The Mini-Games

After the base game was created and the economy within established, to add a bit of chance and fun to the world of Tapped Out the wizards who created it decided to add in some mini-games for our enjoyment, and perhaps to spend Donuts and Cash on...

The first of the mini-games was the Mystery Box Mini-Game, quickly followed by the Scratch-R-Tickets (instant Lotto Scratch Tickets that are sold at your friendly neighborhood Kwik-E-Mart), and then with the addition of the Krustyland Expansion, the Sideshow You Mini-Game.

The mini-games can be sorted into two groups -- the first being Homer Buddah, which is a premium only game that can only be obtained by spending Donuts. The second type features both free AND Donut / Real World Money versions, and includes the Mystery Box, Scratch-R-Tickets, and Sideshow You.

Mystery Box

A prize in every box with a chance to win Premium Items! Well that is the basic pitch...

How it works is simple enough -- consider it a raffle drawing -- you either purchase a Mystery Box using x6 Donuts or you receive one for FREE as the Daily Bonus Prize (the mini-game that has you making sure that you log in and play the game at least once every day). You can also obtain one as part of Gil's Deals (though that is a rare event) and finally, they can be a prize from the Homer Buddha mini-game.

The prize pool for the Mystery Box includes some very desirable Items including Premium Items, Objects, and Structures -- which is why the weekly free Mystery Box prize is so valuable - over the course of Game Play since the release of the game I have won every single prize that the Mystery Box offers at least once, though I freely admit that I have won the common and less valuable Prizes a lot more than once -- and they are a lot more likely to be the prize than the rarer items -- which is why we call them rarer items, right?

* This prize includes multiples of the prize item.

** This is the prize you receive when you already own one of this exclusive one-only item.

*** The cost/value depends on which Tree is awarded. The cost of the different Trees ranges from $100 to $675.

The fact that they included this mini-game and that they give the players a chance bordering on certainty of obtaining otherwise Premium Items in their game is nothing short of amazing, considering that it is counter-intuitive for most freemium grinder game design teams to include any sort of free shot at a premium item at all!

Now, the case can legitimately be made that the odds for obtaining those Premium Items are so slim that the typical player will spend far more than the cost of each in chasing them -- and for what it is worth that is probably true -- but that only applies to players who choose to BUY the Mystery Boxes, not players who restrict their participation to just the FREE ones which is what we did.

Odds are a wonderful thing, because while they may not be in your favor, the old saying that every dog has its day is certainly true on our experience - and besides that Free is Free! So treat this as a Bonus and be very happy and satisfied when you win ANY of the Prizes, because no matter which it is it is still a freebie!

Also note that even the seemingly low-value Prizes have a hidden added Bonus to most, so consider the following hidden added bonus before you judge the relative value of the prizes:

Angel Topiary = 250 Tree Hugging Points

Bench w/Suit Coat = .25% Bonus

Gazebo = 450 Vanity Points

Large Hedge = 90 Tree-Hugging Points (each)

Newspaper Dispenser = 90 Vanity Points

Tire Fire = 2% Bonus

Tree = 40 to 100 Tree-Hugging Points (Depending on which Tree)

While the odds are not exactly high (sort of in the house's favor if you will) you cannot win if you don't play and bear in mind that if you draw a special or rare item/structure you already have in your game, you may actually receive the equivalent value in Donuts - which makes that a very worthwhile win...

When I drew a second Tire Fire the game gave me 40D in place of that structure since I already had one and you can only have one per game. Just saying...

Homer Buddha Raffle

A Premium Item every time! This is a Premium (Donut) Version of the Mystery Box mini-game.

The Homer Buddha game is found in the Springfield in-game store, under the Premium Items Menu (in fact the icon for the Premium Items Menu IS the symbol for the Homer Buddha game!

The game costs 15 Donuts each time you play it, and you are guaranteed a Premium Item as your prize but you need to be aware that in addition to the great and valuable Prizes you can win there are more than just a few that are worth considerably less than the buy-in price of 15 Donuts.

You should be aware that the game will change the prize to Donuts if you end up winning an item that you already have that is restricted to one per-game.

For example, should you win the Volcano Lair or Duff Brewery and you already have them the game should then substitutes the value in Donuts as the prize (meaning the purchase price which is the actual cost of the restricted if you were to buy it).

Note: Or it is supposed to anyway - there have been reports of it not working right in the case of the Squeaky Voice Teen where players report getting it a second time, with the character being locked into their storage and unable to be sold...

The following Prizes are available via Homer Buddha:

Note: The percentages listed above are estimates that are based on our experiments and the experiments of other players who published their results to the chat boards -- if anything these results are conservative which is to say that your results will either generally match them or be worse -- NOT better!

