I am considering purchasing RCT Deluxe. RCT1 with the Loopy Landscapes expansion (including Corkscrew Follies) was my favorite game years ago, up until my parents upgraded to a new computer and the old one was put in storage. At the time I didn't know about patches to make the game work with new operating systems. If I had, I probably never would have stopped playing, but I digress...

Before I make the purchase, I would like to know if I will be able to play my old parks with the new RCT Deluxe version. I salvaged all my park files from the old computer, which was Windows 98, and have them on a DVD. One snag might be that almost all of my old parks were created with a trainer that allowed me to own all the land, have infinite money, etc. I believe I also have the trainer somewhere on the DVD, but I don't think it works my my current operating system, which is Windows 8 (I also have access to Windows 7 or XP).

So to restate my question, will I be able to play my old parks with RCT deluxe? If so, is there anything I should know to make it work? This might be a basic question, but I don't have a great understanding of computers...

Thanks!

The problem isn't win8, but that there never was a drexler patch for rct deluxe, which is the version gog is selling. If your parks require the drexler patch, they probably can't be opened. But if you only did simpler cheat stuff like money and all land, not running wrong cars in your coasters or mixing tracks, chances are good. Trainers for gogs version are harder to find, but a few are around, those were generally quite version dependant even if not needing drexler.

The only way to make sure your parks can be opened would probably be to upload one and put the link here, so someone with deluxe can try.

I went ahead and purchased the Deluxe version and I'm very pleased to say that almost all of my old parks work! Only one park won't open. When I try, I get an error saying that I have invalid data. Is there any hope? Or is that park lost for good?

The only difference between this park and the rest, I believe, is that I started it with a different trainer. I decided I didn't like that trainer very much (it kept making my game crash), so I found another that worked better for me. It looks like that was a good move as all of my parks that used the second trainer still open without a problem.

I would appreciate any additional insights or possible solutions.

Grats to get most of them working! I'm quite jelly, didn't take care of my old game backups as much as I'd love a look at them now.

But I think the last one is a lost cause. My experience with trainers is limited, about as yours, tried many liked few rarely really needed one anyway. I simply can't think of anything one could do to make it work, there don't seem to be many things to even try. Find a copy of RCT+Addons and run it in a virtual old windows... meh, is it that important? The error is generic enough that it could be something else, not the trainer, but then you'd still have a mysteriously broken savegame.

Hope I'm wrong, don't let that one park stop you enjoying what you could save.