The Krustyland (sub-game?) is here!

If last week’s Level 32 update was a surprise, then today’s Krustyland “App Store” update is downright shocking! 😯 😯 😯

On the other hand, I was just thinking earlier today that I’m finished with Level 31, my Squidport only has a couple of buildings to go and in Level 32, I only have Kamp Krusty left. Without this wonderful new content I would have been pretty much caught-up game quest-wise by this coming weekend.

EA’s really bringing their ‘A-Game’ 😉 and us Tapper’s are reaping the benefits :D. I know some will struggle with the amount of money needed to acquire all this new premium content. I appreciate this and actually have two games that I use to document & archive my progress. One is a ‘Premium’ game, wherein I buy all the content I can afford. I also have a 100% ‘Non-Premium’ game. This way I can enjoy TSTO from both points of view.

Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to the game! I’ll be posting more on Krustyland as I progress and also will be adding to my ‘nearly-spoiler-free’ walkthroughs here. Until then, I’ve posted my first set of dialog paste-up’s on my Flickr site. The dialogue in them is first-rate entertainment ❗

Welcome Back Mr.T!

Mr.T, the recently elusive creator of the mega-popular TSTO Tips Blog has returned, but only briefly for now!

      

He just made a couple of short posts…
http://tstotips.com/2013/07/30/whats-your-favorite-animation/
http://tstotips.com/2013/07/30/poll-what-do-you-think-of-36-hour-tasks/

He says he’s been traveling outside of Wi-Fi coverage in India, Nepal, Burma and now Thailand. He also said he met the Dalai Lama (of whom I’m a HUGE fan). What an awesome privilege! If could meet any sentient being living in the present moment, he would be at the top of my list.

Mr. T also says he has ten days of vacation left. Well here’s wishing him and his family a safe and enjoyable finish to their epic vacation.

I also want to send a huge note of thanks to Mike S. & WerdnaSimpson for the terrific job they’ve done minding the store at TSTO Tips while Mr. T has been away! Moderating that mega-hit blog must be exhausting!

“Whole Springfield” Pictures

I enjoy making screenshots of The Simpsons Tapped Out game almost as much as I enjoy playing it. Especially making stitched-up images of my whole Springfield. Here’s the last one I made. Click to see a much higher-res version on Flickr…

Alas, starting with the 4th of July TSTO event, my town has outgrown my technology’s ability to handle it at full resolution. I play on a Samsung GS4 phone and it makes brilliant Full HD 1920×1080 screenshots. However, it seems that in Windows 7, MS Paint’s PNG file size limit seems to be just over 9400×9400 pixels. Which is apparently not big enough to hold a full hi-res Springfield.

Guess I’m going have to reduce the screenshots to about 80% original size before doing the manual stitch-up in MS Paint (which does a great job BTW). Sadly 😦 this will add another tedious step to an already time consuming process.

I hope to have time to make a new one in the next few days. Including all the cool new stuff from Levels 31 & 32. Actually it’s really not that bad, even if It does take a few hours. I find it to be a restful meditative activity ~ in a sand mandala kind of way 🙂

See more of my favorite (hi-res) TSTO screenshots on Flickr… http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewdabble/sets/

‘Spoiler-Free’ TSTO Walkthroughs?

There are a lot of great walkthroughs for The Simpsons Tapped Out (TSTO). However, if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t like spoilers, they can be both a blessing and a curse.

For months I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet with the bare minimum of info needed to keep my game moving efficiently forward through the quests while also keeping some of the content as “Spoiler Free” as possible.

Anyway it dawned on me that other Tappers might enjoy these ‘Spoiler-Lite’ Walkthroughs (as I jokingly called them). So going forward from Level 31 (as time permits), I will start posting (and updating) them here on my DrewDabble blog.

In these walkthroughs, you can also quickly access full details by tapping/clicking the quest’s name. They are linked to actual screenshots of the game’s dialog (dialogue) in my Flickr account.

These abbreviated walkthroughs can accessed via this blog’s TSTO menu (above) or you can just click/tap this link… http://drewdabble.com/drewdabbles-tsto-walkthroughs/

Happy Tapping 🙂

A small confession…

I really do plan to blog volumes about my lifelong geeky nature (and some of the amazing adventures [and misfortunes] it has taken me on), but I’m not in a big rush to do so. After all, I’ve been working on this a long time. I mean – A LONG TIME. I’ve been putting little bits of content online since before most people even heard of ‘online’. In that bleak era I call ”BTI” (Before The Internet) using the 1980’s BBS technology.

Now for that small confession: The specific reason that this “DrewDabble” blog exists (at this specific moment) is not to fulfill dreams of unleashing my inner Earl Hamner or to become some sort of Digital Sage sharing my journey towards enlightenment. It’s simply because I’ve become blissfully addicted to one of those newfangled freemium games… EA Mobile’s “The Simpsons: Tapped Out” (TSTO). As the advertisement says, it is LIFE RUININGLY FUN. Soon after getting hooked on TSTO (late February 2013); I found the TSTO Tips blog – which (as I’ve commented there many times) is an indispensable companion to the game.

Having your own WordPress (WP) blog facilitates commenting on other WP blogs like TSTO Tips. However, I did not want to have an ‘empty shell’ of a blog, so I went ahead and made a couple of small (but sincere) posts. I’ll be making many more as time permits. I’ll try to do a new Geeky DrewBabble post in the next few days. However EA has just graced us with yet more new content (Level 32) and that’s bound to set me back a good day or two. 😉

Meanwhile, if you are a dedicated Simpsons Tapped Out player (Tapper) please check out my latest screenshots from the game on my Flickr account. I’m actually trying a little experiment there right now. Until the controversial Level 30, I had pretty much blown through all the game dialog (or dialogue). If you are a word-geek like me, this is quality content that’s as enjoyable as actual game play. Starting with Level 31 (again, time permitting) I will be posting complete composite paste-up images of all the game’s dialog pop-ups in (what I guess you’d call) pictorial walkthroughs. The best way to access these walkthroughs is go to my Flickr ‘Sets’ page and click/tap the Set with the level you want to see. This will present images in the correct order level by level.

BTW: Flickr (IMO) has leapfrogged to the front of the pack in the photo sharing realm. It brilliantly handles full resolution images in an ultra-easy to manage UI. I’m a very visual person and foresee a beautiful relationship with Flickr. So much so, I’ll be doing a full post talking-up Flickr soon!