:-( I'm heartbroken. I've spent the last several days working at cross breeding in Plant Tycoon and had 120 unique seeds (I was just about to face the dilemma of not having enough space in my seed trays to continue keeping each variety.) but when I loaded Plant Tycoon on my Mac this morning my saved game was GONE!

This isn't the first time this has happened, either. Last time I just assumed I must have accidentally clicked "Start Over" or "Delete" but this time I KNOW I did not. I've been very careful to avoid doing so because I've spent so much time on this game.

Does anyone know where saved games are stored on the Mac and if it is possible to restore (or back up) saved games to prevent this from happening again? Is this a bug that needs to be fixed in the Mac version of the game? (I never had this happen on my Windows version) Advice? Ideas? Solutions?

I'm very sorry that you have lost all that work.

There is one condition that can cause the loss of savegames in one of the Mac versions. If you launch the game and put it into the background before the game completely loads, you run the risk of corrupting the savegame files. That particular version doesn't run in the background, and if you forget it and leave it in the background for more than about 5 minutes, it never finishes loading and the savegame files are damaged. You can test to see if your version is affected by running the game in windowed mode, then going to the Nursery screen and putting the game in the background. If the customers stop moving, you know that your game doesn't run in the background. Unfortunately, if you have indeed lost your savegames to this condition, all of the files (including the backup) have been corrupted and cannot be recovered.

There are several things you can do to prevent this data loss in the future. The first is to regularly back up your files, so that they can be recovered at any time in the future. The second is to make sure that you let the game completely load before putting it into the background (turn your Mac's sound down first if you can't stand the loud angelic choir sound). Finally, you can submit our Support Form and we can provide another version that will run in the background, but you should be aware that we have found that it does not run on some Macs.

Thank you, Barbara!

I think you've hit on exactly what is going on with my version of Plant Tycoon. I've noticed before that the little people freeze if I pull up another window while in the Nursery screen. I've usually just managed this by calling it time to make another cuppa and leave the Nursery up and running while I do that. (Each set of plants takes about an hour from seed to pollination completion which makes it a good time to take a short break.)

The Nursery screen is the only part of the game that doesn't continue to play in the background. My plants will age, grow, get infested, become sick, and populate seeds while I'm focused on other windows but I have to focus on the game to see any changes that have occurred while I've been in other windows.

What you've described is probably what has happened in this case. I have often clicked to open the game then jumped off to another window before giving it a chance to load. I've noticed the game actually doesn't continue loading but it kicks back in when I focus on that window so I didn't think there might be corruption happening to the saved games. I'll be sure to allow the game to finish loading each time I open it now before focusing on other windows.

Thanks also for the link about backing up saved games. I followed the steps and have found where they are stored. Now I can make sure I back up the saved games regularly.

Thanks you so much for your help.

Sincerely,
Rebecca

We're always happy to help when we can!

Please let us know if you decide that you would like to try an updated version of Plant Tycoon to see if it will work for you.