Stacy Conradt
The Quick 10: The Oregon Trail Computer Game
by Stacy Conradt - May 11, 2009 - 3:36 PM

q10

Despite my video and computer game obsessions of recent years – Guitar Hero, The Sims and World of Warcraft among them – if I had to rank the best games ever, Oregon Trail would still make my top 10 (along with Carmen Sandiego, obviously). In fact, I just spent way too much time playing it in the name of “research.” Here’s what that – and some actual research – uncovered.

fire1. Although you probably played it in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, the game has been around since 1971, when a trio of student teachers from Minnesota cobbled together a program for a history class one of them was teaching. Three years later, one of the teachers took a job at Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, a company that developed educational software. He allowed Oregon Trail to be uploaded to MECC’s database and it spread across the state like cholera. By 1985 the game was so popular that it was released on floppy disk (remember those?) on a national level.

2.In the original version, players didn’t get to aim a gun and hunt for buffalo and bear. Instead, the “shooting” happened by onomatopoeia – players had to type “Bang” and “Pow” as fast as possible. The faster they typed, the more meat they received. Misspelled words resulted in a failed hunting expedition.

3. The diseases the members of your party could potentially die of were dysentery, cholera, drowning, fever, a snakebite, typhoid, exhaustion, broken limbs and measles, among other things.

4. In 1994, MECC belatedly followed up the smash hit Oregon Trail with the decidedly less thrilling Yukon Trail. I should know; I definitely owned it. It was still enjoyable, but it was no Oregon Trail. Players would head out from Seattle in 1897 and take a ferry to one of two towns. Then, like the Oregon Trail, there are rivers to be forged and obstacles to be conquered. But along the way, wannabe gold diggers stumble across famous figures like Jack London, Sam Steele and Nellie Cashman. Then you get to claim and area and start panning for gold.

5. The Oregon Trail II was released in 1996. I must have lost interest by this point because I don’t recall this game at all. It was a much more advanced version of the first – for instance, after selecting an occupation for your main player, you could spend extra points to give them extra skills such as botany or medicine. And there were many more occupations to choose from – in the original, the options are few: banker, farmer or carpenter. The updated version had more than 20 careers to choose from, including journalist. Call me crazy, but I feel like writing skills aren’t going to really come in handy when your oxen fall sick or you bust a wheel on your Conestoga. The 1996 version also allowed players to select from various skill levels and starting towns.

numbers6. MECC was behind some of the other fascinating classroom computer games of the ‘80s. You might remember Odell Lake, Number Munchers, Lemonade Stand, Spellevator and Storybook Weaver.
7. When someone from your party died, you could make a custom epitaph for them. You might remember that sometimes you would see someone else’s tombstone while on your travels, specifically someone named “Andy” whose epitaph read, “Here lies andy; peperony and chease.” What?! The story is that a kid named Andy was particularly amused by those Tombstone pizza commercials that growled, “What do you want on your Tombstone?” The spelling-challenged Andy answered, appropriately, “peperony and chease.” So how did it get on your copy? Well, his game was saved on a disk that ended up being a disk that was very popularly pirated later on. So there you go.

8. Assuming you didn’t die, right away, the landmarks you would hit on your journey included Fort Kearney, Independence Rock, Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, South Pass, and the Columbia River.

9. Your score at the end of the game is determined by a lot of things – your profession, how many members of your party made it all the way through, the health of the remaining members, the time you made it in, the supplies you have left and how much leftover money you have. The world record right now is apparently 53,350 points by Craig Ian Weibman.

grave10. My personal favorite strategy was to give the least amount of supplies humanly possible, set off for the Trail so we would be traveling in the dead of winter, and set the pace to “grueling.” Only the strong survive… which apparently doesn’t include me.

And because I love to help you guys procrastinate when you should be working or studying or doing something productive, here you go – you can now play Oregon Trail for free on Virtual Apple. If you haven’t played it in years, I highly recommend clicking the link – the feeling of glee you will get when you see the terrible graphics and the delight you will feel when the first member of your party dies from dysentery is SO WORTH IT. Good luck, pioneers, and be sure to share your Oregon Trail nostalgia in the comments.

