Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Well it’s been teased in game..and now we finally remember what Homer forgot! Time to go back in time using a sophisticated toaster! That’s right for this first “Act” Homer will travel back to the Prehistoric days…when dinosaurs roamed the earth, cavemen played with fire & Artie Ziff’s ancestor got all the caveladies attention!
As was mentioned on the rundown post the Prehistoric Act runs until June 11th, and you’ll need Homer to get things started.
Remember, the questline is there to guide you. So when you get stuck on something, or haven’t unlocked something, just follow along with the questline and it’ll take you through everything you need to do to complete the first part and unlock everything you need in order to play properly.
Let me add I’m very pleased so far with the questlines. Looks like EA extended it beyond just the initial run through, and the dialogue is really funny. Nice to see the classic dialogue is back!
Let’s take a look at the quick walkthrough for the first round of the Time Travel Event, as we go back to roam with Cavemen and Dinosaurs….
It’s All About Time Pt. 1
Homer starts
Make Homer Marathon Time Travel Movies- 6s, Earns $35, 1xp
It’s All About Time Pt. 2
Auto starts
Make Homer Travel Back In Time- 6s, Earns $35, 1xp
It’s All About Time Pt. 3
Homer starts
Make Homer Meddle with Time- 6s, Earns $35, 1xp
This will trigger the event…
Buried in Time Pt. 1
Auto starts
Build the Excavation Site- Free, instant build
Unearth a Hidden Gem
Completed Task Earns 50
and 10XP
Buried in Time Pt. 2
Lisa starts
Build Mom & Pop Hardware- Free, instant build
Send Excavators to Acquire Shovels- x3. Can send Cletus, Lisa and Milhouse (6s)
Completed Task Earns 50 and 10xp
It’s About Time Pt. 4
Auto start
Place the Panini Press- Free
Completed Task Earns 50 and 10xp
Chaos Theory
Auto start
Tap Time Invaders in a Friend’s Town-x3 (19 foss, 2)
Completed Task Earns 50 and 10xp
It’s About Time Pt. 5
Auto start
Build the Springsonian Museum- Free, Instant Build
Completed Task Earns 500 
and 10xp
It’s About Time Pt. 6
Homer starts
Make Homer Check If He’s Disappeared from Photos- 4hrs, Earns $175, 45xp
Completed Task Earns 100 and 20xp
Land of the Lard Pt. 1
Homer starts
Make Homer Unchange the Future- 4hrs, Earns $175, 45xp
Completed Task Earns 850 and 10xp
Land of the Lard Pt. 2
Homer starts
Make Homer Set Off Firecrackers- 4hrs, Earns $175, 45xp
Completed Task Earns 850 and 10xp
Land of the Lard Pt. 3
Homer starts
Make Homer Leave a Keg for Caveman Artie- 4hrs, Earns $175, 45xp
Completed Task Earns 850 and 10xp
Land of the Lard Pt. 4
Homer starts
Make Homer Fire a Rocket- 4hrs, Earns $175, 45xp
Completed Task Earns 2,050 and 20xp
Ice Age
Auto start when you complete Land of the Lard
Place a Small Iceberg- $8,500
And there you have it my friends! The quick walkthrough details for the TTT event, Prehistoric Act!
What are your thoughts on the event so far? Enjoying the questline? How about the prizes? Anything you’re looking forward to earning? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
On the new update, we are using spades to dig up prizes, but if you go into Mom & Pop hardware it is saying 4/199. Do we have to save the spades to get to 199. I’m a bit confused? Help please.
No. It’s irrelevant to you.
The 199 is the maximum amount of shovels the shop can store. Compare it with the Springfield Heights shops.
Help! Both Lisa & Bart are STUCK telling campfire stories — it’s been over 18 hours! Anybody else having this problem??
Try storing the Spooky Campfire into inventory. That should release the storytellers.
It worked– you set them free! Thanks!
So here’s what you see when visiting someone not playing in the event, with no roads and lots of lawn.
https://m.imgur.com/6q2BRF5
https://m.imgur.com/vivwEel
https://m.imgur.com/wdAka0F
https://m.imgur.com/QaWe98e
Feels very….Jurassic Park.
