In the midst of the cold but snowless Minnesota December of 1971, a student teacher named Don Rawitsch wheeled a bulky teletypewriter into his 8th grade history class.
Interesting. Played the version you linked to and won on the first try; is that typical, as in, is this an easy game, or did I just have a lot of luck?
This version at least is not super hard, although I think a lot depends on the luck of the draw with the random events. But managing your resources carefully does get you a good chunk of the way to victory; the randomness isn't as arbitrary as in other games of this type.
Just for fun, I ported the 1978 BASIC source code to Ink, a more recent programming language for interactive storytelling: https://unfold.studio/stories/10782/
Aaron - you inspired me to revisit this game, which turned into creating a python3 port and writing an article of my own exploring the function for choosing a random event. Thanks for the inspiration and for this wonderful series of articles.
Your comment in this entry about the reification of the algorithm leading to malformed ideas about the world made me think of games like lemonade stand driving home the unfalability of the free hand, and the religeocity that surrounds markets.
Thank you! What a great start to a year... generation... era of text based gaming! Thank you. Can't wait for more.
Just FYI, ponied up for a paid sub after reading this one. Great job!
Much appreciated-- enjoy the series!
Interesting. Played the version you linked to and won on the first try; is that typical, as in, is this an easy game, or did I just have a lot of luck?
This version at least is not super hard, although I think a lot depends on the luck of the draw with the random events. But managing your resources carefully does get you a good chunk of the way to victory; the randomness isn't as arbitrary as in other games of this type.
This is fascinating, thank you!
I actually played the game too... Fun!
Just for fun, I ported the 1978 BASIC source code to Ink, a more recent programming language for interactive storytelling: https://unfold.studio/stories/10782/
Those GOTO statements are unbearable!
Dang, I love this! So cool to see one of the oldest text games remade in one of the newest languages for making them. Nice work!!
Where can we play this text version?
Check the italicized paragraph at the end of the article!
Great article . . . thought you'd be interested in the rest of the Oregon Trail story. The game was just the start: https://tracingthepath.libsyn.com/apple-computers-tipping-point
Aaron - you inspired me to revisit this game, which turned into creating a python3 port and writing an article of my own exploring the function for choosing a random event. Thanks for the inspiration and for this wonderful series of articles.
https://codedive.substack.com/p/something-found-in-the-oregon-trail
Hi James-- thanks for sharing this! Super cool to see more of this kind of code archaeology =)
Your comment in this entry about the reification of the algorithm leading to malformed ideas about the world made me think of games like lemonade stand driving home the unfalability of the free hand, and the religeocity that surrounds markets.