The History of The Oregon Trail 58
Rick Zeman writes "Those of us of a certain age recall The Oregon Trail with fondness as the pioneering educational game that had the audacity to make learning fun! This article takes a look at the history behind the game, even going back to its initial text-based offering, showing how some programming magic pulled a generation of kids together. Quoting: '[F]or two weeks, the roommates holed up in a former janitor’s closet at Bryant Junior High School, where the school’s teletype was stored, and spent their evenings programming. Using Rawitsch’s historical knowledge, Heinemann and Dillenberger developed a series of algorithms, punching hundreds of lines of code into the teletype. But just because they created the program didn’t mean they could breeze through it. When Heinemann tried The Oregon Trail for the first time, he died of pneumonia midway!'"
Surprising... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Surprising... (Score:4, Insightful)
That he didn't die of dysentery.
It's because that was added in a later revision of the code.
/sarcasm
Geez...doesn't anybody read RTFA?
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That he didn't die of dysentery.
If you'd read TFA, you'd know that dysentery was not a way to die in the original game.
Not FirstPost (Score:1)
I would have been first post but my river raft (which i PAID A TON FOR) sunk and my oxen died.
A great game, but (Score:1)
..they really needed to make the wagons more robust - I can't tell you how many times they broke while crossing the river.
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Yeah, that's because you were a dumb kid who didn't know how to cross a river properly. An adult playing the game to win will have no trouble with anything like that.
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Yeah, that's because you were a dumb kid who didn't know how to cross a river properly. An adult playing the game to win will have no trouble with anything like that.
Don't confuse 'dumb' with harsh conditions and malnourishment. Even adults are subject to chance, the cold chance of the open range, the unyielding white waters and charging buffalo, the sheer tedium and toil! Hearty construction is vital in such situations.
The Oregon Trail ... pioneering educational game (Score:4, Funny)
I see what you did there!
It's shaped like a wagon wheel... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure it's been updated for modern audiences, as game makers see it. Which is to say, the hundreds of options are now just 4 to fit on a console controller: 2 offensive, one block, and one break-free-from-hold.
It's ok. Just use in your announcement that you have "re-imagined Oregon Trail and it is now an Action RPG MOBA!"
You might wanna use three exclamation points, but that's up to you.
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Which is to say, the hundreds of options are now just 4 to fit on a console controller:
Don't be "that guy". You know the one. The one that think console games are stuck in 1985, and that there are no complex console games with tons of stats and min-maxing.
it is now an Action RPG MOBA!"
The Department of Redundancy Department called. MOBA's are action RPG's with a few RTS elements from their heritage.
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I'm sure it's been updated for modern audiences, as game makers see it. Which is to say, the hundreds of options are now just 4 to fit on a console controller: 2 offensive, one block, and one break-free-from-hold.
I remember the original versions of Organ Trail being very simple with only perhaps 5 or 6 options for supplies and 3 or 4 professions.
If I recall correctly; later updates to it didn't remove options they added more options, and made it more complicated....
Very educational game (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Why did buffalo become an endangered species?
A: Because hunting buffalo is fun.
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I took away exactly one thing from this game.
Q: Why did buffalo become an endangered species?
A: Because hunting buffalo is fun.
For me, that takeaway was actually a pleasant consequence of the very educational fact that it's way more cost-efficient to start your cross-country wagon trip with 99 boxes of bullets in lieu of "real food" and whatnot.
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You're joking, but in someway this is the classic "teach a man to fish" vs "give a man a fish"
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No, the lesson is "Shoot everything in sight and fuck the wagon trains coming after you."
Re:Very educational game (Score:5, Informative)
While it is a common to think that the settlers were responsible for hunting buffalo to near extinction, it really was a combination of a deliberate program by the U.S. Army to hunt buffalo (where they wouldn't even take the hide or meat.... leaving the animals to rot on the ground where they were killed) and the fact that much of the range of the buffalo was consumed by cattle... creatures that pretty much fill the same environmental niche.