A Brief Experiment with Homer's Buddha

To see what the typical result would be for ten goes at Homer's Buddah we obtained 150 Donuts and then used them to purchase ten Homer's Buddha Premiums with the following results:

1. Squeaky Voice Teen (Value = 30D)

2. Orange Tree (Value = 15D)

3. Dumpster (Value = 10D)

4. Frink's Lab (Value = 150D)

5. Bench (Value = 6D)

6. Apple Tree (Value = 15D)

7. Tire Fire (Value = 40D)

8. Bench (Value = 6D)

9. Hans Moleman (Value = 60D)

10. Burning Bush (Value = 20D)

Total Donuts Spent = 150D

Value of all Prizes = 217D

Total Profit / Loss = 67D Profit

Our results appear to be better than typical, as comparing reports that have been posted to the official Tapped Out Forums as well as elsewhere on the net suggests that in a random group of 10 sequentially purchased Homer Buddha premiums the average return appears to be one (1) higher-value prize, six (6) low value prize, and 3 medium value Prizes.

In simple terms during our experiment we simply “got lucky” having obtained two higher-value Prizes (Hans Moleman and Frink's Lab), but really the luck extends to the medium-value prizes as well considering that they include the Squeaky-voiced Teen and the Tire Fire.

Arguably and considering that Frink's Lab was one of the ten Prizes obtained, a review of the statistics from other player efforts suggests that there appears to be some sort of limited-time association between the value of the prize obtained and the value of subsequent prizes when the HB mini-game is purchased in relatively brief periods without breaks.

Considering that the sample statistics number fewer than 1000 completed Homer Buddha exchanges over approximately > 100 accounts and, following the patterns that appear indicated by what data we did have access to, it seems that by obtaining Frink's Lab very early on in our test, the statistics appear to suggest that the odds of then obtaining the Tire Fire (let alone Hans Moleman) thereafter was exceedingly low.

Taking all of that into consideration, and without being in a position to say for certain that the entire process is pure RNG-based with none of the previously obtained Prizes having any influence on those that followed, logically having obtained Frink's Lab so early in the process a pattern of diminishing returns would not be unexpected in those circumstances.

In other words at that point it would have been wiser to stop buying the Homer Buddha for a while under the presumption that the RNG might better completely become disassociated from the successful result. That is the theory anyway. Well, that or it really is just the unpredictable output of a Random Number Generator!

Scratch-R-Tickets

Added to the game in January of 2013 the Scratch-R-Ticket game is basically the instant scratch-off lottery Tickets you can find all over the place but, in Tapped Out, you can only find them at Kwik-E-Mart!

The game was actually added in two parts - in January the first part which is the regular Version was added, which allows the player to purchase a ticket every X hours using $250 in in-game Cash -- then the second part, added a few months later, which allows the player to purchase a "Gold" ticket version for $0.99 in real-world-Money.

The primary difference between the two versions of the game (other than the monetary type of cost) has to do with the Prizes awarded in each...

Regular Scratch-R-Tickets Prize Structure

Of course anyone who plays instant scratch lotto games knows that in order for the game to work -- that is, for it to generate Income for the state -- there have to be a lot of losers.

Thankfully all of the losing Tickets are sold in Pack-N-Saves in Shelbyville, with all the winners tickets being thoughtfully bundled together and sold via the Springfield Kwik-E-Marts because, well, everybody knows that Springfield is full of winners, and Shelbyville is full of losers!

Golden Scratch-R-Ticket Prize Structure

Added to the game in February of 2013 the Golden Ticket (as most players call it) is a real-Money-Version of the instant scratchy that costs $0.99 / £0.69 / €0.89 -- Dollars / Pounds / Euros respectively -- and pays out in Donuts to the following table:

There is a (so far) unsubstantiated rumor that a third Version of the Scratch-R mini-game is being planned. Called "Platinum Scratch-R-Tickets" the unreleased version does appear to have stubs already inserted into the game files in the game, though it has not been integrated. Yet?

Sideshow You

This game is dead simple - it is a balloon popper and it pays out in Tickets, though it also has a secret payout you can obtain under the right circumstances, and that is 5D that can appear on the board.

Playing this game is FREE, and you can play it once every 8h.

The Prizes for this game are as follows:

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Playing this mini-game is a great reason to encourage you to remember to visit Krustyland each time you log in to play so you are sure to collect your Tickets and remember there ARE active Quest Lines for this Expansion area of the game!

Mini-Game Summary Observations . . .

While the mini-games are largely here for simple entertainment, the facts are that their mechanism in the game serves as part of the balance for players who do not (or can not) spend real Money to play. So good on ya EA! Well done!