Requirements not met, buy a top end archaeological shovel, this is the error when I try to use mom and pops to get shovels. Cletus, lisa and mill house all give same error. Any ideas
During the questline it’ll continue to give them to you for free until you find the gem. BUT only during the questline
Yes same for me I can not get Lisa Cletus or mill house to get shovels I have found two gems now at the mom and pop store I have the 6 second job. I have removed the Simpsons on both my devices and reloaded them. I have been stuck all yesterday I thought the download today would fixed it but no so I deleted the Simpsons again but nothing. Plz help thank you
Ok. What tasks are open in your task book? i.e. what quests do you have to do. Give me ALL of them
I am having the same issue and I have uninstalled two tims and still Sams results. I have tried several different things but still won’t work
Nope, same problem here. Its stuck on questline part one,”dig out a gem stone”. I actualy passed it once, then the game reverted back and now I can’t continue. Tried with bought shovels and found the gem stones but the quest doesnt finish.
Try uninstalling and reinstalling tsto
I received the free shovels until I found the first gem. It now ask me to buy shovels or produce them but keeps saying that I need a top end shovel. I still have quest for Artie to finish, would this affect it.
Now you need to do the questline to build mom and pops. Artie has nothing to do with it
I’m having a huge, weird, disconcerting problem with my game since the event began. I tried to read through all the comments here (and there are a lot) but I don’t see anyone else experiencing what I am because if you were, you’d be hoppin’ mad like I am.
So, when I logged into my game this morning the game began popping up windows telling me that several events from the past had ended, I can’t remember which ones exactly, but I think it was the Spy event and the Space Mini-Event and maybe Homer’s Chilead. Also, Gil popped in and offered me Duff Gardens with Lisa’s Lizard Queen skin.
After that occurred, my tapping radius from the IRS building has scaled back down to the smallest size, the character pictures in the upper-lefthand corner no longer zoom to where the character is when clicked, several characters show earning stars for the Space Mini-Event, and the coin fountain earns pennies again.
More importantly, I cannot dig in the fossil bed. When I try to use it, the game freezes up and I have to force-quit the app.
Is anyone else experiencing something like this?
In case it matters, I play on Android, a Google Pixel-C tablet and Nexus 6 phone.
Thanks in advance!
Shovel strategy- if you have donuts and plan to use them to buy shovels, don’t! It’s a better shovel per donut ratio to speed through the donut task for Booberella. Takes more time to send her and then rush the job, but you get way more shovels for 35 donuts than the 50.
Got the gem on the 36th try. I must be really good or really bad.
Is it just me or are the roaming dinosaurs really attracted to the cobblestone roads? I have one section of town that has roads paved with cobblestones, and I always find a lot of dinosaurs there. This portion of town is a good 1/3 of a town away from my excavation site. So I don’t know why I’m finding so many there.
It could well be. At previous occasions it was also the case, birds of a feather floating together.
Oops. I made a slight programming mistake. It turns out that the strategy that uses a max of 10 shovels is marginally worse than the one that uses a max of 12 shovels.
Program and results are here:
https://pastebin.com/hSm4nRDq
Update on best strategy…
I did the maths and it doesn’t matter whether you use my strategy (that has a max of 12 digs) or the other that other players are describing (max 10 digs). Both end up spending the same number of shovels on average. That is, each strategy takes an average of 218 / 36 = 6.05555555555556 digs to find the gem.
Too bad they don’t allow the dinosaurs to roam Krustyland. That would have been a great Jurassic Park moment.
In the Mom and Pop Hardware store at the top it says, “Send characters on jobs to produce 0/199 shovels”
Anyone know why shovels have a target of 199? Is that a limit or does something happen when you save that many?
likely the limit
Oh NO! 😱
I just assigned everyone a 12 hour job!
