The Oregon Trail (series)

In 1971, Don Rawitsch, a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, taught an 8th grade history class as a student teacher.[1][2] He used HP Time-Shared BASIC running on an HP 2100 minicomputer to write a computer program to help teach the subject.[3] Rawitsch recruited two friends and fellow student teachers, Paul Dillenberger and Bill Heinemann, to help.[4]

These are the original core gameplay concepts which have endured in every subsequent version: 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][4]

The game was popular among elementary school students worldwide from the mid-1980s to 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.[17] David H. Ahl published Westward Ho!, set on the Oregon Trail in 1848, as a type-in game in 1986.[18]

The phrase "You have died of dysentery" has been popularized on T-shirts[4] and other promotional merchandise. Another popular phrase from the game is "Here lies andy; peperony and chease," which is a player-generated epitaph featured on an in-game tombstone saved to a frequently bootlegged copy of the game disk,[19] and likely a direct reference to a popular Tombstone pizza television commercial from the 1990s.

The game resurfaced in 2008 when Gameloft created an updated version for cell phones.[20][21][4] A new release for the iPhone and iPod Touch is also available from Gameloft.[22] The game went live in the iTunes App Store on March 11, 2009.[23] On January 7, 2010, the Palm webOS version was released to the Palm App Catalog. On November 11, 2010, an Xbox Live version was released on Windows Phone 7.

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, which had the player using trading and crafting to upgrade their wagon, buy food, and cure ailments.

In 2011 the 1975 and 1978 BASIC source code versions of the game were reconstructed.[24]

On February 2, 2011, a new version of the game was released on the social networking site Facebook.[25] This version was removed from Facebook when Blue Fang Games closed.[26] A new version of the game was also released for the Wii and 3DS that year, and received a negative critical response.[27]

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.[28]

In 2012, the Willamette Heritage Center (WHC) and the Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Oregon created Oregon Trail Live as a live-action event.[29] Teams compete as they master 10 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 of meat became pulling a 200-pound man up a hill in a child's red wagon while he recites historical meat facts and points out choice cuts. Independence, Missouri is at one end of the grounds and the Willamette Valley is at the other end. The WHC received the 2014 Outstanding Educator Award from the Oregon California Trails Association for this event.

In 2013, a dark comedy entitled Oregon Trail: The Play! received its first professional production by New Orleans-based theatre company, The NOLA Project and was subsequently published in 2016 by Alligator Pear Publishing, LLC. The play closely parodies the game, following a westward-headed family as they stock up on provisions for their oxen-led wagons and do their best to survive river crossings, illnesses, hunting, highway robbery, and a host of other mid-nineteenth century dilemmas. Audience members are asked to help provide food for the family in a mid-play nerf shooting gallery.

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.[30]

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.[31]

In 2016, the game was parodied in an episode of Teen Titans Go! entitled "Oregon Trail" (Season 3, Episode 48). In the episode, Robin forces his teammates to go on a real-life adventure on actual Oregon Trail complete with wagons and period clothing. During the episode, several aspects of the game are parodied and the game's text and options are parodied. Due to the hazards of the Trail, all of Robin's teammates die while Robin refuses to give up until he reaches Oregon. After finally reaching Oregon, his ghostly teammates ask Robin what he has learned and Robin reveals he has caught dysentery.

Also in 2016, Pressman Toy Corporation released The Oregon Trail card game based on the video game.[32]

The game was even referenced on the May 15, 2020 edition of WWE Smackdown. On that episode Otis told both John Morrison and The Miz that his usual tag team partner Tucker couldn't make it to the tag team match that night, "because he got dysentery on The Oregon Trail."[33][34]

• The Oregon Trail series at MobyGames