The Oregon Trail (video game)
The Oregon Trail is an edutainment computer game that was developed by Don Ravich, Bill Heinemann and Paul Dill Berger in 1971. Distributed it was from 1974 onwards, Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. The basis for the game of Oregon Trail, a settler route over the Rocky Mountains in the 19th century.
Game content
The aim of the game is a pioneer trek along the Oregon Trail out. In this way, attracted in the 1840s to 1860s, tens of thousands of pioneers and settlers from the settlement areas along the Missouri River over a distance of 3,500 km through nearly deserted areas in the fertile valleys of the Pacific Northwest, especially in the valley of the Willamette River in Oregon. The route led across the Great Plains and at first broad and flat, then getting narrower and tear up the rivers in the Rocky Mountains, whose main ridge was generally exceeded at South Pass. From there we went to the Snake River and the Snake River Plain and the mountains to the Columbia River. He led the trek to Portland, where the split in the path in the different settlements.
The game can be viewed as a mixture of RPG and strategy game. It is necessary to take care of the supply of the trek, so that pioneers do not starve or die of diseases. Depending on the version of the game smaller mini-games are installed. In the first versions of the game hunting by typing words sound was played in a betting game, in later versions, you can control with your mouse a crosshair.
The score at the end of the game is determined by the chosen occupation at the beginning, the remaining money, health and number of survivors and the remaining holding.
History
The first version of the game was developed by three trainees at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota on a mainframe. The idea came from Don Ravich, taught history. Paul Dill Berger and Bill Heinemann taught mathematics and was persuaded by him to participate in the project. On 3 December 1971, the program was shown in history class the Bryant Junior High School for the first time and then made available on a computer for students until the end of the semester. 1974 Rawitsch was set at Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium ( MECC ), through which the game was distributed to schools in Minnesota.
In 1978 the first version of the game for the Apple II in Integer BASIC was published. A publication under the name Oregon Trail 2 was followed in June 1978 by JP O'Malley. In 1980 the game on Elementary Volume 6 of MECC under the name Oregon was published with simple graphics. 1985 was released as a standalone title again.
Oregon Trail Deluxe, was released in 1992 for DOS, followed by Oregon Trail II in 1996, In 1997 The Oregon Trail 3rd Edition. The 4th and 5th edition followed, sold by The Learning Company ( Brøderbund ).
Meanwhile, the game was also released on various mobile phones and portable consoles.
In February 2011, an official version of the game from Blue Fang was launched on Facebook.
Related Games
1991 a network version called Wagon Train was published in 1848, in which each player managed his own car on his computer. All players contributed along the trek and the other players were able to support.
MECC published in 1994, the Games The Yukon Trail, The Amazon Trail, and in 1997 Africa Trail, all of which have a similar build-up play, however, a different backstory. The Amazon Trail was continued with two more parts.
Published in 2007, the company Thule Thule Trail the game as a promotional game that is playable online. In 2008, the band Fall Out Boy followed suit.
The Oregon Trail: American Settler! is a licensed product from Gameloft, which was developed for mobile devices (iOS and Android ) and the city's founding by the Trail as its theme.