I like the idea and execution of the event, but I can’t get behind any of the prizes, or the craftables yet. I usually look for playable characters, or design elements that will work with my Springfield. The Secret Agent event was awesome on that front. I got so many things that work with my town. I love dinosaurs, and I love the episodes the event is based on, but I won’t be playing much of this event, at least this act, maybe in the other acts, but I’m taking this slow, and just going to enjoy some time away from the game.
I just spent $10M for Cecil Terwilliger to contribute to the dam I think. What did I get for that or how do you check this progress? I can’t find any post this.
They didn’t make it easy to track, but here’s how. Click on the daily task icon in the upper right corner of the screen. On the left side of the Daily Challenges window you will see three daily task calendars. The one on the top is purple (the daily task calendar). The one in the middle is blue (The rail yard project board). The one on the bottom is green (the Road to Riches tracker). The green one shows you your progress towards building the various parts of this “quest”. The first thing to build is the Springfield dam. Second is the mansion gardens, etc. At the bottom of this screen it will show you tour progress towards completing whatever you’re building at that time. For instance: For the Springfield dam project, you need to invest $20 million to complete the project. Mine currently shows that I’ve invested $18 million of the $20 million needed. You can click “go to” and it will take you to Cecil. You can make Cecil invest $1, $5, or $10 million. The $1 million task is one hour long. The $5 million task is 4 hours long. The $10 million task is 8 hours long. In my case, since I only need $2 million more to complete building the dam, the only task available to me at present is the $1 million task.
I hope this all helps. Good luck, and happy tapping.
thank you! I was confused too. you helped a lot 🙂
Glad I could help.
Who knew T-Rex liked Pitas?🥙 ( I admit it, I used Boobarella to make shovels and speeded thing up a bit 😄 🤷♀️)
https://m.imgur.com/a/1HWoL
That thing looks hungry. Let’s hope there are some pitas left – otherwise I am not seeing a bright future for Michael, since everyone else in that picture is armed in some way. 😉
Is anyone with a Kindle having trouble with this update? I install and open the app, and it keeps giving me the error “An unknown error occurred connecting to Amazon Appstore.” It then forces me to quit. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, and doing a hard reboot of the device, but still get the message. My internet connection is otherwise working fine.
Sorry, my Kindle is working fine. Good luck
Don’t hit open through the app store. Instead go to your home page and open it through there. That’s what worked for me.
When that happens to me I usually have to delete something, photos or another app. Works every time, hope it helps.
How old is device? I had to stop on my iPad 2 a long time ago because of updates.
I still can play TSTO on my iPad2 (64 GB storage). It helps a lot if you remove all the apps you don’t use. The gameplay is a lot slower then my iPad Air2, but it is playable.
I believe it’s about 2 years old now. It’s a Kindle Fire HDX with the 8″screen if that makes a difference.
This is another one of those “I need ALL of the things” events for me! Even my mystery box! Need! Now I just NEED to acquire the donuts! 🍩🍩🍩
🎼I want it al, I want it all, I want it all and I want it NOW!🎶🎵
that’s my theme song for this event, you nailed it!
There is an optimal strategy to digging so that you can find the gem with a maximum of 10 squares! See the following link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kN66glGHgcVXxe3dVakxwTKJQI88EWkvWiTuGT9lXE8/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks, This is great! I have been using a checker board pattern, which used many more shovels. Nicely done! At least one of us listened in statistics class 🙂 I didn’t understand your pattern at first, so I tried to come up with a better one. I ended up with your pattern upside down. So, yeah…
One thing that helped me is when I put a number down, I made the Xs around it the same color. Not that it makes a difference in uncovering anything, it just helped me visualize what is going on.
Thanks so much! 🙂
I just realized today that the rocks surrounded the Ancient Gem! 😅
Luckily, I found many Ancient Gems nearby the edges, so that probably got me close to the at most 10 shovels per Ancient Gem. 🙂
This is awesome! Thanks so much for posting.
With this year being the 150th anniversary of Canada, I was rwally hoping they might do something for Canada Day (July 1). I figure it’s a longshot, but are there any hints in the files?
Nope. Just indications of 4th of July (US Independence Day)
Will EA have the guts to bring us the present POTUS?
