10 ms·

How You Wound Up Playing ‘The Oregon Trail’ in Computer Class (2016)

147 points by NotSwift 5y ago

ddingus 5y ago
From the article: Forty-five years after Rawitsch, Heinemann, and Dillenberger sat down and created the original game in two weeks, The Oregon Trail is still a cultural landmark for any school kid who came of age in the 1980s or after. Even now, there remains a constant pressure to revive the series, so that nostalgic Gen Xers and Millennials can amble westward with a dysentery-riddled party once again. ...well, I've got a nice Apple computer setup and ready to entertain and educate some young people in my life. They like the machine. These programs still work as intended. For me, it's surreal to hear those sounds, see those sights and watch them process the experiences. Recommended, if you've got a little space and time. Doing this kind of thing is going to get increasingly expensive from here though. Interestingly, one 5 year old has already noted the CRT. "Papa, I want to play some games on that TV." Of course! Might as well let her experience the CRT. I think they are cool. Many of us do, and it's going to be an increasingly rare treat. Why not?
- cout 5y ago
  Do you have any recommendations for a game for children who cannot yet read? My 3yo loves Putt Putt (we play the Steam version) because the car talks to him. But in the early 80s computers did not yet have speech synthesis or enough storage for audio. I would love for him to enjoy Oregon Trail some day, but I don't think he's ready for it. Did MECC make any games targeted at younger children?
  - sp332 5y ago
    This might be overkill, but here's a MECC catalog for 1984-5. https://archive.org/details/MECCEducationalComputingCatalog8485MidYearEdition/page/n1/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MECCEducationalComputingCatalog8...
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    There is a Peppa Pig game for consoles and Windows coming out on Oct. 22nd. If it ends up being good, that might be the first game I try to play with my 3-year-old.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    I do not, but will look. I will say, back in the 80's someone asked me that and owned an Atari 800 XL and so did I. I took a weekend and made this big BASIC program that did something cool for everything they did. Press one key and a smile face. Press another, and the colors change, etc... And some were random, like a set of lines drawn differently each time, or a big smile and a little one. The little guy loved it. Would press the keys, watch, and repeat. Later I found his Dad sitting with him, saying the letter of each key while responding to the action. I did not introduce old computing, until the one I am raising got some basic skill. She is doing letters, numbers and can use a joystick. She asked. Surprisingly, she loves to play Drol! Weird, but pretty game. It has clear, cute graphics and so there you go. She is 5, and became aware enough to play with me later in her 4th year. Before that, I loved watching her play touch games on an iPad. Sadly, I do not have it handy and can't remember the name, but it has shapes one can drag into matching color holes. Anything like that works at 3. At 4, I also did ABC Mouse and she loves it. Bought a year. She will ask for mouse and do it for a few hours at a time. I may buy another. I was going to wait on the Apple, but she saw me using it and asked. (I am making a retro assembly language game and doing some electronics with that old computer for fun) I brought up a few games on the Total Replay and she seems to really like that computer. It was unexpected. So, I decided to get some MECC stuff setup and will probably have her write programs as soon as she can handle it. Another friend grew up with the Color Computer and has kids a few years older and expressed interest when I shared these experiences. I have a nice one all setup, and it is going to their house to see if the same thing happens. I will just not have the time for it. I want to, because sweet 6809... maybe his kids will jam on that machine and love it more than the box it is in does. We think some young people will get that spark same as we did, so why not give them a go on the old machines when it's fun?
  - aspaceman 5y ago
