The Oregon Trail (series)

Last updated

The Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail Logo.png
Genre(s) Edutainment
Developer(s) MECC
Publisher(s) Broderbund
The Learning Company
Gameloft
Creator(s)Don Rawitsch
Bill Heinemann
Paul Dillenberger
First release The Oregon Trail
December 3, 1971
Latest releaseThe Oregon Trail
April 2, 2021
Spin-offs The Amazon Trail
The Yukon Trail
MayaQuest: The Mystery Trail
Africa Trail

The Oregon Trail is a series of educational computer games. The first game was originally developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) in 1974. The original game was designed to teach eighth grade schoolchildren about the realities of 19th-century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. The player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley via a covered wagon in 1848.

Contents

History

In 1971, Don Rawitsch, a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, taught an eighth grade history class as a student teacher. [1] [2] Rawitsch recruited two friends and fellow student teachers, Paul Dillenberger and Bill Heinemann, to help with his student-teaching project. [3] Bill Heinemann used HP Time-Shared BASIC running on an HP 2100 minicomputer to write the original computer program. [4]

The original core gameplay concepts that have been included in every subsequent version are initial supply purchase, occasional food hunting, occasional supply purchase at forts, inventory management of supplies, variable travel speed depending upon conditions, frequent misfortunes, and game over upon death or successfully reaching Oregon. [5]

The game that would be later named The Oregon Trail debuted to Rawitsch's class on December 3, 1971. Although the minicomputer's teletype and paper tape terminals that predate display screens were awkward to children, the game was immediately popular, and he made it available to users of the minicomputer time-sharing network owned by Minneapolis Public Schools. When the next semester ended, Rawitsch printed out a copy of the source code and deleted it from the minicomputer. [5] [3]

MECC

In 1974, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), a state-funded organization that developed educational software for the classroom, hired Rawitsch. He retyped the game from a printout of the 1971 BASIC code into the organization's time-sharing network. Then, he modified the frequency and details of the random events that occurred in the game, to more accurately reflect the accounts he had read in the historical diaries of people who had traveled the trail. In 1975, when his updates were finished, he made the game titled OREGON available to all the schools on the timeshare network. The game became one of the network's most popular programs, with thousands of players monthly. [5] [3] [6]

Rawitsch published the source code of The Oregon Trail, written in BASIC 3.1 for the CDC Cyber 70/73-26, in Creative Computing 's May–June 1978 issue. [7] That year, MECC began encouraging schools to adopt the Apple II microcomputer. [3] John Cook adapted the game for the Apple II, and it appeared on A.P.P.L.E.'s PDS Disk series No. 108. A further version called Oregon Trail 2 was adapted in June 1978 by J.P. O'Malley. The game was further released as part of MECC's Elementary series, on Elementary Volume 6 in 1980. The game was titled simply Oregon, and featured minimal graphics. It proved so popular that it was re-made under the same title, with substantially improved graphics and expanded gameplay, in 1985. The new version was also updated to more accurately reflect the real Oregon Trail, incorporating notable geographic landmarks as well as human non-player characters with whom the player can interact. [8]

By 1995, The Oregon Trail generated about one-third of MECC's $30 million in annual revenue. [9] An updated version, Oregon Trail Deluxe, was released for DOS and Macintosh in 1992, as well as Windows in 1993 (under the title of simply The Oregon Trail Version 1.2) [10] followed by Oregon Trail II in 1995, [3] The Oregon Trail 3rd Edition in 1997, [11] and 4th [12] and 5th editions. [13] As of 2011, more than 65 million copies of The Oregon Trail have been sold. [3]

Games

Games in the series were released with varying titles.