They won’t bring you a president that’s currently alive….
Trying this again.
a sample
where -n- where to hit if hit rock on n.
13 -1- -6- 6 -2- 11
-1- 1 -1- -2- 2 -2-
9 -1- -5- 14 -2- -7-
-9- -4- 5 -5- -3- 7
-4- 4 -4- -3- 3 -3-
12 -4- -8- 8 -3- 10
hitting (r,c) (2,2), (2,5), (5,5), (5,2) will cover 25 of 36 squares. If you don’t find a rock try (4,3) covering 3 spots. Then you have 4 covering 2 spots (1,3 or 4), (4 or 5,1),(4 or 5,6),(6, 3 or 4). . That leaves the four corners. And last being (3,4). Worst case: it takes 14 shovels. If you get a rock in the first 4, the most to find the gem is 4 more, or 8 max. The 5th requires 2 more, or 7 max.
Check my pattern here, but I think you can knock one more to max out at 13 exploratory taps by going (x is not clicked until the rocks are found. The numbers are the clicks.):
x-x-11-x-9-x
8-3-x-x-4-x
x-x-x-x-10-x
12-x-5-x-x-13
x-1-x-x-2-x
x-7-x-x-6-x
Haha – play Tapped Out and improve your maths! Nice 🙂
This reminds me of the Rubik’s Cube.
Someone else came up with a better pattern;
x0x6xx -7- 10 -6- 6 -6- -5-
7xxxx5 7 -7- -1- -6- -5- 5
xx1xxx -7- -1- 1 -1- -2- -5-
xxxx2x -8- -3- -1- -2- 2 -2-
83xxxx 8-3- 3 -3- -4- -2- -9-
xxx4x9 -8- -3- -4- 4 -4- 9
Has anyone else had the Panini Press disappear? It’s not next to the dig site where I placed it!
Nevermind….it popped back up when I upgraded its level!
Digging is definitely my favorite!
Alissa is pleased with this Event. Which means she’s happy!
Thank goodness – because we all know….
If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
😇
”Tis interesting Event so far – and I finally had the excuse to purchase Booberella. Though I’m in the fence regarding Grave Digger.
Dinosaurs seem to come to me if I don’t search them out.
lol ask me again in 5 weeks 😉
When I try to send Lisa, Milhouse, or Cletus on the 6s tasks, a message pops up saying “Requiremnts not met” and I can’t assign them the task to earn shovels. I have zero shovels right now.
*without the typo of course. I’ve logged in and out a couple of times and some of the dialog with Lisa, Homer and Barney ran through again but that didn’t fix it. I bought shovels with doughnuts to excavate but that didn’t help either. The only task I have is Unearth a Hidden Gem but can’t do that without shovels.
You get initial free unlimited shovels. You have to hit a square and the next batch of three shovels will come up
I did. I made it thru the first round of shoveling. It’s the second round I get the requirements not met error. I’m out of shovels and my only option to dig is to buy more. I bought 3 more, used those up and am stuck in the same loop. Not spending any more on donuts.
I have the same problem like mak3000634, opened a case to EA, and have yet to response to me.
Same issue here. 2 days and nothing. For some reason I didn’t get to the panini press either. I got through the first part and got the land and the store to generate shovels when I try to add a member to a shovel task I get the same “Requirements not met”. I am guessing it is because we don’t have the panini press. Looks like a bug. That we will pay for with time wasted. 🙁
Anyone else having problems with not being able to play? Says there’s an issue with my land.. contacted ea yesterday but no news yet and not fixed. Looks like I’ll be behind on this update 😣
Same here. Contacted EA yesterday, form response so far. Completely locked out, needless to say, I am not happy!😠
So far I really like this event. The “tone” of the dialogue seems to just feel right and perfectly aligned with the show. I haven’t always felt that way.
Although I still don’t quite get one part of the dialogue I uncovered yesterday. I won’t spoil that here because it’s so early in the event many tappers probably haven’t seen that dialogue yet.
One thing I don’t understand though, is the Cecil Terwilliger dialogue/tasks associated with this event or not?