    I remember being 2 years old and first banging my head against a VCR. I really wanted to get Toy Story working again. Even if they can't read, a lot of educational games w/ reading can still be interesting. The bright lights and colors encourage exploration and discovery, and when you figure out what the game is trying to say (even if you only know a couple words) it's an epiphany. Just let them play around in Putt-Putt without your supervision. Or Spy Fox / Lemonade Stand. Zoo Tycoon is also a really good one. They all require reading, but a kid can just bang themselves against it and learn on their own. (If you leave the room).
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    If we're sticking with nostalgiaware, these were hands down my favorite games when I was a toddler. https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-little-people-bowling-alley-dzd https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-little-peopl... https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-school-bus-driver-dzc https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-school-bus-d...
  - aarongolliver 5y ago
    I don't think Pajama Sam requires reading, I definitely played it before I could read at least, and probably around the same age as when I was playing putt putt.
m000 5y ago
That retro-ad of MECC with the child-pageant-queen-looking girl dragging her (male) teacher on a cart is pure cringe.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > child-pageant-queen-looking girl No, that's just contemporary girl dreased for school with typical levels of advertising gloss. Child pageant queen look is ... quite different.
  - m000 5y ago
    Or... how a child pageant queen would look in a casual attire.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      So, a child.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    It looked to me like normal advertising copy where they pose the models and have them make unnatural, excessive emotions to clarify the setup when it's in a magazine, billboard far away, or for bad eyesight. Only American-born individuals born after 1990 automatically jump to catastrophize unnatural conclusions because of mass media programming and their own internalization of puritanical, victimology beliefs (independent of political ones).
- pram 5y ago
  The cringe is coming from inside your brain.
- mmcgaha 5y ago
  Yeah, that ad is way to creepy. It needs a rainbow dildo monkey to bring it up to modern standards.
kubb 5y ago
It's interesting that I never played this game or heard of it until I was older and had limited time for games. Part of its appeal to the American audience will definitely be the historical setting that y'all learn about in class, which has great significance to you.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  You know, I don't think the history made it popular. You could have put in any historical event so long as it was sometimes funny and an adventure. The real point was that you got to stop doing boring stuff in class and play games for a bit. For me, at least - as a child in the mid-to-late 80's, these were kind of a novelty. At some point, we had an NES at home - but this didn't take away from the novelty. It was the same with, say, Carmen and her world adventures.
- astura 5y ago
  Nah, it's appeal was it was just a really good game (for the time). I played Oregon Trail the game before I ever knew what the real Oregon Trail was nor did I even know of a place called Oregon. I thought that the game was entirely fictional at the time.
danjc 5y ago
For more about the game and its contribution to computer games, I highly recommend Jimmy Maher’s excellent blog: https://www.filfre.net/2011/03/on-the-trail-of-the-oregon-trail-part-1/ https://www.filfre.net/2011/03/on-the-trail-of-the-oregon-tr...
- kenny11 5y ago
  Another excellent resource is this presentation from GDC 2017 from one of the Oregon Trail creators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGNFhKhoKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGNFhKhoKY
ravenstine 5y ago
Does Gen Z have its own "The Oregon Trail" game in the cultural sense?
- pomian 5y ago
  Minecraft!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 5y ago
  I don't think it's possible for a game to fill the same cultural niche now as when games were a relative novelty. Maybe something like Minecraft or Roblox?
- II2II 5y ago
  In terms of educational software, it's doubtful. I was teaching in an elementary computer classroom around 2010 and my recollection of the software landscape is of remakes of 1980's software, some uninspired (though otherwise good) software designed for secondary students, and utter garbage that didn't deserve the designation edutainment. The stuff I am describing as garbage was pretty much a game with interludes of learning, which is contrary to what MECC set out to do. While that model may be fine for parents buying a game for their own children, it isn't very useful in schools.
