I’ve posted a lot of advice on this blog that’s useful for people just starting out in the game (and there’s more to come). To help you out as you begin playing this highly addictive game, I’ve gathered here the links to questions that people starting out in the game usually have.
General tips
How do I get the Jebediah Springfield statue?
Tasks and Quests
Walkthrough – part 1 (from Level 1 to Cletus’ Farm)
Walkthrough – part 2 (from Cletus’ Farm to the van Houten House)
Walkthrough – part 3 (from the van Houten House to the White House)
Walkthrough – part 4 (from the White House to the Control Building)
I’m at level 12 and I can’t build the library!
I’m on level 13 but Bart is still not unlocked!
Lisa has a quest to plant a tree. I planted it but it didn’t complete!
Donuts
Will I ever be able to buy donuts with game money?
Decorations
How do I get those bridges I see over the rivers in my friends’ towns?
How do I get the Duff Racing Car, the Cool Brown House, Fat Tony, etc.?
Adding and deleting friends
Is there a maximum number of friends I can have?
Visiting friends
When I’m visiting friends do I need to tap on the dollar and XP symbols to collect the full amount?
Buildings and land
I want to save up. How much are the buildings and how long do they take to build?
How big can my Springfield be and how expensive is the land going to get?
Growing crops
Is it really worth growing corn at Cletus’farm?
How can I cancel growing a crop?
I’m scared about what will happen if I plant triffids!
Mystery Boxes and Homer Buddhas
Should I spend my spare donuts on a Mystery Box?
How does the Homer Buddha work?
Conform-o-meter
Which decorations most improve my vanity rating?
I randomly lost half a star without changing anything in my town! Why?
Hello whats the max you can earn a day with the characters what makes more sense.. I just do 12 hour missions on everybody
I still don’t know how to get rid of the garbage in the Simpson Tapped Out? It’s really pilling up. Please help me? Thank you.
Hi – it’s a 6 second task that you send either Homer or Lisa to do – “clean up Springfield”
I see trash bobbing in a river area Can it be cleaned?
Also a 3 eyed fish occasionally, can it be ‘caught’ or otherwise used/interacted with?
Hi Rev – no it can’t. And Blinky is just an animation that can’t be interacted with, unfortunately
This site is absolutely excellent! Great way to find friends for tsto, and to quell any fears about server issues/crashes and glitches. I’ve always wanted to know though what is the fastest strategy to earn the most amount of XP and money? I couldn’t find any posts for people who are on the higher levels (I’m on level 29 with 210952/271473 XP) and I’ve built 84 blue houses and 50 odd white houses. Is there any other combination or building I should get to maximize my earnings if I only visit the game twice a day?
Hi Jayren – this post and its links and comments should answer your question – http://wp.me/p3zd4h-sT
Woohoo! Thanks
I still can’t believe how you manage to reply to everyone and maintain this blog whilst managing to go to work, sleep, eat etc…
Do items still earn their bonus xp’s if placed in inventory?
Hi! I was wondering if you had any strategies to share for building up cash reserves needed to progress through the game. I am a little stuck because with Whacking Day I leveled up so rapidly I now have insufficient space and funds to catch up to where I should be. I know I will get there eventually but if you have any tips I would appreciate it!
You do such a great job with this blog – THANK YOU! I would just be bumbling along cluelessly if not for you…
Hi there – here’s a post you may find useful – http://wp.me/p35pG7-1cK – and this is interesting, too – http://wp.me/p35pG7-1kj. This may also be useful, especially for the comments – http://wp.me/p35pG7-1pW
I can’t play. It’s frozen. When I tray to open it crash immediately. What I can do?
Hi – try deleting and reinstalling
I’ve noticed that some of the decorations have tasks associated with them, such as the gazebo (Mensa meetings) and the lounge chair (Kent Brockman relaxes in it). Do you have a list of the decorations I can buy in the free game that will add to characters’ available tasks?
Hi Alan, there was a post on this just last weekend – http://wp.me/p35pG7-1UV
Hey I was wondering if you think a ‘collect all’ button could be implemented in the future. It gets a bit timely when collecting money from all of the homes and characters.
Thanks
Yourboymatt (on origins)
I think it’s a great idea, Matt
great idea Matt. i’d love to see a “send all” to send all characters on their tasks of a designated time. eg- at night send all (available) on their 6 or 8 hour task.
again pure time saver!
Hi
I was wondering if there is anything I can do to get donuts back that I lost.. I saved up 15 donuts and bought a Buddha Homer. As soon as I hit on the buddah to buy it my phone battery died and my phone turned off… When I logged back in I had 0 donuts and there was nothing new in my town or in my inventory
Thankyou in advance for any help
Hi Nathan – you’ll need to contact Apple or Google play through the support page on whichever site applies to you. I’ve heard some success stories on refunds.
I just started playing today and a friend put a load of eggs in my town, but I don’t have snake icon in the corner. Do I need to do anything?