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Comments (43)

  1. Guess I’m old because I don’t remember this, but I do remember Lemonade Stand (which you reference). I never made much money. :(

    posted by Beth on 5-11-2009 at 4:05 pm

  2. I was an Oregon Trail junkie. I still have an old CD-Rom version, which is loaded on my laptop. Good stuff. And Yukon Trail was not too bad–far superior to Amazon Trail. The dish-shooting game in the saloon on Yukon Trail was solid.

    posted by kate on 5-11-2009 at 4:11 pm

  3. I just bought the Oregon Trail App for my iPhone… been playing it non-stop! LOVE IT! Best $6 I’ve spent in iTunes so far!

    posted by H2OHen on 5-11-2009 at 4:19 pm

  4. I loved the Oregon Trail! I had a more modern CD version of it (from the ’90s, I think), and was seriously addicted. I wish I could play it again!

    And is it just me, or are other people having this problem — the link posted to play the old version of the game stops when you’re supposed to flip the disk. How do I do this? Once I start I just can’t stop! :D

    posted by Rebecca on 5-11-2009 at 4:35 pm

  5. Being from Oregon, it was a standard to be an expert. I don’t know why… but 9 times out of ten my group were killed by Snake Bite. What a pile of bull-loney. Oh… and did I mention I even went to Oregon Trail Elementary near Portland? Yeah… Snakebite or no, I spent many hours in the media center playing OT, and on our resident Macs playing with the talking engine. Anyone remember what it was called?

    posted by Kate on 5-11-2009 at 4:41 pm

  6. @Rebecca – there’s a little button at the bottom of the page that says flip disk. Click it and then hit the space bar to carry on. It tripped me up at first too :)

    posted by stacy on 5-11-2009 at 4:54 pm

  7. I bought Oregon Trail II in a fit of nostalgia in the early 2000s (the $5 price tag helped). You can choose to use your extra points, or you can save them and get more points at the end. Also, which profession you choose can add to your score at the end as well. Journalist will net you a x1.65 or something like that…

    Also, you can choose to be a greenhorn, adventurer or trail leader. The last two make you decide which routes to take, instead of following blindly. You can also choose to leave anywhere over a span of 20 years and from several towns/posts depending on what year.

    And the graphics are better.

    posted by Lindsey on 5-11-2009 at 4:58 pm

  8. I never understood the purpose of Amazon Trail — I always felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere.

    posted by Liz on 5-11-2009 at 5:21 pm

  9. Wow. I just took one long covered wagon trail down memory name. I must have spend literally hundreds of hours playing this game as a child. And I had forgotten about Number Munchers until reading this article, but played that game too! THANK YOU! Delightful post!

    posted by Heather on 5-11-2009 at 5:23 pm

  10. My brother and I were OBSESSED with Oregon Trail II; he would start playing specifically so he could hunt at every stop.
    Number Munchers!! I haven’t played that since my 7th grade Algebra class in 1995 (my hometown was about 10 years behind the rest of the world)

    posted by janeeyre316 on 5-11-2009 at 5:34 pm

  11. Holy crap! Someone else remembers Number Munchers and Word Munchers. The Troggle(odite) noise could still strike fear into my heart. If I ever heard it again that is. Word Munchers was always harder though, OO as in BOOT was a killer, especially if they threw “GLUE” in there.

    posted by Erin on 5-11-2009 at 5:43 pm

  12. Here at the University of Chicago we just finished our annual campus wide scavenger hunt. This years scav involved taking the scavegon trail to the new south dorm that is currently under construction.

    posted by Janet on 5-11-2009 at 5:53 pm

  13. This brings back memories of third grade.
    We were assigned a “computer buddy.” Two of us kids had one half hour a week to play on the computer. Our choices of games were Oregon Trail or Number Munchers.
    By far, Oregon Trail was the more popular choice. So, we ended up not having a choice between the two games anymore, but we alternated monthly between Oregon Trail and Number Munchers.

    This probably explains why I don’t like math. Number Munchers month was rough.

    posted by holly on 5-11-2009 at 6:00 pm

  14. When we’d play Oregon Trail in school, our teachers caught onto the fact that all anyone would do was hunt. They actually made a rule against hunting if you didn’t need to, and if they saw you on the hunting screen, they’d hover until they saw what kind of rations you had.

    It also taught me how to be an entrepreneur, I’d buy a huge amount of oxen for low prices and refresh until someone offered me double. Repeat. A lot.

