Author Archives: Alissa

Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!

Wow, you all had a lot to say about getting the chance to play TSTO again! It’s clear that we all miss our beloved pocket-sized towns. With the exciting news that The Simpsons has been renewed for another 4 years and the rumor of a new LEGO Krusty Burger release this summer, it’s safe to say the appetite for our favorite yellow family is still going strong!

So here’s the deal: I’m on it! The team behind the private server is hard at work fixing bugs and making it compatible with iOS. Right now, there’s an APK version available for Android, and I’m planning to test it out on BlueStacks. I won’t share anything with you until I’ve tested it myself—I want to make sure it’s good to go for all of you.

In the meantime, rest assured it’s in the works. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share detailed instructions with you all soon so we can bring our towns back to life.

Quick note: When I refer to the “private server” here, I’m talking about a server not run by EA. This will be hosted on an alternative server, so you won’t need to download it to your computer. You’ll be able to play it just like you did before, with no extra hassle.

And for those of you asking—yes, it is possible to restore your original town, even if you didn’t save it before the game was taken off EA’s servers. You can visit https://towns.spanser.dev/, which has a massive list of over 3 million TSTO towns. Search for your username, and if your town is listed, you can download the save files. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to upload your game to the private server version.

So check to see if your town is available and stay tuned for more updates!

-Alissa

Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!

Well, TSTO is officially over.  All that’s left now is a spinning donut on a splash screen of the Simpsons waving goodbye…

Honestly quite fitting given how many of us spent countless moments watching that dreaded spinning donut trying to connect to servers.  Now, it spins as it attempts to connect to servers that no longer exist.

Sad.

But at least the splash screen is really pretty to look at!

And no, I (like many of you) cannot bring myself to delete TSTO from my phone anytime soon.  Maybe I still need to see that spinning donut and that splash screen reminder of my little pocket-sized town that I’ve spent over a decade recreating.

A reminder that my little pocket-sized Simpson’s family is ok.

A reminder that somewhere Homer’s still saying “Visitors?! Better put on pants!”

As the servers kicked off yesterday, Patric and I did a YouTube Live (you can see it here if you didn’t already).  It was great to hang out with folks in this community and talk about how we all marked the end of TSTO, and remember fondly events, animations, and sounds of the past.

Which leads us back to the most important part of Addicts, the reason this site…unlike so many others before it…has lasted as long as it has.  THE COMMUNITY.  YOU GUYS!

Sure, this site has always been about a silly little game…but what’s made Addicts different than all the others is our ability to connect a community of players from across  the world together.  Whether through Sunday Night Open Threads, Springfield Showoffs, funny Caption This moments, or spoilers about a new update.  This site has always been about the people that visit it.  As I’ve always said, we just supply the music and margaritas…you guys are what make this place come alive.

So to that end, and I know I’ve said this before multiple times here and on our YouTube shows, this site is not going anywhere! After all I just had to renew the server in December, so we have at least another year together 😉

But seriously, this site is a massive archive of TSTO history.  It’s an archive of events, animations, funny moments, somber ones too, and countless comments from YOU! To end that would be tragic.

So we’re going to stay around.  The lights will not only stay on here at TSTO Addicts (and on our YouTube Page, Addicts HQ) but we’ve got more things planned for you all! We’ve got posts planned where we reminisce, posts where we bring back some of your favorite animations, posts where we laugh our our favorite sounds, and maybe we can even convince Patric to bring back his TSTO fan-fiction.  AND we still have to finish showing off YOUR towns! (don’t forget to send us videos and/or screenshots of your town so we can feature them upcoming! TSTOAddictsblog@gmail.com)

Most importantly we’re going to stay around so you guys can stay connected with each other.  You’ve built friendships over the past decade plus that we’ve been together, it’s hard to just walk away from those.  There are players here that have been a part of this site since we started, and some we’ve met in person at meet-ups.  I would never, ever, want to shut those connections down!

And, speaking of community, I want to take a moment to give a HUGE Shoutout to Graham!  Graham stepped up from the community and held things down here for me for the last 2 years.  I simply would not have been able to keep up this site, and run the family business after my father suddenly passed away in 2022 without the help of Graham.  Plus, as some of you saw on the Live yesterday, life is pure chaos for me with the 3 Tiny Addicts taking up a lot of my time and attention!  There is just no way I would have bene able to keep up with the demands of running this site, and my own life these last couple of years.  So Graham, thank you! Addicts would not have existed the last two years without you, plain and simple.

So, on that note, stay tuned for more on this site…because we’re not going anywhere!

Thank you, as always, for being a part of this amazing community!

-Alissa

Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!

I’m trying my best to get through the list of those that signed up for the video showoff.  It will likely look different than the first video we put out.  Time and schedules are not in our favor.  Which is unfortunate, but also why I stepped away from the full-time running of this site 2.5 years ago. So hopefully it doesn’t come as a surprise to many of you.  I’ll do my best, but it may not be in the manner either of us would like.

However, beyond that I had a few folks reach out asking if we can display their town in video.  Unfortunately, there’s just no way I can add to the already long list and accomplish it all before the game is pulled from the stores on Friday.  HOWEVER, YOU can send me a video of your favorite parts of your town and we (at the very least Safi and I) will put together a video of these towns and do our best to comment on them.  By you sending us videos of your towns, we’ll be able to do the video and commentary even after the game is pulled from the stores. So it gives us a bit more flexibility.

So find your favorite parts of your town and send us a video of it, preferably no longer than 3-5 minutes (if it is longer, note we’ll likely edit for time).  You can send the video to TSTOAddictsblog@gmail.com or put a link to it in the comments of this post.

Patric will have a post up this week about how to do solid and high quality video of your town…but just for a quick explanation of how to do these:

For Apple Phones: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102653

For Samsung Phones: https://www.samsung.com/au/support/mobile-devices/using-screen-recorder/?srsltid=AfmBOoowlZ59FwTs5ZeojB6OJSZZcYQPs-ZPDC8vZsG2e6IisOGPAasW

Here’s the instructions for iPhones and Samsung, since they’re the two most common. If that’s not the phone you use, if you google your phone brand and model with screen record, instructions should come up.

Please also note this site will remain live even after the game is shut down on Friday.  We’ll continue to keep this active as an archive and I’ll try to get some posts up with sounds of TSTO, and maybe even some of our favorite animations even after the game is over…as my time allows.

Thank you!