In this issue of DID (Designing in Downtime) I am going to cover a widely debated topic, that divides the True Simpsons Fans from the TSTO Gamer types. I am going to write about Castles…and other things that are “Non-Canon.”
First…let’s define the term “Canon” as it pertains to this use. According to Wiki, “In fiction, canon is the material accepted as officially part of the story in the fictional universe of that story. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction” In other words…it is the factual basis of a fictional reality. (man…I loved writing that line…so ambiguous!).
In the case of TSTO…it pretty much just means, “Did it appear in an episode?”
But, for many, at least in TSTO, the Canon freaks (I may be one to a point) simply wanted to make sure that the buildings were actually IN SPRINGFIELD (appeared in the show). This gets wiggly when The Simpsons does an homage to another show, or another era…other than the “now” of the regular Springfield. But, let’s face it…”now” is pretty damn relative. Bart’s been 8 for 30 years.
Let’s take a look at the FIRST REALLY Non-Canon blast, that forced us to suspend Canon Law in TSTO…and believe that the game was coming to an end.
August 19th, 2014, FIVE YEARS AGO, and barely 2 years into the game’s existence, we got the much loved/hated Clash of Clones event.
Those of us who disliked it, thought that it was just the writers trying to belittle the game “Clash of Clans” which had dethroned TSTO from the top of the mobile app downloads. Plus…it was convoluted and crazy as all get out…including being able to attack neighbor’s towns, and even attack random player’s towns. Which is exactly what the Gamers loved about it. But, I digress…
For me…the main problem was the mess of “Non-Canon” stuff that I had to deal with in my Springfield. Yes. There was a short opening scene in the show…but it was self-referential…and certainly didn’t lay out where to put this stuff.
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Barbarian Castle
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Castle Recycle
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Boxingham Palace
Decorations
Hay Cart
Stock
Catapult
Chicken Coop
Flaming Torch
Hot Air Balloon
Castle Wall
Cardboard Wall
Cardboard Tower
Cardboard Gates
Recycled Wall
Recycled Tower
Recycled Gates
Medieval Banner
Barbarian Statue
Elixir Mixer
Treasure Chest
Barracks
Windmill
Two-Story Outhouse
Guillotine
Medieval TentLike I said…a TON of random stuff.
Me? I was kind of irritated. It was a lot of weird stuff…that didn’t belong in a modern day Springfield. But, I ended up placing it near the Stone Cutter’s Lodge (a truly great update) in the woods, outside of my regular Springfield, and near my Story Book Land.
Over the years…as we have had to deal with more and more random castle related stuff…bits and pieces of the Clash of Clans have ended up scattered all over the place. I have tried to centralize most of this “from another era/place” stuff into one zone. But, the fact is…I’ve never really enjoyed it much.
I’ve seen some AMAZING designs and uses for this stuff by some of my neighbors. They are clearly more into the “middle ages of Springfield” than I am. But most of the great stone/wall/castle designs came using other updates…with far better walls, turrets, etc. I mean…who wants a permanent cardboard castle? What if it rains? (which it does a lot during the winter in the REAL Springfield).
But, that’s what makes TSTO such a great game…there is no one way to play it!
Show Us what YOU have done with Your Castles. Did you LIKE Clash of Clones?
Keep on Tappin’…
This has given me a great idea. I have several of those in the middle of my town that don’t fit there. But i never had the space to change it and kinda forgot about it. Well, plenty of space now, and you reminded me 😉
https://imgur.com/gallery/MfwdfZm
https://imgur.com/gallery/ygWqy20
https://imgur.com/gallery/AufErTg
So i rebuild all my castles on the outskirts of town and also put all the creepy castles together in a frozen lake.
I’m no canon player. In fact I don’t watch the show. (I like it but I keep forgetting it’s on.) So my town is MY town and it amuses me to have separate countries/themes as neighborhoods. Equalia is next door to England which is next to the religious hood etc. My Heights is Halloween Town and all the mansions are in the junk yard. Castles everywhere! What I don’t like are big businesses, skyscrapers, or more (gag) mansions.
It would be interesting to set a psychiatrist loose on all our towns!
Hi Patric, thanks for highlighting part of my Jessica Buttons World.😁The Magic School is still one of my favorite areas. The only other castles I still have placed are Transylvania Island, and the Tower in my English section of Efcot ( which now takes up my whole Springfield Heights area).
Not sure what I’ll be able to do for Halloween this year…I’m right under the items limit, so no more castles coming back out this year.🦹♀️😫🧟♀️
90% non-canon free player. Never understood the need as clearly demonstrated by Safi’s battle brackets. It’s like going to In-N-Out and trying to order a hot dog.
Haha! Nice Cali reference!
“Factual basis of a fictional reality”. That line is messing with my head lol. Catch 22, Oxymoron. Philosophy 101.
