The Simpsons: Tapped Out

The Simpsons: Tapped Out was a  mobile game based on The Simpsons released in 2012 published and developed by Electronic Arts for Twentieth Century Fox and Gracie Films. Homer destroyed the entire city of Springfield. He sat and played The Happy Little Elves Game during working hours while Springfield's nuclear power plant suffered a meltdown. Homer begins then with the help of Lisa build a new Springfield. The game was released on 17 February 2012 for iOS and one for Android was released later in 2012. On 3 March 2012 the game was taken away from App Store one for a short period, when it was discovered that app had some bugs. The game features voice dialogue from the actor for the TV series.  The script for the game is written by the authors of the series.

The game
The player's task is to place the buildings and other objects in Springfield and give residents in the town of tasks to do. Every time something starts to be built or a task is started, it takes some time for the task to be completed. After it is finished the player receives a reward XP points and money, sometimes also added new features to the game. There are two currencies in the game, dollars and donuts. Donuts are game premium currency and given only occasionally free, otherwise they cost real money. Some things in the game costing dollars, while others donuts. The player can visit other players' versions of Springfield to get more points and dollars. The total friends player can have is 100 friends.

Seasonal updates are released, which have special content and events.

Reception
slidetoplay.com gave the game the highest rating, and like references to the Simpsons in the game and how fun and addictive it is. They do not like, however, that some popular stuff is premium content. CNET have compared the game with Sim City while IGN compared the game with Farmville and did not like 300 donuts cost 20 real dollars when there are games for iOS for 1-3 dollars so it makes no sense to pay over 10 dollars for a building. Macworld in Australia thought it was irritating that the player can only see the game from one angle but says that the replica characters cause much laughter.

References

Other websites
The Simpsons: Tapped Out on ea.com

Category:2012 video games
Category:The Simpsons
Category:Android (operating system) games
Category:City-building games
Category:IOS games
Category:Metafictional video games
Category:Mobile games
Category:Self-reflexive video games