There is a procedure for backing up and recovering savegame files for Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children (Windows) in this post in the Guide Section for the game.

Actually, LadyCFII, I had already figured those were the game files, and had already backed them up... I was wondering if I had saved the right files or not, so I'm glad I know now. However, now that you post that, I realize that I had missed one crucial step - I didn't pause the game. So those backups, if I restored them at a later date, would fast-forward drastically in time! Thanks to you, I just created a new backup, done properly.

Please forgive me for feeling like this right now, but why on earth would I back up a game that the villagers do nothing but die. I am on my 12th tribe. :-(

Wow sorry to hear that, ABS. You may want to read through the forums & see if a different strategy might work for your villages.

you could try going into options and choosing a lower difficulty.

Is there a way to recover the village i have in v.97 to v1.00? I did the steps detailed above but no luck. The game always asks for a new player/village name on starting even after saving the game files.

V.97 is incompatible with v1.00 and the game won't recognize earlier version savegames.

Thank you, I had to learn the hard way but now am backing up my game. No more lost villages, sigh.

Thankyou for this info

I re installed xP today

although my game/games were still on my pc many had reset them selves to the begining and I even had to request the activation code for VV2, and a few other games

but I had a back up of my file thanks to this post

If you're on a Mac, the save files (*.ldw) are located under:

~/Library/Preferences/LDW/Virtual Villagers - The
Lost Children/

(The ~ is a tilde, indicating your home folder, whatever name you gave yours. Mine would probably be "neruda/Library/Preferences/LDW/Virtual Villagers - The Lost Children/" for example.)

i backuped my files but had to reinstall the software and now can't get my tribes back into the software. I copied the backups into the newly installed folder. What did I do wrong?

I answered your other post in the Technical Issues forum.

If I understood, when I put my games in Pause, the files that I copy "register" my games in that state. So I have to do it again regularly, no?

Once you've paused your game(s) and backed up the files, the backup files will stay exactly as they were when you paused them. If you want to backup your game(s) as you accomplish new things, you will have to do it regularly, either replacing the earlier backup files, or saving them to a new folder.

So if, in a few days, I want to return to the old state of my game (because an event doesn' please to me, for example) I may restore these files ?

Yes, but you will lose everything you have done in the game since they were backed up. So if you wait several days and then restore them, everything that happened in those several days (births, deaths, tech points, etc.) will be lost.

Of course, I understand. It was a simple curiosity and I don't think to do that one day! In any case, it's useful Thanks!

That is something I did not know saving and backing up the paused game if something goes wrong.

It wouldn't have made much difference to me unfortunately . I've just got my computer back after a MAJOR upgrade and I'm faced with reinstalling ALL my games - including BOTH VV1 and VV2 .

I TOLD the technicians not to touch my second hard drive where I had all my games stored, but when they moved the stuff over to it from my primary drive they decided to partition it for some strange reason of their own, so I have now got to try and track down the sites for all the games I've ever bought and get the unlock keys for them again - AND start from the beginning again in most of them .

Ok none of these posts are telling me how to use the backed up saved files I put the backed up ones on a cd but can't use them when put them in the ldw folder please tell me how e-mail me at deadlifter23@msn.com