The Oregon Trail games
TitleYearDeveloperPublisherPlatform
The Oregon Trail 1971Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul DillenbergerNot published HP 2100
OREGON1975Modified by Don Rawitsch MECC (on timeshare system) CDC Cyber 70, HP2000
OREGON1978John Cook (ported from timeshare version)MECC (as download)Apple II
OREGON (part of Elementary Volume 6)1980Unchanged from 1978 versionMECC (on floppy disk)Apple II
Oregon (part of Expeditions)1983MECC (ported from 1980 Apple II version)MECCAtari 8-Bit
Oregon (part of Expeditions)1984MECC (ported from 1980 Apple II version)MECCCommodore 64, Radio Shack TRS-80
The Oregon Trail 1985R. Philip Bouchard (designer), MECCMECCApple II
The Oregon Trail1990MECC (remake of 1985 Apple II version)MECCDOS
The Oregon Trail1991MECCMECCMacintosh (B&W)
The Oregon Trail Deluxe1992MECC (ported from 1991 Macintosh version)MECCDOS (with mouse support)
The Oregon Trail1993MECC (port of The Oregon Trail Deluxe)MECC Windows 3.x, Windows
Oregon Trail II 1995Wayne Studer (designer), MECC SoftKey DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows, Macintosh
The Oregon Trail 3rd Edition 1997 The Learning Company The Learning CompanyWindows, Macintosh
The Oregon Trail 4th Edition 1999The Learning CompanyThe Learning CompanyWindows, Macintosh
The Oregon Trail 5th Edition 2001The Learning CompanyThe Learning CompanyWindows, Macintosh
The Oregon Trail 2009Gameloft Shanghai, Gameloft New York Gameloft DSiware
The Oregon Trail: Gold Rush2010GameloftGameloftJ2ME
The Oregon Trail HD [14] 2010GameloftGameloft Windows Phone, Android, iOS
The Oregon Trail: American Settler 2011GameloftGameloftiOS, J2ME
The Oregon Trail2011DoubleTapGames LLC Crave Entertainment Wii, 3DS
The Oregon Trail Card Game [15] 2016 Pressman Toy Corporation Pressman Toy CorporationCard game
The Oregon Trail [16] [17] 2018Basic Fun! (ported from 1990 DOS version)Basic Fun!Handheld device
The Oregon Trail: Journey to Willamette Valley [18] 2018Pressman Toy CorporationPressman Toy CorporationBoard game
The Oregon Trail2021Gameloft Apple Apple Arcade
2022Gameloft Nintendo Switch, [19] Windows
2023 Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
2024 PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5

Legacy

The game was popular among American elementary school students from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, as many computers came bundled with the game. MECC followed up on the success of The Oregon Trail with similar titles such as The Yukon Trail and The Amazon Trail . [20] David H. Ahl published Westward Ho!, set on the Oregon Trail in 1848, as a type-in game in 1986. [21]

The phrase "You have died of dysentery" has been popularized on T-shirts [3] and other promotional merchandise.

The game resurfaced in 2008 when Gameloft created an updated version for cell phones. [22] [23] [3] A new release for the iPhone and iPod Touch was also available from Gameloft. [24] The game went live in the iTunes App Store on March 11, 2009. [25] In 2010, the Palm webOS version was released to the Palm App Catalog on January 7, and Xbox Live version was released on Windows Phone 7 on November 11.

The cell phone version of the game is similar to the original, but varies in that the player can choose one of three different wagons: a basic wagon, a prairie schooner or a Conestoga wagon. The player can also choose to become a banker, a carpenter, or a farmer, each of which has unique benefits. Unlike the computer version of the game, players in the iPhone and iPod Touch version do not need to buy guns and bullets. The game has received a major update, in which the player uses trading and crafting to upgrade their wagon, buy food, and cure ailments. [ citation needed ]

In 2011, the 1975 and 1978 BASIC source code versions of the game were reconstructed. [26]

In February 2011, a new version of the game was released on the social networking site Facebook. [27] This version was removed from Facebook when Blue Fang Games closed. [28] A new version of the game was also released for the Wii and 3DS that year, and received a negative critical response. [29]

