Morning Marvelous Mystified Members!
(Today’s post is sponsored by the letter “M”)
Over the past 12 years, The Simpsons Tapped Out has taken us on an amazing journey that all started with a nuking.
And what better way to start your week, than by discussing one of the ways the game could end.
Ashes to ashes!
Dust to dust!
Nuke to nuke?
When I got my first non-Blackberry smart device, an Apple iPad on 31JUL2013, the very first app I downloaded was The Simpsons Tapped Out. When I opened the app, Homer had nuked Springfield.
So since the announcement came that the game would be pulled from the server on 24JAN2025 at 6:00pm Eastern, my thought for a fitting end has been to nuke my Springfield.
What started with Homer nuking his Springfield, ending with me nuking my pocket Springfield would be poetic justice.
A lot of people are fearful of nuking. Long term readers probably know I’ve nuked multiple times before. Those who have been on this site for years will recall I even nuked my Springfield for a second time on an episode of Addicts Live back in January 2018.
Many have similarly commented their intent to nuke their Springfields. Some even suggesting we should all nuke our games at the same time. Others have commented that they will take a screenshot of their pocket Springfields and convert them to puzzles.
What are your plans for the end of the game? Sound off in the comments below.
Long time reader. I think I’ve replied like three times in the 12 years of playing lol. My two cents. I’m a casual player. I lost my original account when they switched to email codes instead of passwords due to not having said email anymore. Ended up starting another new account in 2020 when I got COVID. Dedicated to 100% kwik e mart farms. Not making my town pretty. Just maxing money and donut numbers. I’m going all in and farming hard to have my and game have max donuts and max money. I’m making about 5 million every 4 hours. Lets get it.
I would suggest to those of you out there that want to keep your town in some way, do this: take a screen video. Turn on the sound. Tap everything for the sound effects. Keep the video forever. Then it doesn’t really matter if you nuke or not.
May I suggest an A1 poster made with a hi res photo of your town and all the splash screens around it, design it your self plenty apps out there
Another 12 year player here.. and a firm no nuke from me. Having maxed IGC and zillions or donuts from farming over the years I have pretty much everything, but am using the time and land to remodel I the way I had ‘always planned to do but never got round to’. Gutted we won’t have a final THOH ( as made space in my spooky section in anticipation) – but when it comes to the end I have my cameraman / video editor son lined up to capture a fly through of my town as it was .. Thank you addicts for the ride over the years.
I just can’t bring myself to nuke, after all the effort I’ve put in over the years. I hope that the final daily task, on the very last day, is something simple that I can complete. I do intend to make sure that at the end, my characters are all free of tasks, and in their original outfit, so that in my mind, they can just be happily roaming around my Springfield with their friends forever.
Is anyone else thinking after seeing the latest ‘final’ Simpsons episode that this is a tie in and it’s not ending at all?
I thought about nuking it, but I don’t think I can do it. I like the puzzle idea. How does one get that done?
To paraphrase the show “Arrested Development” – I’m a never-nuke!
I can appreciate the Buddhist concept behind letting things go, the undoing of the mandala… Yet as someone who did a LOT of home decluttering via Marie Kondo during Covid (“get rid of any items that don’t spark joy”) — my town still sparks joy for me!
So – speaking of the screenshot-whole-town idea — I did the in-game portrait tool, but it just isn’t high-res enough to be good enough to zoom in — it doesn’t match at all the clarity that doing in-game zooming, to the max, gives you… 🙁
Which leaves, I guess, the idea of hundreds (thousands?) of screenshots to be taken manually on the iphone, with a little overlap each time, then stitching it all together in Photoshop…
Has anyone done that, and have any tips, gotcha’s, suggestions, time estimates, etc. for screen-grabbing now a full-size, all tiles town? I attempted it once, probably 7-8 years ago when my town was so, so much smaller — but I frankly can’t quite imagine doing it again at current city size!
But I’d really love to have an image of it after the demise…
I have 5 games so I can not nuke all at once. I have placed items in storage and found when I take them out I have to restart a quest.
My current plan is to nuke a town a day before the end. Though I am considering nuking a town way before then. Does nuking effect thing in group storage? If not, might want to store a few “creations” before nuking.
Currently working on town 5. Placing on the the “extras” in storage as I redesign. Making my characters work for the first time in years, capturing little videos of them doing their tasks. Capturing sights and sounds of buildings as I redesign. I have been more active on the game than in years. (I am ignoring my other towns, 2 don’t even know the end is near: probably will make a new video of the end – waiting to see if other updates occur). Trying to capture my favorite parts of the game if I ever need a fix in the future.
