I tried a little of Cathy, didn't get far enough to run into problems.  I got the huge Emily pack with a coupon.  Problem is, I don't seem to care for this type of TM,  I've never really played very far into them to really give them a chance to grow on me, though.  I can't stand the 'drag and drop' type, my cursor always drops them somewhere I didn't want or doesn't 'grab' them to drag them.  I like Cake Mania and the airplane ones.  I loved Incredible Zoo.   I'm not sure why I like some and not others.  
I just played a game by Five-BN, can't remember what it was but I liked it.  Glad it was mentioned because I had meant to look  up what else they did... going off to do that now and report back.  Wow, they're one of my favorite developers!!! Lost Lands, Sacra Terra, NY Mysteries, Treasure of Mystery Island, House of 1000 Doors.... on and on.

stusue wrote:

lilyr wrote:

It may not be the best way to start a new relationship stusue, but it seems to be Boomzap's norm. Unfortunately.  They used to be one of my favorite DEVs.  Loved Dana Knightstone and Awakening Kingdoms.  I was enjoying their two F2P games too.  But then the updates caused more problems than they solved (if they were even supposed to solve any).  Ah well.

Lily, I thought you guys had mentioned that there'd been probs with Boomzap's F2P games! 

But how could they have had problems with GH's game engine that has already produced how many of these Delicious and its spinoff games?  Because it's exactly the same as all the others, just different backgrounds and stories, but the engine's gotta be the same as it plays exactly the same as all the others.

And Boomzap also used to be one of my fav developers, too, but my fav series of theirs was Botanica.
 

The same way they could use the same game engine for both their free-to-play games, and the exact same feature that worked in one game, didn't work in the other, and they would claim either that they didn't know how to fix it, or they couldn't duplicate the failure at their end.

stusue wrote:

Well, Boomzap's having major problems with its first ever game for GH!  
And I can attest to that!  
Cathy's Crafts PE was released last Thursday and there's already been an update! 
Problem is, the update actually made things worse!  
The goals for some levels are unattainable and you can't continue without them.  

This is Cathy's (ie. Boomzap's) response on the Cathy's Facebook page:  

I just want to let you all know how very sorry I am about the difficulties you're having with my new game! I have a feeling maybe Ming "helped" with the update my team made??... But I promise my team is working their butts off this weekend to fix everything that accidentally got broken by the last update! I hope this *correct* update will be out on Monday or Tuesday! Until then, I hope you will all bear with me... it takes a lot to make a game for the first time, and I hope you all stick around to enjoy its awesomeness once the problems have been solved! Thanks to all of you!  Love, Cathy

NB:  Ming is the cat in the game.

Not a great way to start a new relationship...  
 

I would think that Boomzap would have worked their butts off before the game came out and not afterwards.  And who did they have doing the QA...Ming the cat?       Maybe Cathy should have overseen how her game was going just a little bit better. 

I'm not really interested in trying out Cathy's Crafts so Boomzap's faux pas doesn't really affect me.    It's not like I don't like TM games It is just that I compare all of them to Burger Shop 2 and Cooking Dash: DinerTown Studios and find all the others not as much fun.

As a former programmer, it can be brutal trying to figure out why something isn't working.  It can be something as simple as a missing/changed letter or number.  My programs might run perfectly with my test data but when I plugged in the teacher's data it could be total disaster.  Programming is also intensely personal, two programs can do the same exact thing but be written totally differently.  It's extremely hard to take over someone else's program.  Programming is listed under science/technology but it's really an art.  Since I invested no money and got months, even years of free entertainment from the FTPs, I don't really hold any grudges.  Now I'm even glad they ended, I was getting too obsessed with them, lol.  Farm Up had a special you could use that was good for  3 hours.  I would clear my schedule and tell everybody to leave me alone until tomorrow.  I really like the beginning of FTPs, but after I get enough money, gold, or whatever you need then I lose interest because it becomes too easy.
GH just released  Mayan Prophecies Cursed Island but the rewiews mention tons of list HOs so I'm not going to bother with it.

Just for you, stusue -  Grim Legends 3 The Dark City CE will be released this week on BF.