Growing up in the 1980’s and attending Primary School during this decade, enabled a generation of kids to pioneer into the future through DOS gaming. The green screen of the Apple II computer featured no fancy operating system platform, and we were faced with a blinking cursor, the gateway to a “virtual” gaming universe. The games were not housed in the system, all of the information could not be downloaded from the internet- since the internet had not yet been invented. In school we were handed a 5 ¼ inch Floppy Disk. Once inserted into the drive, you typed in a command at the DOS prompt, and the game came to life.
The Oregon Trail was one of the first educational games played throughout the United States in classrooms. It was developed to teach students about the westward migration of emigrants in prairie schooners from Illinois to Oregon during the 19th Century. The designer of the game, Don Rawitsch was an Undergraduate History Major when he designed the concept for the game in the 1970’s. In his creation of the storyline of the game, he referred to actual historical sources of accounts that people experienced during their travels along the trail to Oregon as well as weather phenomena that is probable in the locations along the route and landmarks where travelers stopped.
The Internet Archive hosts many DOS games that have been otherwise lost to time. As I revisited the trail this past week for an assignment, I instantly felt excited to download the game and start. Initially you get to choose a profession/ character, name your family/ yourself, you decide when to leave based on seasonality, and how much money to spend on initial supplies. The game requires strategical decisions such as: how much food to eat daily, how fast you travel, how many days rest you may decide to take due to health or weather, how to cross rivers and rough terrain, and most importantly when to stop at forts, when to hunt, and what geographical path you will take.
You decide when to stop, when it is necessary to ration food or slow down or speed up. The miles between landmarks or trading posts/ forts is updated daily during your journey. There are days of little to no water, bad water, hot and cold weather, thunderstorms that delay travel as well as snow showers, the issue of food/ grass available for your oxen, your animals being injured, your wagon axle, wheels, or tongue needing to be fixed or replaced, and fording rivers. Each place you stop you can look around and see your surroundings, and sometimes at bigger landmarks you can “talk” to people. The people you speak with often offer you advice worth heeding, which historically I am sure has some sense of validity.
While the game is by far technologically challenged, the premise of the game is historically interactive. As far as an educational tool, the game I remember playing as a young kid definitely piqued my interest in the subject of History, and drew attention to a westward movement of Americans in the 1800’s- the difficulty of covered wagon travel, the danger of illness, and most importantly the risk of losing everything along the way due to an accident, starvation, being stranded, or even dying from exposure. The Oregon Trail left an impression that the route that emigrants took from east to west was an incredible gamble, as the route was unpredictable, and survival was not guaranteed. Also, people who ventured west had no real promise of a better life in Oregon, it was all based-on hearsay and hope that it was an opportunistic way to improve their current economic status in life.
Technological advancements in PC gaming have far surpassed the simplicity of the Oregon Trail, however the nostalgic desire to revisit the Trail is not entirely dead. The kids who grew up playing the Oregon Trail remember key phrases such as “Died of dysentery” or “____ has a fever”, etc. In fact, as a kid I had a really difficult time finishing the game, as I would often succumb to the trail. However, playing it now I actually was able to succeed, and achieve a high score. Perhaps it is my History degree, although I am more convinced it is my mathematical skills or a basic conceptualization of game programming, but regardless I feel accomplished.
A revisit to the Oregon Trail felt good. Due to the technological constraints from the time period in which this game was created, a lot of detail, evidence, and an overall interactive gaming experience is missing- requiring a player to use their imagination to visualize crossing the much uninhabited expanse of the American West in 1848. I do believe that the game itself could offer a more historically accurate/ interactive version for adults-as the potential customers/ audience for the game are the kids who played the 1980’s/90’s version, all grown up. Using real primary sources and accounts that happened the game could potentially include the California Trail which is notorious for the Donner-Reed Party tragedy. There are so many options, especially with online/ live play interactive gaming that could make this game extremely immersive as well as educational.
Why hasn’t anyone done this??? Who doesn’t want to explore America’s Frontiers virtually?