    With that said, I loved number/word munchers.

    posted by Kevin on 5-11-2009 at 6:36 pm

  15. I never played Number Munchers or any of the others, but I sure remember Oregon Trail. In elementary school we’d have Oregon Trail Day during computer class about twice a month. But it never got old! I used to try so hard to make it, but my people would always end up dying. And I had such trouble fording the rivers. Always lost stuff. I would get so frustrated!

    posted by Moth on 5-11-2009 at 6:37 pm

  16. wow, did anyone else immediately knock out a game of OT right after reading this article?

    posted by kevin on 5-11-2009 at 6:50 pm

  17. and when are you going to do a post about “The Dr. of Island brain”???!?!! you can’t forget that game!

    posted by kevin on 5-11-2009 at 6:55 pm

  18. I grew up and went to elementary school in Keizer Oregon (right next to Salem) – we’d have our weekly computer time in the library and we had our choice of MECC games. Oregon Trail and O’Dell Lake were personal favorites. We also had the math munchers, and one that was like a pearl diver that taught you long division.

    I think that version on the virtual apple you’ve linked to has the “peperony and chease” tombstone. That was always a personal highlight when I downloaded an emulator and played Oregon Trail years after playing it in grade school. CLASSIC!

    The worst part of Oregon Trail would be when one of your party members would “get lost” and you’d have to stop to “find them”. And calking up the wagon to float across the river NEVER worked – always pay the guide!

    posted by Steve on 5-11-2009 at 7:37 pm

  19. Number Munchers! Wow! I played a little tiny bit of the Trail back in the day, but I ended up with a floppy disk of Number Munchers at home, so I played that quite a bit. I wish I had known about Word Munchers…I would’ve kicked ass.

    Oh yeah, and Carmen Sandiego rules all. I played several incarnations of that as a child and loved every second. My secret dream was to go on the show someday…but I knew I would need to memorize the countries of Africa and South America…and I just couldn’t seem to get them all down :)

    How about a Quick 10 about her?

    posted by Fruppi on 5-11-2009 at 7:48 pm

  20. /headsmack

    I already read and enjoyed that Quick 10 :D Duh!

    posted by Fruppi on 5-11-2009 at 7:51 pm

  21. Oregon Trail 2 was on all the computers at my elementary school… I never got very far before I died from dysentery or buffalo stampedes, or something.

    posted by Case on 5-11-2009 at 7:53 pm

  22. I loved Oregon Trail in school, and number munchers – which was much easier than regular math, as I recall…must have been the monsters. Anyway, I never made it past Chimney Rock, despite trying each profession and various strategies. Would not have made an exceptional pioneer…

    posted by Beks on 5-11-2009 at 8:27 pm

  23. I remember playing a game in which fish ate other fish and you gained levels by “growing” into another fish. You started as a cuddle fish. And another one where you dissect a frog. Classic early elementary school grades from the early 90′s!

    posted by Cait on 5-11-2009 at 9:56 pm

  24. I found that a couple weeks ago and entered the names of my actual family (my husband, kids, and dog).

    It wasn’t fun anymore when my daughter, Mary Grace, got cholera and then fell overboard when we tried to ford a stream. My husband didn’t make it, either. It kind of got creepy and sad at that point.

    In other words, if you’re going to play OT online, only put in the names of your Cabbage Patch Dolls, lest ye be scarred for life.

    posted by Amy on 5-11-2009 at 10:16 pm

  25. We used to play I think Oregon Trail 2 in school. I think it was that one cuz the graphics were waaay better and hunting was different. We used to play during computer time and always thought it was hilarious when one of our people died cuz we named them after our friends!!

    haha playing right now and my friend nick has a snake bite….wonder if he’ll die!!

    reCaptcha: defeated workers…sounds a lot like real life huh?

    :o)

    posted by Lindsey on 5-11-2009 at 11:07 pm

  26. I love Oregon Trail! If any commenters are interested in some trivia about the non-digital Oregon Trail, check out “5 Things I Learned At the End of the Oregon Trail”:

    http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/6756

    posted by Chris Higgins on 5-11-2009 at 11:34 pm

  27. My sister and I loved Oregon Trail! I even remember having had a dream where I was in that game. No one died. The youngest was always the first to go.

    posted by Sara on 5-11-2009 at 11:43 pm

  28. my friend and I used to spend hours playing in the mid 90s. The computer always pre named one of our travelers Zeke who always broke his arm or leg, dun dun duh

    posted by Alice on 5-12-2009 at 12:25 am

  29. Odell Lake was a great one too – although it was really easy if you simply picked “Great White Shark” – no bigger fish to eat you! I think you only died if you ate a rotten sea cucumber or something.