- dmix 5y ago
  Minecraft probably, just based on all the very popular young livestreamers that grew from that.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego were basically my holy trinity of educational games. The other educational game I remember, which was probably far more important than the three of these put together was some random typing game. I had a keyboarding speed of around 80wpm before I hit high school from playing that one. BTW, you can still play them here: * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990 * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999 * https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandiego.html https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandi...
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Civilization. Nothing taught me more history, hands down. Bunch of leaders to read about, bunch of civs, techs, cities, wonders.
  - lr4444lr 5y ago
    Not to mention the tradeoffs of different government types.
    - hereforphone 5y ago
      A lot of the differences between _____ types in this game were based on the opinions of the authors.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        The difference between zero and history-with-bias is more important than the difference to neutral-bias, which a kid probably wouldn't be equipped to unpack the nuance of anyway.
      - Cd00d 5y ago
        I once tried to make a socialist paradise in SimCity, but the game moved all my town's people out due to high taxes.
donatj 5y ago
I work in educational software, in Minnesota, and have actually worked with a number of former MECC employees over the years. They have some fascinating stories. It's a small world. Currently our head of DevOPs actually worked on Oregon Trail, though a later version.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
chaostheory 5y ago
The Oregon Trail reboot is already on Apple Arcade. I still prefer the original.
kthejoker2 5y ago
Is there a good inventory / overview of all the educational games from that era? I played a bunch of different games in 1989/1990 that I only vaguely remember today .. would be wild to see them again just for the nostalgia trip.
- bemmu 5y ago
  Our favorite on the C64 in Finland was a game where you flew a helicopter on a world map and had to find different countries by name. Not sure what the name of that game is.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    Hahaha, I was just playing that game a couple months ago for the first time. It was pretty fun tbh. It's somewhere on Gamebase. Maybe in these results. http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?d=45&h=1&adv_game_name_t=2&adv_game_name=&adv_year=0&adv_publisher_t=2&adv_publisher=&adv_graphician_t=2&adv_graphician=&adv_musician_t=2&adv_musician=&adv_programmer_t=2&adv_programmer=&adv_language=0&adv_genre=117&adv_cracker_t=2&adv_cracker=&adv_control=&adv_display=&adv_players=0&adv_max_players=0&adv_trained=0&adv_highscore=0&adv_loading_screen=0&adv_18=0&adv_TDE=0&adv_Doc=0&adv_game_file=0&adv_sid_file=0&adv_working=0&b=Go%21&a=6 http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?d=45&h=1&adv_game_name_...
    - bemmu 5y ago
      Thanks for the link, it's this one: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=14318&d=45&h=0 http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=14318&d=45&h=0
- sp332 5y ago
  Less thorough, but maybe more nostalgia, you can load a bunch of these and play them in your browser now. https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary
- pmh 5y ago
  https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/educational/ https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/educational/ might be a good start
cameronh90 5y ago
Growing up in the UK, I hadn't even heard of Oregon. But we had more culturally relevant games to play. In my school we played Drug Wars...
- fouc 5y ago
  on BBS?
  - batch12 5y ago
    Could also be the version that ran on the TI graphing calculators.
    - devteambravo 5y ago
      My 1st exposure to programming =) (Also snake, lunar lander, and the ASM games the cable guy had!)
- joshuaissac 5y ago
  In the mid 2000s, there were also J2ME/JAR versions of Drug Wars that students would install on their feature phones.
II2II 5y ago