In 2012, a parody called Organ Trail was released by the Men Who Wear Many Hats for browsers, iOS, and Android, with the setting changed to human survivors fleeing a zombie apocalypse. [30]

In 2012, the Willamette Heritage Center (WHC) and the Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon created Oregon Trail Live as a live-action event. [31] Teams competed through ten challenges on the grounds of the WHC. Challenges were based loosely on the game: hunting for game was done by shooting Nerf guns at college students wearing wigs and cloth antlers, while carrying 200 pounds (91 kg) of meat became pulling a 200-pound man up a hill in a child's red wagon while he recited historical meat facts and pointed out choice cuts. Independence, Missouri, was at one end of the grounds, and the Willamette Valley was at the other end. The WHC received the 2014 Outstanding Educator Award from the Oregon-California Trails Association for this event.

In 2014, a parody musical called The Trail to Oregon! was made by the musical theater company StarKid Productions, with several references being made towards the game. [32]

In 2015, a 5k fun run held in Oregon City (the end of the route of the Oregon Trail) was modeled after the game with choice points along the route. [33]

Also that year, Pressman Toy Corporation released The Oregon Trail card game based on the video game. [34]

In 2018, a handheld electronic version of the game was produced by the company Basic Fun. This battery-powered version featured a small TV monitor that replicated the look and sounds of one of the older PC/Apple versions of the game.

Film adaptation

In October 2022, filmmakers Will Speck and Josh Gordon announced a musical comedy film adaptation based on the game, with Pasek and Paul writing original songs for the film. [35] [36]

In October 2024, Apple Studios acquired the rights to the film, with a script co-written by the Lucas brothers, and Max Reisman. [37]

Native Americans

Because the theme of the game is the colonization of the American West, some Native American critics have viewed the game as culturally insensitive or racist. The 2021 version of the game for Apple Arcade attempts to "better depict Native American perspectives" and to acknowledge that for Indigenous peoples colonization "was not an adventure but an invasion." Newer versions of the game offer new Native American characters and storylines. Oregon Trail creative director Jarrad Trudgen, a white Australian, consulted with several Indigenous scholars in an attempt to remove stereotypes and historical inaccuracies. [38] [39]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Oregon Trail</i> (1971 video game) 1971 video game

The Oregon Trail is a text-based strategy video game developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) beginning in 1975. It was developed as a computer game to teach school children about the realities of 19th-century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. In the game, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon via a covered wagon in 1847. Along the way the player must purchase supplies, hunt for food, and make choices on how to proceed along the trail while encountering random events such as storms and wagon breakdowns. The original versions of the game contain no graphics, as they were developed for computers that used teleprinters instead of computer monitors. A later Apple II port added a graphical shooting minigame.

The Oregon Trail was a historic migration route across the western United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1971 in video games</span> Overview of the events of 1971 in video games

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The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, most commonly known as MECC, was an organization founded in 1973 best known for developing the edutainment video game series The Oregon Trail and its spinoffs. The goal of the organization was to coordinate and provide computer services to schools in the state of Minnesota; however, its software eventually became popular in schools around the world. MECC had its headquarters in the Brookdale Corporate Center in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. It was acquired by SoftKey in 1995 and was shut down in 1999.

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<i>Number Munchers</i> 1986 video game

Number Munchers is an educational video game and a spin-off of Word Munchers. It was released by MECC for Apple II in 1986, then MS-DOS and Mac in 1990. The concept of the game was designed by R. Philip Bouchard, who also designed The Oregon Trail. Two versions of the game were released the Consumer Version and the School Version. After The Learning Company acquired MECC, the game was rebranded as "Math Munchers".

<i>Creative Computing</i> (magazine) Periodical literature

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<i>Africa Trail</i> 1995 video game

Africa Trail is an educational computer game developed by MECC and published by The Learning Company. The gameplay resembles that of MECC's other "Trail" games, in which players must prepare for a long journey, choose their traveling companions, and make it safely to their destination. In Africa Trail, players must travel across Africa via bicycle. The game includes a Multimedia Resource Tool to allow players to make their own journal and presentation of the journey.