The deliberate hunting of buffalo was done explicitly to drive the plains Indians into reservations by destroying their food sources. I'm not defending this practice as I consider it to be a war crime and unethical in so many ways, but it was a measured and purposeful act that killed far more buffalo than anything taken by the wagon trains going over the various westward migration trails.
The buffalo herds were so vast and the unoccupied land at the time of the game so large that it would be like somebody with a single fishing rod depleting the fish stock of the south Pacific Ocean. Bullets and weapons also offered protection not just from "Indians", but also a large number of "highwaymen" that hung out on the trails (often dressed up as native tribes to shift blame).
I'll also note that the pioneers also ate berries, nuts, roots, and pretty much anything else that they found along the trail. They even went fishing in many of the streams that they found along the path too. Why do you think all of this kind of food gathering was such a bad thing?
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For me, that takeaway was actually a pleasant consequence of the very educational fact that it's way more cost-efficient to start your cross-country wagon trip with 99 boxes of bullets in lieu of "real food" and whatnot.
Apparently your wagon never tipped, losing 99 boxes of ammo down the river, when attempting to caulk and float across.
Or perhaps you never had 99 boxes of ammo get stolen by bandits or indians at night?
Frequently the trail could be unhuntable for long stretches... :)
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Under absolutely no circumstances should you ever try to walk or drive across a river. You'll tip over and Zeke will drown. Somehow an Indian will help you though.
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This was the first game taught me how to rage quit.
Press A for genocide (Score:2)
Yeah! Why didn't the generation of kids growing up in the '80s self loathe and carry guilt over what other people did generations before they were born? Might as well blaming the latest generation for the holocaust with thinking like that.
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>> they are directly responsible due to their race
LOL
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I never knew we intended to push the Iraqis out of Iraq and onto reservations. Same with Somali's and Syrians. Do go on.
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"Oregon Trail" and other media like it made genocide an acceptable thing in the minds of many young impressionable people. In any sane society, "Oregon Trail" would be remembered as a sick justification for genocide. How are we, as a society, remedying this fucked-up 80s software product with something that not only appeals to children but explains what horrible people we all are?
I sense much anger in you. Anger leads to hate. Hate.....leads to SUFFERING!
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Apparently it led him to absurd hyperbole, too!
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Anger leads to hate. Hate.....leads to SUFFERING!
Life is suffering, and life arises from good ol' fashioned lovin'. Therefore, hate is similar in nature to good ol' fashioned lovin'.
Silly Buddha. People have known about angry sex for ages.
Re:Not a word about the genocide? (Score:5, Interesting)
Man, what the hell are you talking about? It doesn't even touch on the subject and makes no justification for those things, nor does it even acknowledge it in a positive or negative light. Its a kids game focused on the journey, not genocide and politics. For its purpose, it does a great job. From TFA:
Over Thanksgiving weekend in 1974, Rawitsch exhumed his old yellow roll of code. Looking at the game again, he knew he could do better. Over the next year, he would thicken the plot, using facts he found from the diaries of Oregon Trail survivors. He discovered how often settlers ran out of water. He tallied the ways people died, and he took note of how Native Americans, contrary to popular belief, were actually quite generous with survival tips, letting settlers know whether it was safe to cross a river, for example.
Just because it doesn't have a big story line saying "genocide is wrong, mmmkay" doesn't mean it condones it.
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I had to cheat and look it up but there is actually a part where you can hire a native as a guide to cross the Snake River in exchange for clothing. The only thing in that game I think you could even kill was animals for food.
Yes.. Hint: Always pay the native; unless you want to risk losing all your stuff or getting a broken wagon.
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I remember another early (but not quite as early) computer game, where you were a Spanish explorer. I forget the name of the game.
Sometimes the Indians that you encountered were initially friendly (if you were), and sometime not. If they were hostile (or if you had ticked them off), sometimes you could mollify them by giving them things, sometimes not.
