til your pink sprinklies are gone. Me…I loved the option.
Is that a change as of today? It was working for me last night. I’ve been re-arranging my town since Halloween ended and I was able to auto-buy decorations. I hope this hasn’t gone away for good!
I believe it varies on items now, but I have not checked them all. I know the ones I tried it did not work on. The others, well…I have a sickness…LOL. I have THOUSANDS of them and don’t want to mess with the time it would take to place them in town and then pull them back out right now. 😉
I am glad that it doesn’t auto-buy any longer as I want forewarning whenever I am spending any resource. Having said that, when placing fences etc., it would be more convenient, when I have used up a particular stored item, and that same item is available to purchase, if the game simply prompted once asking if I want to continue buying this item, and would then switch to buy mode if I clicked on the “yes” button.
I miss this feature too
I miss the autobuy feature on the low-end stuff like flowers, fences.
Love this because I get lost in it constantly. I have it mostly figured out, but I miss place an item in my head and BAM five minutes of searching lol. I’ll be using this often.
But one thing, my Righteousness rating dropped like a stone and I thought Training Walls were in the Wall section(logical, right?), but nope. After a few minutes I found it in Miscellany. Thought it would help anyone making the same connection with the name as I did.
It is due to it is a wall…but also the ONLY wall used by Characters for a task. So it is kind of a building too…so they dumped it there. (Mine is in the first Decoration icon)
Thank you so much for the breakdown! I had figured some out by stumbling around, but not all. And it wasn’t until you mentioned it in a post that I realized, DUH, that the items are in alphabetical order. That’s why hedge and small hedge aren’t in the same place if you’re looking at the long list of all decorations. This new interface makes it easier to find things…once you adapt.
🙂
My feedback to EA has always been that “like” items should be together on the menu. So hedges should be together, whether they are in order alphabetically or not. It makes it easier to find/buy! It seems like on the back-end it would be a pretty easy change to the program. They could just be re-named “hedge – large” and “hedge – small” instead of “large hedge” and “small hedge” etc.
Like
That is so totally how I would have named them. Tree-plum, tree-green, tree-ash, tree.1, flower A, flower 1×1 flower 2×2, etc. Totally. But then I’ve been fighting the good fight with sort order and software.