Hi – you’ll need to wait until Homer and Lisa finish their 24-hour task and then it will appear
I ran out of space in my last comment, but I wanted to say how much I love your site and all the people here. After trying to follow several inferior places, TSTOtips is now the only one I need to read. I get excited to check everyday all the new posts and, as a fairly new player, I’ve really benefited from the building/deco lists and posts as well. Thank you so much! I know its just a game, but it brightens my mood sometimes so that is ok, right?
Thanks – and it’s perfectly okay
I’m fairly new to the game but have embraced it wholeheartedly. I noticed something that I haven’t seen mentioned but may have missed. I can get more than 3 daily actions in some of my friends towns by doing this: Tap your first 2 actions on regular buildings. For your 3rd action, look around for the clean-up mops and find some that are together. Then in one quick motion, tap the mops. You can tap multiple mops as long as you tap the extra ones before the first one finishes the clean-up. Depending on your friend’s layout, I’ve gotten up to 3 extra actions – a total of 6! – by doing this. Pretty cool.
Is it really worth it to build a bunch of houses to get Springfield dollars? And at what level? And what houses are best?
That’s a long post, but at early stages of the game, lots of houses helps you have enough money to buy the new buildings – and the XP they generate also gets you to the bonus levels and the free donuts a bit faster. Blue houses seem to be regarded as the best. I’ll be doing a new post on this once the Whacking Day event calms down a bit
Interesting that blue houses are regarded as the best. I’ve been using the orange houses because most days I play every hour and they have the shortest ROI.
I think you’re Dave in that it depends on the frequency of play
I’m new to this game and I would like to know how many days do I have to purchase the limited items.
In this event until May 9!
TIP: This is a tip for those of you who have massive house farms or extremely crowded cities …. Make a hole in the center of your opening page to leave eggs. When I have friends that have very crowded cities, the app tends to crash when I move around their cities so I tend to tap on things without moving around much if at all. If the page opens to a massive house farm, there is no place to leave eggs without moving around the page. For those friends, I will likely not even attempt to find a place to leave eggs because I do not want to repeatedly deal with crashing. An empty hole right in the middle on the initial opening will help with this situation.
Great Tip – it needs it’s own post! Thanks Leigh!
My OCD wants to get characters and decorations that I missed out on! In fact, I’m kicking myself because I got the fruit-batman signal but didn’t know the outfit was available til I read it here, just today! This is maddening!
Me too, only I got the Fruit Bat stuff. I missed out on the Gorgeous Grampa billboard. It came out while I was just starting the game and I wasn’t coming to this site and didn’t understand the whole “limited time” thing. Now it bugs me everyday!! Ha ha. My wife thinks I’m nuts because of my obsession with this game.
Once you put the gloureous grandpa suit on grandpa simpson can you take it back off of him? And what good does it do? Just another look? Does it earn him extra money and xp ? Dont think its worth putting on if you cant remove it
thanks for all of your input this site us very helpful
Hi – I think I answered this for you when it appeared on the Walkthroughs page – but you can take it off, although it just gives some different tasks and no extra money and XP.
Do stop signs really raise your obedience level? I have bought abount six of them and obedience level has not budged
They do – but you may need a lot of them.
Hi. Do you know what it means to be “Donut Happy” in the News on Origins?
Hi Donna – it just means they’ve been in and playing their game
Hey bud,
I’ve done a search and can’t see anywhere that this has been answered. I’ve just hit the required 25,500 XP for level 17. As with other levels I was expecting the required XP to increase in order to progress to level 18, however the requirement is actually much lower, coming in at 21,560. I was just curious as to why his was? Apologies again if I’ve missed where you’ve covered this and it’s not super urgent I just found it a little strange!
Thanks for the awesome blog and a big high five from the UK.
DAMO10000 aka Damien.
Hi Damian – there seem to be some inconsistencies in XP levels at the moment – it is very strange and it should generally increase. I’m hoping to do a post on this soon
Hi, can you write a review about the silent character and if you know any reason for that .
And if there any news for changing that in the future , thx and i loooove all of your posts
Hi there – I think this answers your question: http://wp.me/p35pG7-HW
My comment is regarding the harp of death for Android. I can’t manage to find anything on this site that’s platform related but I’m on Level 26 and there is no ONE cause but usually when a lot is happening as stated by you. My fix is I turn off my screen timeout so that it always stays on and I just let it go( turning the sound down helps as well). Usually after 30-45 minutes it reloads and I’m back on. Just wanted to pass this on in case anyone has the problem and like me can’t find anything Android related.
Thanks Mike – I know this has become an Android issue as well now and I’ve been searching for some tips on fixing this. I hope others will find your advice helpful.
Great site. Here are a couple of glitches to take advantage of. When visiting friends it is possible to do 4 daily actions. In quick succession tap on buildings with either spray paint or mops.. Very quickly. Also there is a speed glitch for homer for clean up Springfield task. Once he is done the first clean up quickly task him to do another. He will go directly to the task. Small but enjoy..
Hi DM – thanks for that. A couple of people have pointed that out recently. I plan to do a post on that in the next couple of days as it really helps the righteousness rating.