No i believe the Cecil/ Springfield Dam stuff is a separate permanent quest similiar to the redwood tree and money mountain
Cecil Terwilliger wants your game cash (millions) for some building “development”.
Has anyone noticed if there is any pattern to the dig or is it truly random? The suggestion to checkerboard and dig every other square is a good one – thanks for that tip!
I haven’t seen anything yet. And I agree on the checkerboard suggestion; before that, I was just hitting random spots. With this method, I’m hoping to use less shovels…so far, it’s working!
I’ve randomly tapped and gotten same results…random…it’s nice…
Cannot see a dig pattern but have been lucky with my pick of squares and found many jewels so far.
The gems are always surrounded by rocks. Once you find rocks, your gem will be in one of the surrounding plots.
I actually skip 3 after I choose a square…finding the gem usually within 5 to 7 tries…highest number of picks has been10.
(As soon as rocks show up, the gem will be in a square next to them somewhere)
Ps…the advice to use donuts to speed up Boobarella (on her job at the hardware store) for shovels, rather than pay 35 donuts for 50 of them in the store, is super smart🤔…I just spent 24 donuts for 48 shovels by speeding up her job twelve times. Buying in the store will cost .7 donuts per shovel…speeding up Boobarella will cost .5 donuts per shovel…a much better deal (if you want to speed up excavation⛏👷😁).
I don’t think you need to spend doughnuts at all. EA always makes it possible to complete everything without ever having to spend doughnuts. So unless you have tons of doughnuts lying around and nothing to spend them on, I wouldn’t recommend spending the doughnuts as you’ve stated.
Exactly, my strategy is being patient and so far I’ve wasted 0 doughnuts.
Maybe not tons, but bunches…love those Rat Trap trucks😁…
Actually, the only part of the recent events that bothers me is how long they drag on. I enjoy them much more when I speed up the process (via donuts) and then take a break. Patience may be a virtue, but boredom is a game killer for me.
Good idea! 🙂 Oh well, eventually I’ll make it up…
And spending donuts speeds up the event, and more. If you increase the level of the panini press, you get greater returns from excavating, more quickly. For those that’ll tap less than every 4 hours, it will help us garner a few more craftables than we would otherwise. 🙂
You can actually save about 4 shovels (on average) by doing a different pattern: Make a straight line through the middle (either horizontal or vertical, just one corner to the opposite, 6 squares long) then another above and below, 3 spaces away (3 squares each, for 6 total.) then hit each remaining corner (14 total). This will guarantee a hit on either the gem or one of the 4 spaces surrounding it.
Assuming you find it on the last click each time, the checkerboard approach will cost you at least 18 shovels, while this will cost 14.
hitting (r,c) (2,2), (2,5), (5,5), (5,2) will cover 25 of 36 squares. If you don’t find a rock try (4,3) covering 3 spots. Then you have 4 covering 2 spots (1,3 or 4), (4 or 5,1),(4 or 5,6),(6, 3 or 4). . That leaves the four corners. And last being (3,4). Worst case: it takes 14 shovels. If you get a rock in the first 4, the most to find the gem is 4 more, or 8 max. The 5th requires 2 more, or 7 max.
A sample: where is where you hit if you find a rock.
13 6 11
1 2
9 14
5 7
4 3
12 8 10
I count 12 digs as being the optimal worst-case search pattern.
You can fit four + shapes into the 6×6 grid if you centre them on (2,3), (4,2), (3,5) and (5,4). The centres are all a knight’s move away from each other. Those four squares cover 20 of the 36 possible gem locations.
That leaves four corner sections that are L-shaped, so you can’t cover that shape without picking two squares in it. This leaves you with two options:
a) pick the corners (1,1), (1,6), (6,1), (6,6)
b) pick the squares next to the corners that are in the middle of the long part of the L shape: (1,5), (2,1), (5,6), (6,2)
Whichever set you pick, this eliminates all but four possible locations for the gem.
I believe that this is the optimal strategy since it the first four eliminate the maximum number of squares with each successive guess. Also, the optimal solution has to relate to how to tile the space with + shapes.
