Springfield has evolved quite a bit since players first began tapping over one year ago. So, out of curiosity, when do you first pick up the game?

My introduction to the game came last October during the Treehouse of Horror XXIII update, though I actually started playing closer to the end of the event. This left me little time to progress, or make sense of the social aspect to the game.

It was one of the first apps I downloaded after purchasing a brand new iPod touch, as the 5th generation had just been released. This was my first proper iPod since the 3rd generation, a device that many of you would look upon as a relic, now ten years old.

Needless to say, my iPod touch is the only device I own capable of playing this game. It was free, and I enjoyed watching The Simpsons, so I thought it would be worth it to give it a try. Little did I realize how invested I would become in this simple little game.

Do you have your own Tapped Out story? If so, please share in the comments. If you wish to know more about my introduction the game, feel free to check after the break.



The story continues…

Most people these days have smartphones, devices that seem to be used for nearly everything aside from their primary purpose. My phone, which predates YouTube, still functions and is what I carry on my person today. It may not be cutting-edge, but it has been the subject of much amusement, particularly among teenagers who only remember phones such as mine from their days in elementary school.

Initially I did not want to add any friends, as my town was still a work-in-progress. At the time, I did not realize that was the case with nearly everyone. I didn’t even sign-up for an Origin account once I saw that you could play anonymously. Had I realized the benefits of social game play, I would made it much further into the Halloween event.

A few months later, I came across web-sites like Wikisimpsons and TSTO Tips. These proved to be valuable assets in understanding more about the game, as well as seeing just how many fans of the game there were. Gamers wanted to be informed, so when I saw that GameFAQs was offering a reward to the first person to submit an FAQ for the game, I decided to write one. Once it was published, I fulfilled the bounty and earned myself ten whole dollars.

That guide was essentially the precursor to this blog. It became too much to maintain, especially with the frequent game updates, so I stopped. All of the attention at the time seemed to focused on the ever growing blog TSTO Tips. It was a great web-site, but it time it started to decline.

Apparently the introduction of The Rich Texan stirred up debates about gun control and the role of government, and moderating the comments weighed heavily on the site’s owner. Not too long after that he brought on additional writers, many of the same people who now manage TSTO TopiX. Then once the whole GameZino fiasco, the blog essentially fell apart.

Once it became clear that TSTO Tips wouldn’t be recovering from what, at the time, many people thought was just some hacker temporarily taking control of the site, I decided to start my own blog.