As much as I enjoyed those MECC games, I am much more appreciative of how they helped to get computers into schools. With computers being found in everything from computer labs to regular classrooms, it was usually possible to find a teacher who would let me in at lunch or after school to explore programming.
0898 5y ago
Granny’s Garden. Anyone?
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Yes, I think it was ubiquitous in the UK and have assumed that Oregon Trail was similarly positioned culturally - though of course GG had no external factual basis to it (that I recall). Did you play L-Adventure too? (They're both available online IIRC).
- suicas 5y ago
  Yes! I was about to post about this. One of my earliest game memories at school.
elliekelly 5y ago
> All MECC games had to do four things, says Rawitsch. First, the information based on real events had to be historically accurate. Second, learning couldn't be spread out in patches; it had to be woven throughout the game start to finish. Third, it had to include thorough documentation for the teachers to use it as a teaching aid. And fourth, the games had to be fun. I wonder how many games today could check all four of these boxes?
- totalZero 5y ago
  Assassin's Creed comes to mind. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/18/new-tool-in-history-class-assassins-creed-video-game/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/18/new-tool-in-history-c...
  - karaterobot 5y ago
    I see that you're talking about the Discovery mode in some of the recent games, where you don't interact with the plot at all, but can wander around and look at all the models. That's very cool! To be clear though, those games are in general not historically accurate. I mean, about the only thing they got right about Pope Alexander VI is that he had an alien mind control staff and he was involved in a battle with cloned assassins inside the Vatican. But other than that, there were a numerous historical inaccuracies...
atarian 5y ago
Oregon Trail was my first FPS. My friends and I always tried to hunt as much as possible.
- hereforphone 5y ago
  It was overhead right? Not FPS? I may be remembering wrong.
  - Kye 5y ago
    The hunting parts were FPS. At least on the MS-DOS version.
  - _whiteCaps_ 5y ago
    The hunting part was FPS
  - bluedino 5y ago
    It wasn’t sideview or quite a 3/4 view. There were (much) later versions that were FPS.
  - JimiofEden 5y ago
    You are correct, the original version was a little overhead 2D arcade game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7DQrOa70yk#t=2m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7DQrOa70yk#t=2m38s Other revisions of the game were point and click style, closer to a FPS
dekhn 5y ago
I enjoyed the game Taipan a lot more, personally. It tought me to buy opium in batavia and sell it in hong kong for huge profits.
the__alchemist 5y ago
One of the follow-ups, The Yukon Trail, was a brutal lesson in knowing who you can trust. For example, there's a proverbial shell game, where you discover on your own the game is rigged once you start placing higher bets. Or the partner option who was no skills, but lots of money - inevitably ends up getting you killed.
ourmandave 5y ago
If you want the nostalgia you can find all the music (and gameplay) on youtube for nearly every version.
bredren 5y ago
Too bad the game did not include the state name’s pronunciation, which is regularly mangled from the mid-west to east coast. https://www.wikihow.com/Pronounce-Oregon https://www.wikihow.com/Pronounce-Oregon
- throwawaycuriou 5y ago
  It wasn't until flying into Seattle that this east coaster learned of oreGONN. Which is surprising because I'd always pronounce the game title that way. In any other context I'd say oreg'n. In general east coasters lean on the 'schwa' much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
- eplanit 5y ago
  It's like how Nevada residents _insist_ on the incorrect pronunciation of the name of their state[1]. I go with the "when in Rome..." philosophy -- I say it wrong when I'm there, too. [1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/618644/youre-probably-pronouncing-nevada-all-wrong https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/618644/youre-probably-pr...
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    It is correct because it is codified. The State of Nevada once had a very detailed web page explaining why the hard A is correct. In some state documents, you will even see it written Nevāda. (iOS doesn't seem to have the proper glyph.) Meanwhile, both Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California each have four correct pronunciations. (I prefer the "Los Angeleez" variation because that is what I first heard on KHJ.)