<i>Oregon Trail II</i> 1995 video game

Oregon Trail II is an educational video game released by MECC in 1995. It was published by SoftKey Multimedia. It is a revised version of the original The Oregon Trail video game. It was redesigned with the help of American Studies PhD Wayne Studer. In contrast to the original version, Oregon Trail II made an effort to include greater roles for women and racial minorities.

<i>Freedom!</i> (video game) 1992 video game

Freedom! is a 1992 educational video game for the Apple II developed and published by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). Based on similar gameplay from MECC's earlier The Oregon Trail, the player assumes the role of a runaway slave in the antebellum period of American history who is trying to reach the North through the Underground Railroad. The game was developed with help of an African-American consultant who guided MECC on appropriate graphics and dialect that represented the era. It is recognized as one of the first video games dealing with the topic of slavery.

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<i>The Oregon Trail: American Settler</i> 2011 video game

The Oregon Trail: American Settler is a city-building game developed and published by Gameloft. Released on November 17, 2011, for iOS and fireOS, it is the sequel to Gameloft's 2009 reboot of The Oregon Trail.

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The Oregon Trail is a strategy video game developed by Gameloft New York and Gameloft Shanghai and published by Gameloft. It was released for Java ME-based mobile phones in 2009; a high-definition version was later released for iOS the same year. The game was then ported to DSiware, followed by a number of other mobile operating systems and devices. The game was followed by two sequels: The Oregon Trail: Gold Rush and The Oregon Trail: American Settler.

<i>Jennys Journeys</i> 1984 educational video game

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<i>Amazon Trail II</i> 1996 video game

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<i>The Oregon Trail</i> (1985 video game) 1985 video game

The Oregon Trail is an educational strategy video game developed and published by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). It was first released in 1985 for the Apple II, with later ports to MS-DOS in 1990, Mac in 1991, and Microsoft Windows in 1993. It was created as a re-imagining of the popular text-based game of the same name, originally created in 1971 and published by MECC in 1975. In the game, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley via a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in 1848. Along the trail, the player makes choices about supplies, resource management, and the route, and deals with hunting for food, crossing rivers, and random events such as storms and disease.

