Managing your Tsum Tsum friends list (Part 1)

How many Tsum Tsum Friends do you have?

• None
• Just a few and they're all people I know personally or friends of friends
• People whose line id I found by googling "Tsum Tsum" "Add me"
• People who invited me to play
• People from various Tsum Tsum Line groups I've joined

Some limit their friends list using various criteria

• 50 people
• 100 people
• people who 

• send back hearts
• send a given number of hearts per week or day
• people who have Line turned on in Tsum Tsum
• have Line turned on in Tsum Tsum AND notifications on in Line.
• show the number of messages received in Line Chat 
• are or are not playing the game this week
• have names 
• in western character sets 
• in non-western character sets
• that don't start with a special character such as *

Tsum Tsum itself limits the Tsum Tsum Friends list to 1000, even if you have more than 1000 friends in your Line friends list. 

You'll probably want to limit your friends list in some way too in order to keep the time spent sending and receiving hearts reasonable.

In Part 2 of this post I'll tell  how to identify those you want to add and those you'll want to remove from your friends list.

Reciprocal Hearts

The social aspect of Tsum Tsum involves receiving hearts from other players.  You can advertize your Line Id on Facebook or other social media sites and ask that you be added for Tsum Tsum Hearts.

Then you can sit back and claim them all as they come in from other Tsum Tsum Players all over the world.  Easy street, right?  Not so fast.

When you ask others to place you on their friends list, there's an expectation that you will do the same for them.  An expectation that you will return the hearts sent to you in something like the numbers you are receiving.  Sorry, but nobody is going to take the three or four seconds to send you a heart over and over again for absolutely nothing in return.

Using Claim All and not sending hearts to a person in return is the surest way to get deleted from someone's friend list.

Reciprocity is the key idea here.  If someone is sending you hearts, you should probably be returning them using check instead of claim all, especially if you don't have them on your friends list. Also, because of timing, not every check will return a heart.  You also need to initiate by sending hearts from the weekly standings page.


                                                        -30-

Tsum Tsum "My Way or the Highway"?

Nope.  You can play the game any way you want.  No obligation, just send a few hearts my way every so often and we're good.

That said, you can make it easy for others by following three simple rules about playing Tsum Tsum.

1. Avoid "Claim All" and use "Check" to claim every heart, even if the 1 hour has expired. Note that its perfectly ok to do a claim all to clear out an excessive number of hearts.  Just be aware that none of the hearts sent to you have been returned to the senders, and any hearts sent by unknowns can't be returned using "Claim All"
2. Turn on notifications in Line and in Tsum Tsum.  This lets others see the number of heart's and chat group messages you're sending.  I have mine turned on, but keep the sound off. You may not want to do this on your phone and that's ok.
3. To remove people from your list, use hide and remove.  Never block except if someone is behaving in an offensive way*.  I think offensive behaviour is extremely rare in Tsum Tsum.

Here's what I do when playing:

First, I check every heart I've received
Next, I send to everyone on my list.
I check in with the groups I'm in just to say hi if nothing else
Sometimes I actually play the game.
Notifications are always on on at least one device.

If you're not getting a LOT of hearts from me, check in with one of the groups I'm in and send me a message if I appear to be active.  Maybe you're not on my list for some reason and need to be added or unblocked.  Just ask.  I'll be happy to oblige.

*Note that I used to block people who I thought were not sending back hearts.  In some cases they weren't, but in others, I just missed them because they had notifications off.  Blocking may make it difficult to get someone back on your list and should only be used for individuals behaving badly.  Not sending hearts is not bad behaviour.  Use Hide and Remove instead.

We can bouce hearts back and forth all day!

There's a one hour delay after sending a heart before you can send another one.

There's another way to look at it.

Lets say you and I agree that we want to send each other as many hearts as possible.  There's a couple of ways to do that.  The first is simple, just send hearts out to everyone every hour.  If we're both doing that, we get hearts from each other about every hour and a few minutes.

But with over 200 people in our friends lists, that takes too much time.  Especially when the return from sending 200 hearts out is only about 30-50 % depending on the time of day.

What we want to do is create a chain of hearts back and forth between us and as many others as possible, with everyone involved waiting to claim the hearts that come in.

