Growing up in Oregon in the early ‘90s, my fourth grade classroom was separated into different wagon trains of five to six kids to “travel” along The Oregon Trail. Each team had to vote for a leader of the wagon train, and our grades on assignments, quizzes, and tests would then count toward our progress along the trail, making it a competition among the different wagon trains. If you had a particularly bad member of your train that held you back, you could ruthlessly vote to kick them off.
Did my team do that? As the leader of my wagon train, I unfortunately was pressured into kicking a failing boy out of our wagon after a habitual string of F’s. He was then moved away from our pod of desks to the “reject” desk pod. At the time, I didn’t think much about it, but now, yikes, it feels like a form of bullying.
If you didn’t get this lovely experience outside of Oregon, hopefully you at least got to play The Oregon Trail computer game on an Apple II computer. Though the game was originally developed in the 1970s, it wasn’t until it was included with the Apple II computers bought by many schools for their computer labs and libraries around 1985 that the game became popular. Whenever it was computer time, all of us gluttons for punishment would eagerly open up The Oregon Trail and try to make it to the end.
Of course, that was almost always impossible. The Oregon Trail was a trail of misery. There were so many ways to die, aka fail. Drowning in the river when your wagon tipped over, getting hit by an accidental stray bullet when you go hunting, or getting sick and slowly, or quickly, dying. Actually making it to the end was quite an achievement, especially depending on which character you started the game out as – the banker with the most money, the carpenter with a middling amount of money, or the farmer with the least amount of money. Your wagon would often break down or you’d lose supplies when crossing a river, and sometimes even your oxen would die.
Was the actual Oregon Trail so perilous? Though statistics aren’t 100% accurate from that era of the 1830s-1870s, it seems up to about 4% of people who traveled the Oregon Trail died along the way. Most of the deaths were from disease, so that checks out. But, it definitely felt like we died more than 4% of the time in the game! The creators of The Oregon Trail must have been in cahoots with cash-strapped schools to create a “value” game that rarely allowed you to conquer it and move on to the next flavor of the week.
The Oregon Trail game evolved over the years from the black and green version we all first remember to a more traditionally graphic version, where you could also scavenge for berries and other grains, go fishing, go to a general store to buy more supplies, trade with non-player characters, play a river rafting game, and more. The game slowly became less popular over the years, though today you can now play it on a handheld version that replicates the original, or maybe try out the card game. Because, come on, who isn’t up for another academic hour of dying of dysentery?! Seriously, how is learning to die again and again valuable educational fodder for young developing minds?
Did you play The Oregon Trail during computer time at school, or were you more into partaking in Donner Party reenactments during recess? What are your best death memories from The Oregon Trail? Let us know in the comments!
- The game’s origins start in 1971, when Don Rawitsch, a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, wrote a computer program to help teach his 8th grade history class where he was a student teacher.
- The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium released the game, and in 1995 it accounted for ⅓ of its annual $30 million revenue.
- Collectively, the game has sold over 65 million copies in its various iterations over 40 years.
- In 2016, the game was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and is currently the only educational game out of the 12 included.
- The game inspired many spin-offs, including The Amazon Trail, Yukon Trail, MayaQuest, and the Africa Trail, though none of those were as popular as the original.
- The game’s origins start in 1971, when Don Rawitsch, a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, wrote a computer program to help teach his 8th grade history class where he was a student teacher.
- The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium released the game, and in 1995 it accounted for ⅓ of its annual $30 million revenue.
- Collectively, the game has sold over 65 million copies in its various iterations over 40 years.
- In 2016, the game was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and is currently the only educational game out of the 12 included.
- The game inspired many spin-offs, including The Amazon Trail, Yukon Trail, MayaQuest, and the Africa Trail, though none of those were as popular as the original.