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References

  1. ↑ Lipinski, Jed (July 29, 2013). "The Legend of The Oregon Trail". mental_floss. Archived from the original on July 31, 2013. Retrieved July 31, 2013.
  2. ↑ Shea, Jeremy (February 24, 2014). "An Interview With the Teacher-Turned-Developer Behind 'Oregon Trail'". Yester: Then For Now. Archived from the original on August 30, 2018. Retrieved August 29, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Lussenhop, Jessica (January 19, 2011). "Oregon Trail: How three Minnesotans forged its path". City Pages. Archived from the original on January 23, 2011. Retrieved January 20, 2011.
  4. ↑ Veeneman, Dan. "Hewlett-Packard HP 2000 Time Shared BASIC" . Retrieved April 22, 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 Bouchard, R. Philip (June 29, 2017). "How I Managed to Design the Most Successful Educational Computer Game of All Time". The Philipendium. Medium. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  6. ↑ Grosvenor, Emily (September 25, 2014). "Going West: The World of Live Action, Competitive Oregon Trail". The Atlantic . Retrieved September 25, 2014.
  7. ↑ Rawitsch, Dan (May–June 1978). "Oregon Trail". Creative Computing. pp. 132–139. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  8. ↑ Bouchard, R. Philip (July 23, 2017). "You Have Died of Dysentery: Exploring The Oregon Trail's Design History". format.com. Retrieved October 13, 2017.
  9. ↑ Interview with Dale Lafrenz. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (accessed July 1, 2012)
  10. ↑ Oregon Trail Game Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ The Oregon Trail: 3rd Edition for Windows (1997) – MobyGames
  12. ↑ Amazon.com: Oregon Trail 4th Edition: Software
  13. ↑ Amazon.com: The Oregon Trail, 5th Edition: Software
  14. ↑ Jordan, Jon (November 27, 2010). "Gameloft primes five HD games for Windows Phone 7 US launch". PocketGamer.biz. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  15. ↑ "The Oregon Trail Card Game". pressmantoy.com. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  16. ↑ Welch, Chris (March 24, 2018). "The Oregon Trail handheld game is a really fun nostalgia gadget". The Verge . Vox Media. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  17. ↑ Davenport, Corbin (December 16, 2019). "Get the Oregon Trail handheld game for just $8.50 right now". PC Gamer . Future plc. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  18. ↑ "The Oregon Trail: Journey to Willamette Valley". pressmantoy.com. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  19. ↑ "'The Oregon Trail' is coming to Nintendo Switch". mashable.com. November 1, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
  20. ↑ Coventry, Joshua. "Educational computing for the masses". SiliconUser. Archived from the original on June 28, 2007. Retrieved June 12, 2007.
  21. ↑ Ahl, David H. (1986). "Westward Ho!". David H. Ahl's BASIC Computer Adventures . Microsoft Press. ISBN   0-914845-92-6.
  22. ↑ Ericson, Tracy. "The Oregon Trail: Contracting dysentery has never been so much fun". PocketGamer. Archived from the original on November 2, 2014. Retrieved October 10, 2008.
  23. ↑ Beidler, Aurae (January 31, 2008), Facebook Oregon Trail Application: Social Networking Website's Version of the Original Educational Game, Suite 101
  24. ↑ Buchanan, Levi (February 25, 2009). "Oregon Trail iPhone Hands-On". IGN. Archived from the original on November 2, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  25. ↑ Alaburda, Bob (March 11, 2009). "The Oregon Trail Out Now-On". ThePortableGamer. Archived from the original on March 14, 2009. Retrieved August 29, 2015.
  26. ↑ On the Trail of the Oregon Trail by Jimmy Maher on filfre.net (source code: oregon1975.bas and oregon1978.bas, March 27, 2011)
  27. ↑ Jackson, A. Diallo (January 28, 2011). "Classic games coming to Facebook". Archived from the original on November 2, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2014.
  28. ↑ Osborne, Joe (December 19, 2011). "Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail on Facebook will be no more next year". games.com news. Archived from the original on November 2, 2014. Retrieved June 22, 2013.
  29. ↑ "Oregon Trail Review". GameSpot. Retrieved January 31, 2020.
  30. ↑ "Organ Trail". hasproductions. Archived from the original on November 2, 2014. Retrieved November 2, 2014.
  31. ↑ "Oregon Trail Live" . Retrieved November 19, 2014.
  32. ↑ "The Trail To Oregon!".
  33. ↑ "The Oregon Trail Game 5K". Archived from the original on July 16, 2015.
  34. ↑ Krol, Jacob (July 29, 2016). "The Oregon Trail is back, but this time it's a card game". CNET . Retrieved December 12, 2016.
  35. ↑ O'Rourke, Ryan (October 5, 2022). "'The Oregon Trail': The Iconic Video Game is Being Made Into Movie Musical [Exclusive]". Collider.
  36. ↑ Murphy, J. Kim (October 5, 2022). "'The Oregon Trail' Musical Film Adaptation in Development From 'Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile' Directors, Songwriting Duo Pasek and Paul". Variety.
  37. ↑ Galuppo, Mia (October 25, 2024). "'Oregon Trail' Action-Comedy Movie In Development at Apple (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.
  38. ↑ "A New Spin On A Classic Video Game Gives Native Americans Better Representation". NPR . Retrieved August 22, 2023.
  39. ↑ "'The Oregon Trail' is back—and a little less racist". Fast Company . Retrieved August 22, 2023.


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