The party then sets off on their journey. They then name their character and their four party members, and purchase supplies for their journey from Matt's General Store: oxen to pull the wagon, food, clothing, ammunition, and spare parts to fix wagon breakdowns. They begin the game by selecting their character's profession-banker, carpenter, or farmer-which corresponds with difficulty levels and give different amounts of money with which to start the journey. The player controls the game via a keyboard, primarily by selecting one of several numbered options. The Oregon Trail is an educational strategy video game in which the player, as the leader of a wagon train, controls a group journeying down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, to Willamette Valley, Oregon, in 1848. Travel screen (Apple II version), with the party having reached a landmark The game had widespread popularity in schools in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been described by publications such as the Smithsonian magazine as a cultural landmark.
The multiple games in the series are often considered to be iterations on the same title, and they have collectively sold over 65 million copies and have been inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Games in the series have since been released in many editions by various developers and publishers, many titled The Oregon Trail. It is the first graphical and the most well known entry in the Oregon Trail series, and was MECC's flagship product from release until the company was bought by SoftKey in 1995.
It was intended as a core part of MECC's shift from games and software on mainframe computers accessed by remote terminals to those on home computers, as well as MECC's first game intended primarily for home consumers rather than for schools. Philip Bouchard over a ten-month period from 1984 to 1985. The game was designed and created by a team at MECC led by game designer R. Along the trail, the player makes choices about supplies, resource management, and the route, and deals with hunting for food, crossing rivers, and random events such as storms and disease. In the game, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley via a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in 1848. It was created as a re-imagining of the popular text-based game of the same name, originally created in 1971 and published by MECC in 1975.
It was first released in 1985 for the Apple II, with later ports to DOS in 1990, Mac OS in 1991, and Microsoft Windows in 1993. There are more interactive events in the sequel, as the protagonist can consult other characters and react differently to some of the events that may occur during the journey.The Oregon Trail is an educational strategy video game developed and published by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). The game retains the supply management, trading, navigation and most of the elements of its predecessor. For example, a high medical skill will make it more likely that the protagonist will recover from an illness the target shooting skill contributes to the instant kill rate when hunting animals, and so on. Different occupations grant various bonuses to the protagonist, and are equipped with passive skills, which will influence the success rate during certain random events and activities. The player can choose an occupation for the protagonist, such as banker, doctor, gunsmith, carpenter, journalist, butcher, shepherd, artist and many others. Unlike the first game, the sequel allows the player to choose from twenty years of travel, from 1840 to 1860.
The game also allows the player to create virtual companions for the trip, designating their number, name and age. The sequel changes, improves and adds many game features.Īt the beginning of the game, players choose their name, occupation, level, travel date, starting point and destination, as well as wagon type. The game follows the basic structure of its predecessor, which is a travel simulation through the cities and wilderness of the state of Oregon, with adventure-type gameplay elements and educational material. Oregon Trail II is a sequel to Oregon Trail.