The Simpsons: Tapped Out Gets a New Christmas Update

Christmas came early everyone. A new update to The Simpsons: Tapped Out was released and praise to the good sacrilicious lord above, the game has been embiggened!

Following up on their great Halloween and Thanksgiving updates, Electronic Arts and the Simpsons creators have rolled out another big update with the latest version of the game. There's lots of detail in this one, with plenty of focus on giving you tons of new content. First thing's first. There's snow everywhere! Once you log into your town, you will notice that everything is covered with a seasonal blanket of white snow.

The update is formatted much like the Halloween update, with a new currency replacing the candy -- Santa Coins. From what we can tell, it looks like there will be more for you to do with these Santa Coins, instead of just stockpiling them like a lot of us ended up doing with the candy. The devs seemed aware of this as well, as Homer and Lisa joke about where all the candy went.

In addition to new buildings and decorations, you will also be able to spend the Santa Coins on Christmas versions of many of the existing buildings you have in your town, which will adorn them with lights. They even added in little details to the items menu, with most things covered with a dusting of snow. We are especially excited for the new characters and buildings that are available. Barney! Santa's Little Helper! And wait a second, is that Krustylu Studios? A call for that very location was made here not too long ago.

If the devs are reading this, feel free to shower the author of this post with lots of free donuts. All the donuts in the world, even. Seriously though, if anyone is listening, one thing we would love to see is the ability to store characters. Nothing kills the holiday spirit like watching that weird Burns Monster walk around town. And no ... we don't think it's trying to catch snowflakes on its tongue. Hopefully the developers will be able to fix the character storage issue in a future tweak.

Here's a full list of the updates, from the iTunes page:

• New Characters – Go on a binge with Barney, blast Sideshow Mel from a cannon, and have Santa Homer endure whiny kids' wishes. And it wouldn't be Christmas without Santa's Little Helper!

• New Buildings – Steal a copy of Bonestorm from the Try-N-Save, roll a strike at the Bowl-a-rama, and feed the reindeer at Santa's Village.

• Put Up Lights – Decorate your Springfield with Holiday Light façades for all the homes around town.

• Decorations – Spruce up your Springfield with the Holiday Tree, Kiddie Ride, and more.