Group stored stuff remains. Good way to keep designs safe.
It just puts everything that’s already out into inventory, if it can be stored.
There seems to be some confusion so I’ll add …
You won’t lose anything you own, it’ll just be in inventory instead of out and placed.
You will have an almost blank canvas then to go redesign.
That said, beware not to go sell anything that isn’t always in store !!
You might not be able to buy those back if you change your mind.
Besides the KMart for farming I never sold any item. I considered it to be a way to store cash.
How much Burns Box junk did you store ??
At one point I had over 256 KEMs and a bonus you could count on the hands of 7 players.
You’ll see, if remembereded to save the CoM screenshots !!
*hic*
Blimey, all it took was an apocalypse to get you all commentin’ !!
Hello all, and yes – I am gutted too
I’d suggest you gather things that you want straight away, like the Donut generators, IRS, UO etc and group store, or pick ’em up with a deccie or a bit of road as a group to make ’em easy to find.
I’m in for the long haul. I don’t see any reason to nuke my town. I will continue to log in, make adjustments, take screen captures, and tinker around until the bitter end.
And, if I may say, ‘The Simpsons’ haven’t run out content. I can think of at least five or six characters or buildings from last night’s season premiere that I would like to add to my town. The actors from the pornographic version of ‘The Simpsons Movie’ alone…
TSTO has been my companion and traveled the world with me. I love my Springfield and would never think of nuking it. I’m still clinging to the hope that some kind of last minute reprieve will happen. I plan on taking a boatload of screen shots and videos. This is all just so, so sad!!
Not going to do it. I might change my mind as the game winds down, depending on what we get from EA. I’d like to think my Springfield, among another tappers, will be saved on a server by some EA rebels
I won’t be nuking because I still have my original placements of the original houses and my entire town has sections where I can remember exactly what event it was. They all expand outward – the center is from the beginning of the game 12+ years ago to the edges of town which are the most recent events. My favorite events were ones where you visited neighbors to find things to tap to complete. When those kinds of neighbor events ended it wasn’t as fun anymore but I still checked in during the holidays – especially Halloween. It will be soooo weird not to have a new Halloween event – my favorite characters are all Halloween characters. I will be doing screenshots of my town before the end and doing what another player mentioned – putting all the images together (love the puzzle suggestion too!) but mostly, I think I will spend the next 4 months doing tiny recordings of my screen of my favorite animations in my favorite parts of town. Just in the last few days I’ve finally looked at my new characters and set them to do animations I’ve never seen before. I think I will definitely go through all my characters and record funny animations. All the work that went into this game by the developers – seems like such a waste to shut it down without a legacy set up somewhere to play or look at.
Well since they gave us all this new land, I fully intend to continue to build out my town that I started 12 years ago. I have so much stuff in storage and my town is pretty cramped in many places. Only 86 characters needed to complete all sets, 23K donuts & 2300 leftover free land tiles to use.
Happy Tappy!
Nope, I won’t be nuking my town. I won’t have a hand in destroying something I’ve lovingly built over the past 10 years. I’m with Keith in preferring to just think it’s still out there somewhere in whatever backups they take before ending things.
Can’t we like sign a petition or like do something ! Why can’t they just add Ads to game my lord.. so sad
There are petitions. Check out some of the other posts
There’s a petition on Change.org.
It’s too easy to anthropomorphize our towns and all of the characters who populate the towns. For good or for bad we tend to get attached to things that we have created. Someone already commented about mandalas. I think it’s a good analogy to our games. Nothing is permanent. For those of you not familiar…there is a tradition in Tibetan Buddhism of creating mandalas with colored sand. The artist/monk will spend a lot of time creating the sand art, and then once complete, dismantle the art. The difference is that the monk will dismantle the sand art in a deliberate, ritualistic manner. As opposed to nuking our towns- which is quick and (relatively) painless. A more Tibetan thing to do would be to carefully place every single item and character into storage one at a time. Frankly…I would find doing it the mandala way to be excruciatingly long and tedious. I guess I would make a bad Buddhist, because I just don’t have the patience for that kind of thing.
So…….getting back to nuke or not to nuke…I think I would like to nuke my town, but I’m going to wait. I know that it’s unlikely EA is going to have a change of heart, but something in me is telling me to wait anyway. Just in case. There’s no harm in waiting until January. Also- I wouldn’t be surprised to see EA slip in one or two more surprises between now and January 24. I don’t think they will have anymore events, but they might slip in a joke or two. You never know.
