The Oregon Trail (1985 video game)

Travel

Screenshot from the Apple II version

After the player sets off from Independence, Missouri, there are several landmarks along the trail where players can make decisions, shop for supplies or rest. Players can purchase supplies such as oxen to pull the wagon, food to feed their party, clothing to keep their party warm, ammunition for hunting, and spare parts for the wagon.^[2] These landmarks include: Kansas River, Big Blue River, Fort Kearney, Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, Independence Rock, South Pass, Fort Bridger, Green River, Soda Springs, Fort Hall, Snake River, Fort Boise, Grande Ronde Valley in the Blue Mountains, Fort Walla Walla, and The Dalles. When approaching Oregon's Willamette Valley, travelers can either float a raft through the Columbia River Gorge or take the Barlow Road.^[3]

Hunting

An important aspect of the game was the ability to hunt. Using guns and bullets bought over the course of play, players select the hunt option (#8) and hunt wild animals to add to their food reserves. In the original version, players controlled the wagon leader who could aim a rifle in one of eight directions and fire single shots at animals.^[4] In later versions, players hunted with a cross-hair controlled by the mouse or touchscreen. While the player can shoot as many wild game as they have bullets, only 100 pounds of meat can be carried back to the wagon at once in early versions of the game. In later versions, as long as there were at least two living members of the wagon party, 200 pounds could be carried back.^[4] Also in later versions, players could hunt in different environments (hunting during winter showing snow-covered grass, for example), and the over-hunting of animals would result in "scarcity" that reduced the number of animals appearing later in the game. Some versions also allow the player to go fishing.

Death

Throughout the course of the game, members of the player's party can fall ill and not rest, which causes further harm to the victim. The party can die from various causes and diseases, such as measles, snakebite, exhaustion, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery, as well as from drowning or accidental gunshot wounds. The player's oxen are also subject to injury and death.

Scoring

At the conclusion of the journey, a player's score is determined in two stages. In the first stage, the program awards a "raw" or unscaled number of points for each remaining family member (weighted by party health), each remaining possession (weighted by type), and remaining cash on hand (one point per dollar). In the second stage, the program multiplies this raw score depending on the party's initial level of resources determined by the profession of the party's leader; for example, in the Apple II game, a banker starting with $1600 receives no bonus, the score of a carpenter starting with $800 is doubled, and the score of a farmer starting with $400 is tripled.^[2] The player's score is added to a high-score list.^[5]

Original version

In 1971, Don Rawitsch, a history major and senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, taught an 8th grade history class at Bryant Junior High as a student teacher.^[6][7] His supervising teacher assigned him to prepare a unit on the westward movement of people in the United States, and Rawitch, along with his roommates and fellow Carleton students Bill Heinemann and Paul Dillenberger decided to create a game for the school's computer instead.^[8] They implemented the basics of the game in two weeks, and after they presented the game students would line up outside the door for their term and stay after school for another chance.^[8] When the school year ended, Rawitsch deleted the program from the computer, after printing out a copy of the source code.^[9]

In 1974, Rawitch was hired by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), a state-funded organization that developed educational software for the classroom, and he began to rebuild the game, still using text-based output, for the organization. He decided to research the events of the Oregon Trail that he had not had time for with the original game, and changed the random events, such as bad weather or wagons breaking down, to be based on the actual historical probabilities for what happened to travelers on the trail at each location in the game. Rawitsch calculated the probabilities himself, basing them on historical diaries and narratives of people on the trail that he read.^[8] Rawitsch uploaded The Oregon Trail into the organization's time-sharing network, where it could be accessed by schools across Minnesota. The game became one of the network's most popular programs, with thousands of players monthly.^[9][10] MECC released several successive versions of the game for computer systems over the following decade.^[8][5]

Graphical version

The Oregon Trail continued to be a popular title, and in October 1984 MECC commissioned programer R. Philip Bouchard and a small team to make a graphical version for the Apple II computer. The new version was to be released as a standalone game and appealed to the home market instead of the school market. The team consisted of lead designer Philip Bouchard, lead programer John Krenz, lead artist Charolyn Kapplinger, Shirley Keran on research, and Bob Granvin for additional programming. Bouchard was told the new version had to be an expansion on the original game, not only an update to the graphics. The new version was designed to be more accurate to the real Oregon Trail and for the game to have better "replayability."^[5]

Over the course of the development, 21 innovations^[5] were made from the original:

• More detailed and accurate geographic locations to real life.
• A landmark-based travel cycle, where players can visit famous landmarks.
• Continuous daily cycles, so that players can encounter a new event every in-game day and keep track of their supplies everyday.
• The addition of branches in the path. Allows player to make a decision of which way to go.
• The addition of river crossings.
• Improved hunting option.
• A point system.
• Family members and accompany the player.
• The ability to talk to human characters at landmarks and shops.
• River rafting game.
• Tombstone scenes when a family member dies.
• A health model that tracks the condition of the family members.
• A weather system that allows for different weather every in-game day.
• Detailed resource management.
• A travel screen which appears when the player is traveling on the trail.
• The inclusion of a General Store, where players can purchase in-game supplies.
• Diseases the family members caught were more specific.
• The inclusion of difficulty levels.
• The ability to trade with other characters at landmarks.
• Options to rest or change pace.
• Music that accurately represent what songs were popular at the time of The Oregon Trail.

The development time of the new version lasted 10 months, from October 1984 to the end of July 1985. The game was released in autumn 1985.^[5]

GUI versions

The Oregon Trail Oregon Trail Deluxe VGA (DOS documentation title) Oregon Trail for Windows (Windows documentation title)
Developer(s)	MECC
Publisher(s)	MECC SoftKey (TLC Properties Inc.)
Series	The Oregon Trail
Platform(s)	Mac OS 6, MS-DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1
Release	1992 (Mac, DOS) 1993 (Win, MECC) 1997 (Win+Mac, SoftKey)
Genre(s)	Adventure

The GUI-based version includes redesigned interfaces, improved graphics featuring 256-colour elements. DOS version supports Adlib music, with 256 colour support via VESA BIOS Extensions. Windows version uses MIDI music file. Other changes include:

• Additional character classes, such as Blacksmith, Doctor, Merchant. Depends on character classes, score multiplier can go from x1 to x3.5 in .5 increments.
• Some characters also have specific abilities such as improved health, improved odds of repairing broken wagon.
• When trading, it is possible to specify the desired item(s) during trade session.
• Hunting is changed to first-person view, with preys travelling only horizontally across screen. Shooting is done via point and click, but there is lag time between firing and bullet hitting the target spot.
• River rafting game is changed to '3D' top-down view, with map of river shown at side. Steering is done by moving cursor controlled by pointing device.
• Ability to save game progress and travel log.
• Landmark information can be viewed at any time when a campaign is running.
• Ability to change in-game speed, hunting time.

Windows version also includes following:

• Various decision and configuration dialogue boxes now saved in separate locations.
• Guide, Status, Rations, Trade, Talk, Pace Buttons open in pop-up dialogue box. Random event now appears in pop-up dialogue box.
• During a hunt, maximum amount of food that can be brought back is increased to 200 pounds.
• Food is separated into non-perishable and perishable categories, with hunted food belonging to perishable group. When food is eaten or traded out, perishable food tends to be spent first before non-perishable food. If perishable food is not spent for extended period, it can be lost to spoilage.