Here's how it works over a couple of hours:
00:00 you get a heart from me
00:35 you claim that heart from me that came in at 00:00.  I get a heart from you because you haven't sent me one yet.
01:10 I claim the heart you sent me at 00:35.  Notice that its been over an hour since I sent you the original heart, so you automatically get a heart back
01:45 you claim the second heart from me.  Since the last time you sent a heart to me was 00:35, and that's more than an hour ago, I automatically get a heart from you.
02:20 I claim the heart that came in at 01:45 and you get a heart at 2:2002:55 you claim the heart I sent at 2:20 and I get a heart at 2:55
03:30 I claim the heart you sent at 2:25 and you get a heart back.
and so on..

We could keep this up all day.

The more people doing this the better for all of us.  Advantage:  we're only sending hearts to people who will claim them within the hour.

I'll write more about this next time under the title "Priming the Pump"

                    -30-

How to be unknown in tsum tsum and what to do if you're blocked by someone.

You may have noticed that some of the hearts you receive are from "unknown".

Here's why:

Someone out there adds you to their line friends and starts sending you hearts in Tsum Tsum.

There's three possible reasons they will appear as "unknown" in your Tsum Tsum mailbox:

1. You have not added them as a friend
2. You have blocked them and they have not blocked you.
3. There is a third reason.  Some people show up in Tsum Tsum, but the hearts they send never show up in Line. 

In case 1, they've added you but you have not added them.  You can find out who they are in the Line application.  Select Chats and look for people you have not added as friends.  They should appear with the time they last sent you a heart.

In case 2, you've blocked someone, probably because they did not send enough hearts for you to encourage you to keep them on your list.  This is perfectly ok for both sides, the blocker and the blocked.  The blocked person can still send hearts and will receive any hearts you return by using "Check".  Note that "Claim all" does not return any hearts, so use it sparingly and only after using Check on the unknowns.

In case 3, we suspect it is because they have line turned off in Tsum Tsum, but that is probably not be the whole story.  There are also cases where I send hearts and the hearts I send do not show up in line chat either.  Stay tuned someone will figure it out and the explanation may appear here.  

So what do you do if you think someone who should have you in their friends list has you blocked. 

First, don't take it personally.  Nobody owes anybody any hearts.  People try to keep the number of friends to a reasonable number and the number of hearts traded has to be equable to both sides. 

If you think they would benefit from your sending hearts in great numbers, try to contact them on Line Chat in one of the groups. 

If you don't think they would benefit , there are plenty of others who might be willing to trade just a few hearts with you. And in the words of one of the Tsums, "Let it go!"  

Getting the most hearts

Here's my strategies for getting the most hearts

I. Strategy for when I'm playing 

1. Keep an eye on the number of hearts in the mailbox.  
2. When it the mailbox indicates about 45-47, open the mailbox, scroll to the bottom and collect hearts until there are about 40 left. then close 
3. Between games, send a a set number of hearts to anyone who
• responds quickly to hearts sent
• sends hearts only when you send one to them
• you really like
4. The number of hearts sent in each cycle can vary, but the intent is to keep hearts coming back to you continuously. 

II. Strategy for when I'm not playing but am available to send and collect hearts

This is the strategy that will get you the most hearts.  The basic idea is to pick how often you want to claim hearts and then use the mailbox in a particular way.

To get started, keep track of the last time you sent hearts out.  After about 35 minutes or when you've got 45-47 hearts, open the mailbox.  You're going to keep it open for about another 25 minutes, waiting for the last heart in the list to reach 59 minutes.  

1. scroll to the bottom of the mailbox and note the time since the bottom heart was sent.  Do not close the mailbox at this time
2. subtract that time from 59 and set a timer on your phone.  That's your time remaining till you need to claim some hearts.
3. When the timer goes off, start claiming the last hearts.  They should be right around 59-60 minutes.  Claim each heart until the time gets down to 35 minutes or you run out of hearts.
4. Close Mail
5. Send some hearts
6. Open mail and go back to step 3

III Strategy when I'm not available.

1. Let the hearts accumulate for several hours.  For example, when sleeping
2. At some point, In the mailbox, claim the hearts that came in the last hour.
3. Keep claiming the ones that came in in the last several hours.  This will send a heart to those who have been sending you hearts.  Don't just claim all at this point
4. When the people are mostly repeats, or your fingers get tired, claim all 
5. Exit from Mail
6. Send hearts as time allows 
7. Go back to sleep.

IV Strategy for when I'm really not available at all

1. change my screen name to offline17
2. optional - change my line comment to "not sending hearts right now"

V. General strategies

1. Maximize the number of hearts I send
2. Maximize the number of friends that send hearts without me sending one first
3. Send to my entire list at least once a day
4. Respond to any heart sent with Check, reserving claim all for the end of the day, or when there are just too many hours with hearts to claim.