Happy New Year everyone.
A New Year often brings new resolutions, new mind sets, and new opportunities. However, for all of us addicts of the game, the New Year brings us all the more closer to the end of our beloved game. In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve missed the announcement in late September that the game comes to an end later this month, January 24 2025.
So perhaps for us, the New Year brings a new game we can play?
Since the announcement came out, over the past three months plus, I’ve been playing two games.
The first is one my 8-year-old nephew and I play together called “Pokémon GO”:
Pokémon GO is a 2016 augmented reality mobile game, part of the Pokémon franchise, developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices. It uses mobile devices with GPS to locate, capture, train, and battle virtual Pokémon, which appear as if they are in the player’s real-world location. The game is free-to-play; it uses a freemium business model combined with local advertising and supports online purchases for additional in-game items as well as virtual and real-world events. The game launched with around 150 species of Pokémon, which had increased to around 870 by late 2024.
The second game I just recently started playing is “Squid Game: Unleashed”:
Squid Game: Unleashed is a 2024 online party royale game from Netflix for up to 32 players. You’ll compete in live-or-die versions of games like Glass Bridge and Red Light, Green Light. As you progress through the scenarios inspired by the show, you’ll access harder games and earn money to unlock new cosmetics like outfits, animations, and emojis. That’s assuming you survive this (virtual) mortal coil –– one false move, and you could suffer a fate far worse than anything you’ve seen on the show.
How about you? Have you started any new games? What are you playing now? Sound off in the comments below.
Dropped by to see if EA changed their mind before I nuke… I guess not 🙁 also play South Park by they stopped adding content ages ago. Squid Game, does that require a sub to Netflix? Thanks in advance, Leon.
My favorite game of all time, and it will be forever, is Undertale. (Tapped out is second)
If you have heard of this game but haven’t tried it, or if you don’t know what it is… Play it. It has changed my life permanently for the better. It’s on Steam for 15 dollars… Most worth it money of my life, this game is actually amazing.
If you get it… DONT LOOK UP ANY SPOILERS. ANY.
(It’s a story game btw. If you’re looking for something on mobile, try tskuki oddysey.)
I will miss my Springfield- no interest in redesigning I gave that up once started storing as much as I could stand.. to save space as game got too big for my device… so I already had to get over my tapping addiction several years ago… finally got a new device in June and reloaded tsto and started playing again.. happy I got to see my town again and play for a few months before the dreadful announcement lol, my favorite part of the game was always the character task animations. Did have a lot of fun building and decorating my town and events with neighbors back when that was a thing! I am freemium for life and have low ad tolerance so my game options are limited lol. I really became hooked when I realized there are games out there that don’t require any skill… just keep tapping!! I am very competitive, a sore loser, and not very good at most games lol. I do like word games and used to really enjoy playing the old scrabble online with strangers,, until they changed it. I have been playing Homescapes for years,,, which does build/furnish houses gardens and stuff with a story but is very linear and design choices are set to a few options and to build/play you beat match 3 puzzles of varying difficulty but I have been addicted to that silly game for years… sometimes getting stuck on levels for weeks,, since yeah I am freemium.. which limits lives which for me is a good thing so I can’t play 24/7 lol. I tried Township and some of the other Scapes games but didn’t hold my interest. I also play Word Collect which has teams,,, and annoying ads that my VPN used to block but not anymore. Thanks to tstoaddicts for this site/support/posts/info etc!
I just picked up Homescapes again after ditching it to play a similar game, Mystery Matters. But, since the levels have gotten hard in both games, by paying both of them, I can switch between them when I’m out of lives in one of them. When I restarted playing Homescapes, Austin took me on a tour through some of the areas I had previously designed…it was kinda fun going, “Oh, yeah…I remember that one!”
I’ve been playing TOWNSHIP.
Slowly build the town, grow crops, more diverse crops, build a bakery, grow wheat, bake bread, join friends, complete tasks.
Not as ‘colorful’ as TSTO, but it is goal oriented.
And I still hope for an Angel.
I believe in Yogi Berra, or is it Tug McGraw
(Boy am I old)
It ain’t over until it’s over
Slightly off topic, but for TSTO end game, I recall some people were talking about blowing up their towns before the lights go out. I don’t want to do that, but I’m wondering if I should (A) do a 24-hour task assignment for all of my characters late on Jan 23 so that they are keeping busy, or (B) whether I should leave them all taskless, free to wander the streets of (my) Springfield. I kind of stupidly care for these bozos (sorry Krusty) and am not sure what is better for them for eternity? Is keeping them busy damning them to an eternity of toil or is it giving their lives purpose? Is freedom a reward, or does it condemn them to an existence of aimless wander and soul searching?
I have to admit, I set a reminder for Jan 23 as I was planning to blow up my Springfield. That is one function in the game I have not used yet. I feel terrible but I feel a sense of relief at the same time.
Putting all mine on my favourite visual task, and then screenshot it to death. I want everyone o have o be visable.
I am playing it too. Not fully comparable, but nice and easy!!
I’ve been playing Gossip Harbor (bear with it….the story gets somewhat better as it goes on and the main character gets a bit less annoying), which is a merge game with a decorating element, and Mystery Matters, which is the same kind of game (basically) as Royal Match (which I was playing before that), but with other stuff going on and a decorating element. None of these games have the wit and charm of TSTO, but they’re free and basically free of ads (or very minimal ones). You can also play them easily while watching TV, although they can also involve a bit of strategizing, if you want to do well, particularly as you get farther into them (and particularly with MM). I haven’t tried the new version of Royal Match (Royal Kingdom?) yet, because those other two eat up enough of time as it is.
