I ended up boxing my entire city and starting again. Trying to get it looking more coherent with less houses for money farming.

Yeah, I just got a bomb shelter. Still better than a parking lot, though.

My Mystery Box said, "Go to your front door." When I opened my front door an EA exec poked me in the eye. All in all, I'd have rather gotten a parking lot.

Made 20 neighbor visits this morning, killed Sideshow Bob three times (good, because I needed to boost my righteousness rating by building more training walls after the last level-up), and found two donuts! Such a small thing, but oh so rewarding.

I got Kearney in my free box today!! I need that new premium character, saving begins immediately, daily visits guarenteed.

Looks like a new updates gone live focusing on Sideshow Bob and his family.

My mystery box today also got me a premium character. Mine was the blue haired lawyer. A nice surprise after getting fences and junk the last few times.

Somehow I got 2 of the Simpson farm.

Got the Itchy & Scratchy billboard in my Mystery Box. That's something I hadn't thought about buying since it was new. EA was going to get no money from me for it so instead they get some goodwill and keep me interested in the game.

I'm enjoying the event, though it's kind of a slow burn as we unlock more features. I've been concentrating on upgrading the HQ and can't even dream of building the farmers' market right now. I like how unlike some recent events, many characters can earn event currency. I have way too much corn, though.

I enjoyed the Halloween event, but having only kids be able to trick or treat - at 8 hours a pop - was a slog. It's nice that there's a bunch more that can earn currency this time, a lot at lower time increments. (I'm not really using the 16 hour tasks. Planning that out takes too much math for my feeble brain. )

The downside is that I'm anal about having all of my characters doing tasks during the same period, i.e. everyone working a 1 hour job. That way it's easier to reassign them all when time's up. Now I have them kind of scattered throughout the day and it's driving me crazy.

I've been making great progress against the 4 daily tasks - I am really happy that those kick off at midnight rather than 3am local time. I set my tablet to wake me at midnight, start Task One, reset the alarm to when ever that task ends, start Task Two, etc. It was easy peasy over the weekend, and even on today's workday (I cannot play at work) I already had the first two tasks done and Task Three started before I walked out the door.

I should have the next-to-last cumulative prize tonight... the one before the walking mutant tomato. I think I'm at ~11K spades right now.

I've been getting a glitch in which I tap on a character to bring up their task list, but then before I can select a task it disappears. Not major but kind of annoying.

Yeah, it's a bit complicated with a lot of two-, four-, and eight-hour tasks right now. I'm doing the 16-hour corn grudgingly. I like how a few of the characters can be set on different-timed tasks, so I can pick two hours when I'm playing and eight hours when I'm not.

Yeah, I've been making good progress on the daily tasks, except the first day when I was traveling and downloaded the update in my hotel too late to cash in on those. The good news is that I was on the East Coast, and so now all my Cyrus tasks are starting at 9 p.m. Pacific time. It's also nice that the tasks haven't been too long--often only 60 minutes. With some of the previous events, if you didn't start at midnight and if you didn't start one right after the other, you were basically screwed.

I'm at the same prize as you, though I may not get it today. I'm around 9K spades because I'm out of HQ updates to spend them on. Annoyingly it keeps showing me the upgrade icon but won't let me actually use it.

Ugh.. I've been good about playing. Only had 1 day so far, I think, that I only got 3 of the 4 daily tasks. I'm at 5900 spades/shovels. I'm already 1500 behind?

**update**

I'm at 6800 now.. so not as far behind. Though some of the items you get seem way far off because upgrading the building takes them away. I think I'm doing ok on corn, 900. But fertilizer I only have 400 now.

I'm going to miss the last of today's prizes by three minutes.

I was out till 10:30 last night, then fell asleep before I could start the second prize, and they've been four, four, and six hours each since then. I let the fourth one sit for nearly an hour before I just started it now.

I think I may be OK for now.

My Monsarno Research building is currently at Level 7. It says I have an upgrade available, but when I tap on it, it says "Continue the story in Act 2 to unlock more upgrades."

I'm at 8798 spades/shovels. So, according to that chart above, I'm slightly ahead as of today. I have 1200 fertilizer and 1200 corn at the moment.

I have that too, and apparently will for the next few days till part 2 unlocks. One thing to keep an eye out for is that the upgrade icon can obscure the "task finished" icon. I once let the latter sit for longer than I'd want (especially because it's shovels) because I didn't realize that it had finished. It's less of a concern, though, if you're using the two-hour tasks because you'll probably tap it pretty soon anyway.

Update today. At least in iOS version. Looks like they fixed the issue with the upgrade icon staying over the Monsorno building when you are at max level currently.

Also new task line. Bart starts it.

Update:
- Fixes Monsarno "Level Up" icon when already at Level 7
- Fixes character task list disappearance issue (unconfirmed)
- Tasks for Mr. Teeny are back (60m + 12h)
-- Mr. Teeny is considered a Celebrity for Cecil's Daily Task purposes
- Akira missing key tasks, can no longer create Bonsai Trees (this may be a temporary issue)
- Adds Bart’s Three-Wheeler to store ($7500, expires 4/28)
- Adds Nightmare Pile to store (100 Donuts, 3% Bonus, adds 4h task for all kids)

- Adds mini quest (Bart starts):

Today's mystery box. Lard Lad Donuts.

Congrats. I'm way behind. Haven't felt much like playing and when I do the game crashes constantly. I got the farm and the cafeteria, kinda bummed I'm gonna miss the little plant dude but I'll live.

They are stretching things now. I don't have any room to put any of this stuff.

I'm not sure how much I want to participate in this one. It just seems like the farmers market is an incredible stretch at this point.

You can either choose to level up or get the farmers market. I chose to level up. Not even sure if I have space for the Farmers Market.

I may get close to getting the Farmers Market though, since I'm playing several times a day.

I've been leveling up, too. Hit the max several days ago and as of yesterday I am now able to build the cane field. I'm just wondering if I should go for the farmers market first or build what I can when I can. Or maybe it won't make any difference in the long run.

And the mutant seeds are pretty tough to come by without spending donuts.

I'm in the same boat. Now that I'm out of upgrades, I've accumulated almost 7K fertilizer. I don't really want the cane field but am not sure I'll hit the market in time. And I assume it's like previous events and the fertilizer will be useless when we flip. I'm also about 2K shovels short of the killer tomato.

And yes, other than that prize of 40 seeds, they've been pretty slow in coming. I decided to not be proactive and just save mine to reciprocate people who dropped seeds on me, but I still ran out.