Hello everyone! My city was almost completely built up before the update with new tiles. I played TSTO for 11 years and after some tweaking and building I will spend another day taking screenshots like a madman frame by frame. From the game The city screenshot does not save on my iPad and I will have to do it manually. Then I will collect all the images into one giant canvas in Photoshop… and I don’t know, maybe I will print a poster for the wall so that my Springfield is close to me)
I’m still on the fence that the shutdown is a ruse…
as for nuking:
I nuked in late 2015 after my dad passed…I had hoped it’d be some good therapy to help with the loss… I made some designs I’m proud of, and some areas that had to be stored due to item limits or needing space…I’ve never finished rebuilding…and I hope it is a ruse still because this game has been fun…even when we had events like the Easter that shall not me named, or that ended with a hotdog cooker bot…*eyeroll*
I’ve never nuked before. I thought it would be too much work to rebuild. I’m planning on continuing to play until the game ends and then as my final act of saying goodbye, then nuking it.
Safi,
While I get the sentiment, I’m a bit bummed too over the sudden decision… beware!
Imagine nuking your town(s), and then…the put out the post “tapped out isn’t over…stop. Don’t delete everything…”
Wouldn’t everyone feel just awful? And, why not leave your town(s) as is, so it’s the way you remember? Just some thoughts as we all cry together 😢
I won’t nuke my town and will alway think that somewhere out there it will electronically pixel by pixel exist 🤔 😀
Nope….never have, never will. Way too much work and memories to nuke, regardless of what’s coming. Will keep grinding till they pull it from my cold, dead hooves 😛
Imagine nuking the town for EA to announce we can download it, or make it offline, or they’ll provide everyone with a HD screenshot, or someone else has taking the game over.
Tapped out ending reminds me of when Calvin and Hobbes and Far side ended. I thought then I would find something to replace it. But so far …nope
As far as blowing it all up? Nah I’m leaving my messy, over built town as is. I sure will miss all the different personalty’s added in the last 12 years. The artwork in the many buildings and characters was something I loved to zoom in on and appreciate. Thanks so much to the addicts website folks that let me know when something was happening. Time is a valuable commodity. The time you/I spent on TSTO was not wasted.
Many have similarly commented their intent to nuke their Springfields. Some even suggesting we should all nuke our games at the same time.
I am definately in this camp give the EA Servers a good shake before they switch off. Just need to agree a time on the 240125.
In meantime I am tidying everything up and will keep a picture as a momento before I nuke.
I’m nuking. Easier to go to new server, hopefully someone keeps it alive.
I can’t do it! 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭😭I am not Buddhist enough to destroy my Mandala. I remember this episode where Lisa teaches Marge and Homer to make a Mandala and they have to destroy it at the end! I really don’t have that courage. I am bedridden a lot of the time and the STO was my escape . Something to look forward to every single day. It’s difficult to let go. I am not over it yet.
I went ahead and nuked 2 of the 3 towns I have on 3 tablets.. both of them were pretty good sized towns and had a lot in it so, I thought it was best to just nuk them cuz there is nothing offered anymore and nothing worth working towards. I am really sad this game came to a close so I just thought it was best to close my games out. The 3rd tablet I have is a new one, I wanted to get a new town going and unfortunately I am not getting far on it now with the game shutting down soon. I am just completing character jobs and I will also nuke that town as well. Struggling to find a game that I will have enjoyment in playing but nothing like the Simpsons.
Initially, I un-installed the game and didn’t intend to bother playing anymore. But I realized I missed checking into my town, and decided to see my friend through til the end.
There’s a freedom I feel now playing which has made it a fun in a different way. I’m spending donuts without a second thought. I don’t have to think about how I spend my in game currency. Don’t have to worry about grinding through the rest of the Heights. That dead water tile I have that’s been driving me bonkers? Who cares!
I don’t think I’ll nuke my town. If it’s got to end, I want it to live to see it’s last precious seconds of digital existence! I’ve got all my characters doing the random things I never had time for them to do when we were just grinding through updates that had become repetitive. Let them enjoy the last few months and stretch their legs a little right.
Instead of being sad (although when the day comes, I will be) I’m trying to live it up in my town for the next few weeks. We’ve got freedom and ultimately no consequences because it’s all going to the abyss soon anyway. So light up those Christmas lights, throw up the Halloween decor, spend the donuts, put your main characters on those ridiculously long tasks. Design that weird not really aesthetically pleasing area you’ve been eyeing but didn’t think it would be “perfect” enough. You’ve got almost 4 months to soak it in!