But ... if you just started slaughtering them indiscriminately, then eventually the Indians would stop fighting, and even stop running, and they would go int
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I had that game for the commodore 64...I never could figure out how you were supposed to win it. Every time I got into fights with the Indians it was on accident (you just touch one and they pop) and they all start doing their little chanting noise faster and faster until all of your men are dead and then gg. Never knew you could actually win against them.
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Every time I got into fights with the Indians it was on accident (you just touch one and they pop)
I think that was the low tech way of representing, you know, friction and misunderstandings. Just coming into contact with a strange people who don't speak your language or share any culture is risky.
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Seven Cities of Gold?
That's the one!
Fun? Really? (Score:1)
Game starts.
You take two steps.
You have died of dysentery. There is no explanation why this happened.
It doesn't take long before you search for something else that's a much better embodiment of fun.
So, who is it that called this game "fun"?
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Game starts.
You take two steps.
You have died of dysentery. There is no explanation why this happened.
It doesn't take long before you search for something else that's a much better embodiment of fun.
Yeah, like a rouge-like http://alt.org/nethack/topdeaths.html [alt.org]
Rehash from 2011 story? (Score:3)
Re:Rehash from 2011 story? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, it totally does look like a rehash of the story we saw here a couple of years ago [slashdot.org]! I've also only read the first few paragraphs of this new article, too, but I also haven't found anything different from the previous one. I'm not suggesting plagiarism either, I'm just also saying it looks like the author just took the information from previous stories and rewrote it in his own words, without adding anything new. What a douche!
Ah; but you added something new.
We'll know things have really gone south when all the links on front page items on Slashdot actually link to comments in older articles....
He died in the game, I assume. (Score:2)
The article doesn't clarify.
I learned that in just 4 feet of water... (Score:1)
Your wagon will flip over, you'll lose 1000s of pounds of food and bullets, and someone will drown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_rSKIbAMR4&feature=player_detailpage&t=486 [youtube.com]
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A narrow or steep 4 foot deep river can move [swgfl.org.uk] very fast [cnx.org]!
Death of MECC was death of educational computing (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah MECC. I sometimes wonder how different the world would be if SoftKey hadn't MBA'ed all of the great educational-entertaining software companies into oblivion. After MECC, games went back to assited rote practice of basic skills, which is basically the entire educational games segment today. I kind of wonder if it would have happened anyway; was the time right just then, or would it have sustained and grown? The key is: I don't see games like Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, Rocky's Boots, etc. anymore--unless it's just re-skinned versions of those games.
Fun fact: the two major rights holders these days to the SoftKey (aka, The Learning Company) IP are Houghton Mifflin Harcort and Ubisoft. Yeah... those are some fun people to try and work with...
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Fun fact: the two major rights holders these days to the SoftKey (aka, The Learning Company) IP are Houghton Mifflin Harcort and Ubisoft. Yeah... those are some fun people to try and work with...
I must have missed the merger between Houghton Mifflin and Harcort Brace Jovanovich. I guess they didn't want to go with Houghton Mifflin Harcort Brace Jovanovich. Just shows that it's worthwhile to insist your name goes at the beginning of the merger name; Eventually when we have Houghton Bell, everyone else will have been forgotten.
Reminds me; who owns Humongous Entertainment with Atari going the way of the Dodo yet again?
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Around 1997-1998 the bottom seemed to fall out of the educational software market in general, including with prices falling for boxed software and expectations rising for artwork and embedded video. That was unfortunate for me and my wife as we were just finishing a first version of an educational garden simulator. I first had the initial idea about ten years earlier while a program administrator for the NOFA-NJ organic farm certification program; too bad it took so long to bring it to fruition (including g
Old timer (Score:1)
Still play it -- on an Apple IIe... (Score:2)
I own a mint condition Apple IIe, with the two disk drives and the colour monitor, and the only game I have for it is Oregon Trail, on an original MECC diskette that still works great.
I'm a pretty big Oregon Trail fan =)
the most famous of these trails was the Oregon Tra (Score:1)