I’ve been playing idle bank tycoon
Hello
I play Seeker’s Notes. I don’t even go to TSTO anymore because I got that annoying screen where they want you to verify your account.
I’m playing Stardew Valley now, but I recently finished Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. If anyone hasn’t played it yet, I recommend starting on Zelda: Breath of the Wild first. I also have, as a throw back, Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy. I play all of these on the Switch, but there is a phone version of Stardew Valley that can be downloaded.
Happy New Year! I am still saddened about the pending loss of TSTO. I do appreciate Addicts and all the work you gave put in over the years, providing amazing info, insight and genuine fun. Other games…I do play a town building game called TOWNSHIP. If you want to give it a try, come and visit me (Evergreen). Thank you!
I’m just playing Good Pizza Great Pizza.
I have been playing Marvel Strike Force forever which has all your favorite MCU characters with awesome powers. But recently I started playing a game called Heroes of History which is like TSTO in the same way you built a civilization. But won’t ever have as many characters as The Simpsons.
Stardew Valley mobile has replaced TSTO…
though I’m still depressed to see tsto go out on such a dumpy end..
Super happy with the 1.6 Update. It brought back into Stardew after a long time.
I play Yahtzee With Buddies a lot — if anyone wants to play me, I can supply my username there. I also enjoy Disney Emoji Blitz, but people are being unhappy with that game lately (not me).
I am also a daily player of Yahtzee. I can send you a game request if you want.
The new games i started playing are: Pokémon Go, animal crossing complete.
It’s not the same, but I’m playing the puzzle game Rexxle on the iPhone. At the total other end of the spectrum I play Civ 6 on the iPad.
I still play TSTO daily but have finished all the tasks and spend my time adding trees, moving like items together (like Christmas and Halloween), and adding boardwalk tiles to my waterline. I’m at a loss as to what I’ll do next for gaming. I’m tired of all the other games I’ve played, except for a couple that were discontinued but haven’t been removed from Zynga’s servers yet. I’ll be watching this feed with interest.
Daughter got me to join her playing Pokémon go a few years ago, to get me out of the house after hubby died. Game involves visiting the Poke stops around your area, tasks, etc. A fun game, but nothing compares to tapped out. I’ll miss it.
A couple years ago I learned about Board Game Arena, which allows folks to play online thousands of different board/dice/card games with people around the world. It hosts both Live and Turn-based games for games ranging from big-name games like Catan and 7 Wonders, to old-school family games like Yahtzee and parcheesi, to niche/complex games like Puerto Rico and Wings. 90% of the games and services are available free to play with the option to pay premium of $5 a month which open you up to creating certain game lobbies and unlocking video/voice-chat.
It doesn’t quite fill that freemium gap of TSTO but as I write this I am playing in 20 different turn-based games that allow me to play for 5-10 minutes two or three times per day.
Oh cool. I’m obsessed with Ticket To Ride board game series. Do they have that online?
Yep. I know they have Regular and Europe. I need to confirm but I think they also have their 1910/1912 expansions too.
Happy New Year Safi. Makes me smile when I exchange Pokémon Go gifts with you / your nephew – a reminder of TSTO for a while to come.
Have tried a few town building type games but nothing resonates the way the Simpsons characters did. It was that mixture of familiar, with fun quests and freedom to build your town out at your own pace.
My only other ‘go to’ games ( apart from PoGo) are Puzzles & Chaos, as quite like the team aspect and building my castles & other building , strengthening my troops and hero’s and all the mini games within it. It could be a money pit, but have managed to avoid this and grow slowly. I used to play a lot of Empires & Puzzles which is kind of similar, but years ago Small Giant sold out to Zynga and now unless you splash the cash you can’t keep up.
Until the bitter end, I will still send my characters on my favourite tasks – although am trying to let them have more action based ones so they aren’t permanently locked inside when the button is pushed!!
Once the Simpsons finishes I will continue to play Tribes which I am stuck at the moment I am determined not to spend any more real money on . I am on level 394 at this moment so when we finish I hope to be on level 500. This is my 3rd time I had played but until we got news the game was finishing I was at level 148. The game finishing has got me interested again.
Thanks for this post! I will miss my Simpsons, that’s for sure. I already “lost” one of my games on my phone as it did one of those “log in” screens and then told me I needed to download game again. Yeah, no thanks, not with 1 month left. My ipad game still works but I chuckle when it needs the code? Really, a few weeks left and you need to verify? Anyway, for my “tapping” habit, I have found “Happy Color” which is endless hours of tapping to color numbered pictures. There are challenges and daily pictures to color. No, it’s not animated with snarky comments, but the pictures are quite pretty. I’ll miss you TSTO!!
I tried Smurfs town builder, but didn’t last an hour into that. I had already previously tried other town building games like Disney and Peanuts, but those are terrible compared to how Tapped Out was run. So, I am spending my time playing simple games from GameSnacks, found in Google’s Play Games app. My current favorites in there are Santa Magic Xmas [click to clear blocks] and Fruit Cube Blast [block matching]. Other than that, my main daily game for years (besides TSTO) has been Words With Friends 2 [scrabble]. I would love another town builder, but the bar has been set so high by TSTO that I just don’t know if I’ll ever find one good enough. 🙂
I’d forgotten about the Peanuts game. I tried that one at one point too. I can’t remember exactly why I stopped playing it. I guess I might go back and see if it’s any good now.