How Do You Win Taylor Swift's iPhone Game?

Apparently, Taylor Swift doesn't realize that the rest of us normal people have weekday nine to five jobs. That must be the case because she chose Tuesday morning to release her Taylor Swift "Blank Space" Experience app, a video game version of her music video that allows you to explore the world and the story that the pop star has created. The app follows the plot of the music video exactly, from the moment model Sean O'Pry arrives at the manor to the moment he speeds his car right on out of there. Thus, the question becomes, how do you win Swift's "Blank Space" iPhone game when it has a foregone conclusion? What counts as "winning" when it comes to this game?

Swift's app is not a traditional game in which you collect points or complete challenges in order to advance. The game plays out whether you do anything or not. In fact, you can stand in the foyer of the manor the entire time the game occurs because it spans the three minute and 51 second runtime of the song — and then ends right after. Yes, that's right: there is a time limit on how long you have in order to win the game, which you do by collecting 41 items that are hidden throughout the rooms in the manor.

However, the task sounds a lot simpler than it actually is. In the first place, you never realize how short a period of time three minutes and 51 seconds is until you have to complete an extended task during that time. That three minutes will feel like ten seconds when you realize the song is almost over and you're nowhere close to having all the items. In the second place, the items aren't marked in any way. You pretty much have to tap on every single thing in a room and hope it's actually a collectible. Some of the items that you tap can even be tapped on further — gaining you a closer look at some Polaroid pictures of Swift and allowing you to turn the dial on a compass.

On the bright side, once you find an item in the game then you have that item for life. Every time you restart, you retain all of the items you found the last time you played, allowing you to explore more rooms and find more items until you finally win the game. Instead of a race against the clock, after the first few times you play it simply becomes a frustrating treasure hunt to find those elusive items that are still blank spaces on your list. That's what makes the option of sharing items between friends on Facebook and social media so important. Your friends can tell you what items they have found that you don't have and that way you can get to all 41 faster and win the game.

In the meantime, if you're not sick of hearing "Blank Space" by the fourth or fifth time you play the game, you can take a break from your search to watch the music video for free, get details on her upcoming tour, purchase 1989 from iTunes, or even get behind the scenes exclusives. Hopefully, that will ease the sting of exactly how long it's taking you to find these 41 collectable items.