Here’s an image to explain it better:
http://imgur.com/2u6veTw
Basically, hit A first, then B, then C. If you hit stone at any point, stop the search pattern and check all neighbouring squares.
I know the inclination is to clear it in as few as possible…but the payout is better to clear it in as many possible. On average. (Fossil Payout for sure every time, but Tacyons and Specimens it’s better on average)
Wouldn’t it be better to save the shovels for the next dig?
Your best bet is to build up 36 shovels, dig out all 36 squares and move onto the next layer. Do this until you’ve cleared the prize track. Then go as quick as possible.
It’ll take 48 gems to unlock the baby t-rex prize. So you’ve got to maximize how many you can get per day as well.
Thinking about it…it may be best to alternate grass level as quick as possible, dirt level as many as possible (dirt level specimen and tacyon rewards payout more). I’m still playing around with it myself. But the only constant is the Fossils, until you get an increase from the Panini press you earn 42 Fossils for every square you did out. All 36 squares that’s a min of 1,512 per site level. But you need to clear 48 site levels.
So the bigger question becomes…is it realistic to earn all 48 gems before June 11th. That gives you let’s say 10 days, you’d need to earn nearly 5 gems per day to get that….not achievable by clearing all the squares, since max you can get from the tasks is 17/4hrs. So that’s on a 4 tap per day schedule…68/day…only each to clear it completely once. If you get 5 taps in that’s 85 shovels/day…still not enough.
There’s a sweet spot in there to get the 48 Gems and the most amount of fossils possible…I’ll try to analyze it more.
Nope… as few moves as possible. After you get trex it doesn’t matter
It is unlikely you are going to hit the gem on the 36th try. I already have 13 gems. At 17 shovels per 4 hours, averaging 2 gems per 4 hours, that is 8 per day. or 6 days. At 6 gems per day that is 8 days, with 10 days to go. So even starting now it shouldn’t be hard to get Baby T-Rex.
Yup as i corrected..as few as possible is best
At the Time I wrote it I wasn’t familiar with the full shape of gems/rocks. Thanks.
I think you are better off with
x0x6xx -7- 10 -6- 6 -6- -5-
7xxxx5 7 -7- -1- -6- -5- 5
xx1xxx -7- -1- 1 -1- -2- -5-
xxxx2x -8- -3- -1- -2- 2 -2-
83xxxx 8-3- 3 -3- -4- -2- -9-
xxx4x9 -8- -3- -4- 4 -4- 9
Actually, there is a more optimal pattern. This is pretty much like playing Battleships or a version of Minesweeper. I can’t describe the pattern right now, maybe I’ll try to upload a picture of the pattern later.
But for now, never pick an outside block as your first one (or, a block directly on the outer row). You should pick a block that is 1 block away from both edges in each corner, and then a block that is at least two blocks away from each corner, spiraling inwards. This covers the most amount of potential blocks using the least amount of shovels.
At least, until you see rocks in one of the blocks you’ve just dug out. Then the jewel is buried adjacent to that, so concentrate on that area.
I think this calls for a university paper on optimal dig patterns 🙂 The positioning of rocks around the the jewels also varies I noticed and after 3 or 4 at the edge of the box I now have some bang in the middle 🙂 Very cunning! Kind of wish I’d noted where they were for the first 4 or 5 digs but too late for that now 🙂 Maybe I should just get out more!
The placement of the gem is random each time, but by choosing your squares wisely you can guarantee you will find the gem using a maximum of 10 shovels.
This diagram shows where to dig to find the gem with a maximum of 10 shovels. The square marked ‘0’ is actually the 10th square you would need to pick if no rocks/gems are found with the previous 9.
x0x6xx
7xxxx5
xx1xxx
xxxx2x
83xxxx
xxx4x9
well done
I like mine medium 😜
I already have the Mammoth Statue.
Somehow
Same here, hoping It’s a good sign that none of the prizes will be too difficult
Enjoying it so far. 6600 points already towards the first prize. I love the digging part. Avidly waiting on the calendar.