It’s odd. Despite all the in-jokes every time you level up and the repeated dialogue about the game’s apparent immortality, The Simpsons: Tapped Out is ending. On the 24th of January to be specific, although it’ll no longer be available on the App Store from the 31st of October (get in while you can).

For those who have no idea what on earth I’m talking about, let me briefly summarise. The Simpsons: Tapped Out is a mobile game where you tap, and then wait, tap again and then wait a bit longer this time, only to be rewarded with one of an infinite cast of Simpson characters doing a little dance on your screen. You can, of course, use premium currency to have to wait less before your next tap. Can you feel the excitement already? The kicker, like all free to play games, is you only get a certain amount of this premium currency before you have to whip out your credit card and pop in those three sweet little digits on the back. It’s microtransactions poorly disguised in a Homer Simpson flesh suit with some nostalgia sprinkled in for good measure. At least you get to meticulously design your own Springfield?

I can’t claim to have been there from the beginning but I have been playing on and off for the last four years, mostly on for the last two. And what have those four years got me you ask? A whole lot of wasted time and energy, but in the current climate I’ll take that over developing AI or designing a truck so pointy it can take out the eye of a pedestrian from 40 feet away while being so useless as a truck that it would be more useful as a really large, really expensive paper weight. Like a lot of mobile games, Tapped Out was a healthy little money printing machine for EA to make some cash on the side. The wait times are unnecessarily long, the dialogue is never really that funny or witty or meta despite its continued, desperate attempts, animations are re used with reckless abandon and yet…

And yet heading to Reddit (stick with me) after the announcement of the closure I was met with a glorious outpouring of love and grief. A collective sharing of tales of how it helped people get through breakups and messy childhoods and even something called lockdown? The love and sense of community was universal, with veterans of the game rubbing shoulders with those who had only downloaded the game a week ago, all of them brought together by their love of the Simpsons and this silly little mobile game that had been chugging along for over a decade. And in a twist that doesn’t often happen in the real world, the developers of the game seemed to realise this too. One of the last questlines that sets up the final update, while dialogue heavy and a tad cheesy, pauses right at the end and lets Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie say their final heartfelt goodbyes to the player. All of them, except Homer, have something heartfelt and slightly tongue in cheek to say and it’s a sweet little send off. What does Homer say? After all the other characters have reassured us that the Simpsons will live on, in the games still out there and the many more games, spin offs and references still yet to come? He smiles and simply says ‘Bye’. While it may not have been the ending everyone wanted, it would take someone with a heart of stone to deny the fitting nature of a short and sweet farewell.

However, this isn’t the end, not just yet at least. There’s still around 100 days before it all goes for good and one final update to make the most of. And what an update it is! In a move that shows that the devs of the game might actually care and understand the wealth of community that has formed around this game, all micro transactions have been removed. Not only this but all donut producing buildings (donuts are the premium currency, because let’s be honest what else would it be?) and characters have been unceremoniously plonked in our inventories. Every Tuesday for the next 100 days, every single past character, building, decoration, tree, shrub, Christmas themed lamppost and sand dune that had previously been inaccessible after its associated update had finished will slowly become available for fans to purchase and decorate their Springfield to their hearts content.

In short- they gave us all the keys to the kingdom and told us to let our imaginations run wild. And I for one can’t thank the devs enough. Was The Simpsons: Tapped Out a good game? No. Is it even close to the best Simpsons game? Absolutely not. But like many other mobile games it seems to have grown beyond its original intentions and the most recent update feels like the devs recognising that, nodding slowly and sagely and thanking us the player for playing their game, for taking it and making our own. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go farm donuts with God (no really).

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Undertale: World Pacifism At Christmas

LEGO x Gaming: Constructing Collaborations

Super Mario Galaxy: In Space No-One Can Hear You Mamma Mia