bluedino 5y ago
Number Munchers was my favorite MECC game.
techbrobane 5y ago
related: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-technology-corrupts-education/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-t...
failwhaleshark 5y ago
I went to a private school in SV for K-3 (1983-1986) that had Apple //e's (IIe's) with Oregon Trail and LOGO. The popular (myth?) was that Apple donated computers to public schools and some private schools, likely to "get kids hooked young." It's plausible, but I don't know if it was true. The private school could've afforded to buy them outright.
darepublic 5y ago
As a kid growing up in the 90s we did play alot of Carmen sandiego, Oregon trail, number munchers and math blaster. On mac there was also kid pix. And there was a game where you dropped a stick figure from a helicopter into a horse drawn cart (stunt copter)
jdhn 5y ago
Back in middle school (1998 - 2002), we learned about geology through this oil exploration game. It was pretty fun even though we had to play it on a 5" floppy using a computer from the 80's that somehow still worked. I wonder if anybody else played this game, and if so, do you remember what it was called?
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  In case C64 or a multi-system publisher: Was it any of these? http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?f=0&t=2&s=Oil&b=Go%21&d=18&h=1&a=0 http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?f=0&t=2&s=Oil&b=Go%21&d...
  - jdhn 5y ago
    I believe that it was an Apple computer. Also, it didn't have a colored screen, it was completely green. Thanks for the link though, I may do some sleuthing.
rubyn00bie 5y ago
This brings back the memories. The Oregon trail game is how I even learned what dysentery was! The other game I loved as a kid in school was number munchers. That was my jam.
frabjoused 5y ago
Wow, Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, spot on. Tack on Mavis Beacon 5, Carmen San Diego and Jump Start and we're home.
lastofthemojito 5y ago
Anybody else who grew up playing Carmen San Diego now into GeoGuessr? It'd be extra cool if there were an annotated (perhaps AI-driven?) version of GeoGuessr that provided clues along the way, like "the Cyrillic alphabet is used in these countries", "the giant baobab tree is only found in Madagascar", "tiny kei cars are usually in Japan", etc.
- tolbish 5y ago
  I recall GeoSafari...is that similar? What really stands out in my memory is the Carmen Sandiego show on PBS with the in-house acapella band.
  - lastofthemojito 5y ago
    Not quite - GeoGuessr is an online game that drops you somewhere randomly in the world using Google Street View imagery. Then you can navigate around, and based on what you see, try to guess where in the world you are. More and more of it has moved behind a paid subscription, but I believe you can still do their Daily Challenge with a free account if you want to check it out. https://www.geoguessr.com https://www.geoguessr.com
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  GeoGuessr is fun. It's amazing how good some people are at that game. One weekend I was having trouble sleeping, so decided to check out what was streaming on twitch. A group of chess streamers I follow was attempting to get a perfect run of 100 in a row. I caught the last couple hours of what was a continuous 48 hour attempt, and it honestly was one of the most entertaining things I've ever watched.
Telemakhos 5y ago
Did anyone else play the Voyage of the Mimi games? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443938500300319 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443938500300...
terrycody 5y ago
Sry for a weird question, the "wound up playing" in the title, since I am not native, I can't understand the real meaning, I googled but seems no good answer, so whats the real meaning in this context?
- nope96 5y ago
  It is the same as "how you ended up playing" https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/wind-up-or-end-up.1404965/ https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/wind-up-or-end-up.14...
valbaca 5y ago
Does anyone else remember an educational game that was based in the world of Alice in Wonderland? I think was terminal or DOS and had like math and English problems with like the Cheshire Cat and such. It was from around the time of The Oregon Trail and Kid Pix, most likely before?

