Is it possible to recover a game that was accidentally deleted?
If you accidentally deleted one of the tribes from the Change Tribe screen (please see the information below if you uninstalled the entire game), you should be able to recover that tribe from the backup savegame file. The following procedure explains how to recover your game from the backup file.
NOTE: This procedure assumes that you are familiar with manipulating files on your computer. If you are uncomfortable with such tasks, you should seek assistance from an experienced person in order to avoid the possibility of irreparable damage.
- Determine which tribe slot was deleted: the tribe at the top is in slot 1, and the tribe at the bottom of the list is in slot 5.
- Open My Documents, then open the folder named LDW
- Look for and open the Virtual Villagers folder (the actual name may vary, depending upon where you purchased the game). Do not attempt to open the savegame files, to prevent the possibility of corrupting any of them. The savegame files in that folder are named Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life1.ldw through Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life5.ldw, and correspond to each of the tribe slots. The backup savegame files are named Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life21.ldw through Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life25.ldw, also corresponding to each of the tribe slots.
- Verify that the savegame file for the deleted tribe is no longer present (e.g. if the tribe in the 3rd slot had been deleted, there should be no file named Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life3.ldw).
- Rename the backup file to make it the primary savegame file (in this example for the tribe in the 3rd slot, you would rename Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life23.ldw to Virtual Villagers - The Tree of Life3.ldw).
- Launch Virtual Villagers to verify that the tribe has been restored. The game may not be as current as the one that was deleted, depending upon how recently the backup file was updated, but you won't lose all progress on the deleted tribe.
If you wish to back up your savegame file(s) periodically to prevent loss in the future, you can click the link below for a simple backup method.
If you deleted (uninstalled) the entire game, you can usually just reinstall it using the trial version from the same site where you originally purchased the game. It's very important that you don't download and install the game from a different site, since your activation code will no longer work. The activation codes issued by one game site will not work with any other site's version of the game.
How to back up Virtual Villagers: The Tree of Life for Windows games.