DID (Designing in Downtime) – this is exactly what I’m doing half the time on TSTO ….. and that’s ok provided EA gives us some downtown from an Event to do so (yes! I’m actually requesting a “time out” from Events after being vocal about TSTO’s dormant state!) 🤔
Lots of new content with nothing truly connecting with the new Characters (not even the legit Shop / Store \ Arcade / Restaurant Owner offered up with the Building – unless it was a Premium!) and I already lol’d over the returning ‘Easter Fencing’ (is it so hard to come up with something baby themed?) 🤷🏼♀️
Castles (“Clash of Clones” (2014) – yeah I had to place that so called Medieval fun in it’s own zone, until certain Events offered up in TSTO such as the so called Pagan / Medieval “Yule Love It” Event (2016) I lol’d over the inconsistencies as others had a crap attack that their traditional Christmas was ruined!) …. and then Treehouse of Horror XXVIII Event (2017) which I loathed! and still do! that wasn’t Halloween at all!) offered up further Medieval / Castle content for me to create that sort of a section in Krustyland ! 😂
The moral to the story? If Tappers are stuck with Event Prizes and are puzzled over what to do ….. be patient, chances are new Event Prizes will offer up enough to create a new neighborhood (or, a new section at Krustyland!) 😀👍
well put… I am now designing with large spaces in mind, so I can shuffle things around and add the new content that might fit in certain areas… 🙂
I started playing Tapped Out in the early part of 2014 and had a decent town when I deleted the game after I thought I lost everything, damn Triffids. After 3 or 4 months I downloaded the game again and was happy to have everything returned, I didn’t have an EA account back then. When I returned to the game it was the first week of Clash of Clones, my first major event. During the time I was away from the game I missed the entire Stone Cutters event, double damn you Triffids. I loved the Clash of Clones event and will not remove my Castles from my town. I have played the game every day since then and hope to continue playing this game for a long time. Aloha from Hawaii.
Happy to have you back!
As far as my TSTO town, I am more a fictional realist than a cannonist.
In other words I like using as much variety of items to make an interesting Springfield…BUT…still keep it believable if I actually was able to zap into my game and walk the streets in my Springfield.
For example, I took all the Dinosaur and Egypt stuff and created a nice outdoor exhibit behind Museums. An approach like this gives me the chance to include what should be out of whack items into a believable design in any given Springfield. Here is a pic of this design: http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc82/HobbesIsReal/Forum_Posts/Musuem_Hobbes_TSTO.gif
Another example is how I included everything from religious from Christians to Hindu to Pegans. http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc82/HobbesIsReal/Forum_Posts/Churches_Hobbes_TSTO.gif
I am currently starting to create an EPCOT type area that will include French / British / Western / etc.. areas. Again making unrelated items into a believable design where no one would be surprised seeing the Eiffel Tower next to Old West town next to a Roman Aqueduct.
I posted many of designs along this lines over at the EA forums in a threads called “Real World Designs in Your TSTO Towns”
https://forums.ea.com/en/the-simpsons-tapped-out/discussion/218995/real-world-designs-in-your-tsto-towns/p1
I like the way you think!!
I continue to pass on the premium castles that appear in my 30 donut mystery box. I have enough with the free ones I collected since the Clash of Clones event.
Because of the different scales and amount of detail, I try to spread out my castles (and churches) in different neighbourhoods of my Springfield, and try to treat them as relics of past eras around which modern parts of the town were added. The nice thing about the stone Clash of Clones castle is that it can be placed on Springfield Heights boardwalk tiles. I used it as a seaside castle/fortress with cannons and the sexy pirate’s ship.
I agree that Boxingham Palace and Castle Recycle are not really fitting in at all. I managed to keep them in thematically by making them part of my garbage dump/recycling/tire fire area 🙂
Nice concepts there!
As one who builds a more livable Springfield in the 90’s vibe, roughly 99% of the non-canonical content I receive goes straight to storage following any given Event, even premium content…unless I can hide it behind something and get the bonus %.
There is still so much the game could do without resorting to random non-Simpsons Items.
whoa!!! Hardcore!
I liked the Clash of Clones event, I like castles and the theme… I do have an area for it… it kind of makes TSTO seem like it is going through the ages…. check the pic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x5tj5MmHh3UkQsywWWcFuNnVGzD_9HEh/view?usp=sharing
Nice!
I love the castles. I have the Great Wall surrounding all the castle / medieval stuff I’ve collected.
I just want the content of this event to come back, especially the characters. In this way players can obtain such content if they wish, of course.
My posts hardly show up on here anymore.
I have 2 massive castles, the grey stone one, and the red one – they are in different areas, and both contain various medieval content. As for Boxingham palace, and the Recycle one, I have them in my “poor” area of Springfield – aka with Cletus’ farm, and other crap. Seems to all fit together.
Mind you, with all the walls/pillars/gates I have won from the archaeological digs I have done (and stored), I could definitely build a few more castles…
Me too…..if they ever increase the damn item limits!!
Not that I did any of this myself but you could make a case that after the Around the World event you could place the castles in a European part of your TSTO. If I get in the mood to design again, I might create an area where I place my England, France, Ireland, and Scotland area near an airport but it would be nice if they gave us more airport landing strips and airport accessories to create another airport. They sure have given us plenty of planes/helicopters and accessories.
All true!
I hated, hated, hated Clash of Clones. But I kept the castle in the outskirts of Springfield. I did use the castle walls to surround the Burns Estate as that seems the most logical for Monty. Later I included the castle elements as part of a Epcot-type tourist destination with the Italy, France, England, Brazil, Japan, etc lands. I’m redoing this to include the pagan & pirate elements and eventually the Springfield of the Future
Sounds pretty cool!!
I came along toward the end of the Tap ball event. Im glad i didnt get all that big castle crap. Ive earned stuff here and there thru the years. If its more Halloweenie and fits in with my spooky areas I’ll put it there…or if it applies somewhere else. Otherwise….storage. Lol
Of course Ebron can do amazing decorating regardless of the items!
Right now im aggravated because i keep getting kicked off the game. A LOT. Its usually mid rat trap truck donut collecting, or character job collecting. I also havent been able to visit my neighbors unless its 1 town and down again. So….sorry neighboreenos 😢 I’m there in spirit. Lol