147 points by NotSwift 5y ago

From the article: Forty-five years after Rawitsch, Heinemann, and Dillenberger sat down and created the original game in two weeks, The Oregon Trail is still a cultural landmark for any school kid who came of age in the 1980s or after. Even now, there remains a constant pressure to revive the series, so that nostalgic Gen Xers and Millennials can amble westward with a dysentery-riddled party once again. ...well, I've got a nice Apple computer setup and ready to entertain and educate some young people in my life. They like the machine. These programs still work as intended. For me, it's surreal to hear those sounds, see those sights and watch them process the experiences. Recommended, if you've got a little space and time. Doing this kind of thing is going to get increasingly expensive from here though. Interestingly, one 5 year old has already noted the CRT. "Papa, I want to play some games on that TV." Of course! Might as well let her experience the CRT. I think they are cool. Many of us do, and it's going to be an increasingly rare treat. Why not?

cout 5y ago
Do you have any recommendations for a game for children who cannot yet read? My 3yo loves Putt Putt (we play the Steam version) because the car talks to him. But in the early 80s computers did not yet have speech synthesis or enough storage for audio. I would love for him to enjoy Oregon Trail some day, but I don't think he's ready for it. Did MECC make any games targeted at younger children?
- sp332 5y ago
  This might be overkill, but here's a MECC catalog for 1984-5. https://archive.org/details/MECCEducationalComputingCatalog8485MidYearEdition/page/n1/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/MECCEducationalComputingCatalog8...
- Alex3917 5y ago
  There is a Peppa Pig game for consoles and Windows coming out on Oct. 22nd. If it ends up being good, that might be the first game I try to play with my 3-year-old.
- ddingus 5y ago
  I do not, but will look. I will say, back in the 80's someone asked me that and owned an Atari 800 XL and so did I. I took a weekend and made this big BASIC program that did something cool for everything they did. Press one key and a smile face. Press another, and the colors change, etc... And some were random, like a set of lines drawn differently each time, or a big smile and a little one. The little guy loved it. Would press the keys, watch, and repeat. Later I found his Dad sitting with him, saying the letter of each key while responding to the action. I did not introduce old computing, until the one I am raising got some basic skill. She is doing letters, numbers and can use a joystick. She asked. Surprisingly, she loves to play Drol! Weird, but pretty game. It has clear, cute graphics and so there you go. She is 5, and became aware enough to play with me later in her 4th year. Before that, I loved watching her play touch games on an iPad. Sadly, I do not have it handy and can't remember the name, but it has shapes one can drag into matching color holes. Anything like that works at 3. At 4, I also did ABC Mouse and she loves it. Bought a year. She will ask for mouse and do it for a few hours at a time. I may buy another. I was going to wait on the Apple, but she saw me using it and asked. (I am making a retro assembly language game and doing some electronics with that old computer for fun) I brought up a few games on the Total Replay and she seems to really like that computer. It was unexpected. So, I decided to get some MECC stuff setup and will probably have her write programs as soon as she can handle it. Another friend grew up with the Color Computer and has kids a few years older and expressed interest when I shared these experiences. I have a nice one all setup, and it is going to their house to see if the same thing happens. I will just not have the time for it. I want to, because sweet 6809... maybe his kids will jam on that machine and love it more than the box it is in does. We think some young people will get that spark same as we did, so why not give them a go on the old machines when it's fun?
- aspaceman 5y ago
  I remember being 2 years old and first banging my head against a VCR. I really wanted to get Toy Story working again. Even if they can't read, a lot of educational games w/ reading can still be interesting. The bright lights and colors encourage exploration and discovery, and when you figure out what the game is trying to say (even if you only know a couple words) it's an epiphany. Just let them play around in Putt-Putt without your supervision. Or Spy Fox / Lemonade Stand. Zoo Tycoon is also a really good one. They all require reading, but a kid can just bang themselves against it and learn on their own. (If you leave the room).
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  If we're sticking with nostalgiaware, these were hands down my favorite games when I was a toddler. https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-little-people-bowling-alley-dzd https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-little-peopl... https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-school-bus-driver-dzc https://www.myabandonware.com/game/fisher-price-school-bus-d...
- aarongolliver 5y ago
  I don't think Pajama Sam requires reading, I definitely played it before I could read at least, and probably around the same age as when I was playing putt putt.

m000 5y ago

That retro-ad of MECC with the child-pageant-queen-looking girl dragging her (male) teacher on a cart is pure cringe.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> child-pageant-queen-looking girl No, that's just contemporary girl dreased for school with typical levels of advertising gloss. Child pageant queen look is ... quite different.
- m000 5y ago
  Or... how a child pageant queen would look in a casual attire.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    So, a child.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  It looked to me like normal advertising copy where they pose the models and have them make unnatural, excessive emotions to clarify the setup when it's in a magazine, billboard far away, or for bad eyesight. Only American-born individuals born after 1990 automatically jump to catastrophize unnatural conclusions because of mass media programming and their own internalization of puritanical, victimology beliefs (independent of political ones).
pram 5y ago
The cringe is coming from inside your brain.
mmcgaha 5y ago
Yeah, that ad is way to creepy. It needs a rainbow dildo monkey to bring it up to modern standards.