    Number Munchers, on the other hand, sucked. Well, at least *I* think it did – I hate math.

    posted by AJ on 5-12-2009 at 12:27 am

  30. I should have clarified – that was a later (mid-90′s) version of Odell Lake which was ocean-based in which you could play as a Great White. Obviously that wasn’t an option in the original.

    posted by AJ on 5-12-2009 at 12:29 am

  31. I definitely remember this one and I also loved Carmen Sandiego, especially the versions that came with an atlas (either US or world, depending on which title you purchased).

    I also remember Lemonade Stand and that was awesome. Thanks for bringing back memories.

    posted by Sarah in CA on 5-12-2009 at 1:48 am

  32. Oregon Trail brings me back to 6th grade math class. I am pretty sure that was the class we had the computers in and they were on Trash 80s. This is a classic game I doubt any Gen Xer will ever forget.

    posted by Jamie Favreau on 5-12-2009 at 1:53 am

  33. Oh, the memories! We played OT every week in our gifted/talented class. We’d all get on our computers, name the characters after each other, and yell out every time someone died. “Blake, you just died of cholera! Hahahaha!” Oh, the memories.

    posted by erininhouston on 5-12-2009 at 8:45 am

  34. YESSSS Carmen Sandiego :)

    posted by Reese on 5-12-2009 at 9:12 am

  35. I actually used to skip recess to play this. But I got into big trouble in 6th grade for typing obscene words and beer slogans on the tombstones when someone died.

    This Bud’s For You.

    posted by BKReporter1 on 5-12-2009 at 12:02 pm

  36. Along with Trail, the other two games we played in school were Reader Rabbit and Treasure Mountain. I remember that anyone who beat Treasure Mountain would get to pick out a random “treasure” from the treasure chest in the computer lab. Usually the treasure was equivalent to what you would get from the arcade when you only had two tickets left, but it was exciting nonetheless.

    posted by Matt B on 5-12-2009 at 12:03 pm

  37. I played Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand at summer school in 1980. We also learned basic BASIC on our Apples IIs. :D

    posted by Brooklynperson on 5-12-2009 at 12:47 pm

  38. I played Oregon Trail in the late ’80s on the sort of computer that looked like an oversized typewriter that printed everything on paper. I don’y know what you called them, so some of you may have no idea what I’m talking about. But it had a little thing on the side into which you could stick an old fashioned hand set.
    There were no graphics, just words and symbols. There was a Star Trek game, too.

    posted by BassMan on 5-12-2009 at 12:55 pm

  39. In 3rd and 4th grade we had “computer class” every week. If the class landed on a Friday we were in to a full hour of OT madness — on oldschool Apple II E’s.

    posted by roxy.cape on 5-12-2009 at 1:34 pm

  40. For $4.99 you can buy the New Oregon Trail app on the iPhone! I wasn’t too sure about it but my kids (who no longer play O.T. in school) get to enjoy it too. Its actually pretty good, there are little side games you can play to make money and fix your wagon. It was a worthwhile buy.

    posted by Jessica D on 5-12-2009 at 2:18 pm

  41. The saddest part about living abroad, is that no one appreciates my “You Have Died of Dysentery” shirt. (Those who do speak fluent English give me rather disgusted faces.) So disappointing.

    posted by Debbie on 5-13-2009 at 1:02 am

  42. Hey does anyone remember the game were you were a yellow blob looking character and had to run around the stage avoiding bad guys like one of them was a sun and if you put on some black shades the sun would stop following you. I have been trying to look for it but no luck…

    posted by E on 3-8-2010 at 12:32 pm

  43. 53,350 points is not actually possible. There aren’t enough resources in the game to get anywhere close that score. Even if there were, Craig Ian Weibman would have had to play as a Farmer for the x3 score multiplier, and 53,350 isn’t divisible by 3.

    posted by L on 11-14-2010 at 5:55 pm

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