Hello!
Game of the Week #14 is The Simpsons: Tapped Out, a resource management game on iOS.
It was created by EA and Fox Digital, and after an inauspicious launch – when it was pulled from the App Store due to players’ complaints about the quality of the game and its tendency to crash – it spent almost all of October at #1 in the top-grossing chart for the US, and EA revealed on Tuesday that it had reached a record high of 2.8m daily players.
How does it work?
Help the Simpsons rebuild Springfield! An accident at the nuclear power plant has wiped out the entire city. You and Homer start at zero and your aim is to return the town to its former glory. Your task is to marshal your resources to create buildings, unlock new characters and decorations, and complete missions.
There are a couple of particularly smart things in the game – not least the way in which it references upcoming TV episodes. When I was playing it this morning I stumbled across a couple of pieces of a mysterious Mayan calendar – which a pop-up told me would soon feature in the show.
My favourite thing about the game, though, is that there are so many in-jokes – both about the show and about the resource management genre. Here are a couple of examples from early on in the game:
How does it make money?
Like most resource management games, the game itself is free but you can spend money on a hard currency – in this case, Donuts – which can speed up actions (e.g. building the Kwik–E–Mart) or buy new items (e.g. a spooky pet graveyard, if you’ve downloaded the Halloween update).
Why is it particularly interesting?
The Simpsons: Tapped Out is particularly interesting right now because it is a highly successful branded game. As the iOS market becomes more crowded, the value of brands should increase (good news for Fremantle). Brands help because they make games stand out from the crowd in the App Store, and because they create an expectation of quality that encourages users to download them. Expect to see more branded games appear in the App Store charts over the next few months.
Check out the game, and let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy it.
Cheers all,
Todd
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