kubb 5y ago

It's interesting that I never played this game or heard of it until I was older and had limited time for games. Part of its appeal to the American audience will definitely be the historical setting that y'all learn about in class, which has great significance to you.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
You know, I don't think the history made it popular. You could have put in any historical event so long as it was sometimes funny and an adventure. The real point was that you got to stop doing boring stuff in class and play games for a bit. For me, at least - as a child in the mid-to-late 80's, these were kind of a novelty. At some point, we had an NES at home - but this didn't take away from the novelty. It was the same with, say, Carmen and her world adventures.
astura 5y ago
Nah, it's appeal was it was just a really good game (for the time). I played Oregon Trail the game before I ever knew what the real Oregon Trail was nor did I even know of a place called Oregon. I thought that the game was entirely fictional at the time.

danjc 5y ago

For more about the game and its contribution to computer games, I highly recommend Jimmy Maher’s excellent blog: https://www.filfre.net/2011/03/on-the-trail-of-the-oregon-trail-part-1/ https://www.filfre.net/2011/03/on-the-trail-of-the-oregon-tr...

kenny11 5y ago
Another excellent resource is this presentation from GDC 2017 from one of the Oregon Trail creators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGNFhKhoKY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdGNFhKhoKY

ravenstine 5y ago

Does Gen Z have its own "The Oregon Trail" game in the cultural sense?

pomian 5y ago
Minecraft!
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krapp 5y ago
I don't think it's possible for a game to fill the same cultural niche now as when games were a relative novelty. Maybe something like Minecraft or Roblox?
II2II 5y ago
In terms of educational software, it's doubtful. I was teaching in an elementary computer classroom around 2010 and my recollection of the software landscape is of remakes of 1980's software, some uninspired (though otherwise good) software designed for secondary students, and utter garbage that didn't deserve the designation edutainment. The stuff I am describing as garbage was pretty much a game with interludes of learning, which is contrary to what MECC set out to do. While that model may be fine for parents buying a game for their own children, it isn't very useful in schools.
dmix 5y ago
Minecraft probably, just based on all the very popular young livestreamers that grew from that.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego were basically my holy trinity of educational games. The other educational game I remember, which was probably far more important than the three of these put together was some random typing game. I had a keyboarding speed of around 80wpm before I hit high school from playing that one. BTW, you can still play them here: * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990 * https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Lemonade_Stand_1999 * https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandiego.html https://classicreload.com/where-in-the-world-is-carmen-sandi...

lordnacho 5y ago
Civilization. Nothing taught me more history, hands down. Bunch of leaders to read about, bunch of civs, techs, cities, wonders.
- lr4444lr 5y ago
  Not to mention the tradeoffs of different government types.
  - hereforphone 5y ago
    A lot of the differences between _____ types in this game were based on the opinions of the authors.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      The difference between zero and history-with-bias is more important than the difference to neutral-bias, which a kid probably wouldn't be equipped to unpack the nuance of anyway.
    - Cd00d 5y ago
      I once tried to make a socialist paradise in SimCity, but the game moved all my town's people out due to high taxes.

donatj 5y ago

I work in educational software, in Minnesota, and have actually worked with a number of former MECC employees over the years. They have some fascinating stories. It's a small world. Currently our head of DevOPs actually worked on Oregon Trail, though a later version.

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chaostheory 5y ago

The Oregon Trail reboot is already on Apple Arcade. I still prefer the original.

kthejoker2 5y ago

Is there a good inventory / overview of all the educational games from that era? I played a bunch of different games in 1989/1990 that I only vaguely remember today .. would be wild to see them again just for the nostalgia trip.

bemmu 5y ago
Our favorite on the C64 in Finland was a game where you flew a helicopter on a world map and had to find different countries by name. Not sure what the name of that game is.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Hahaha, I was just playing that game a couple months ago for the first time. It was pretty fun tbh. It's somewhere on Gamebase. Maybe in these results. http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?d=45&h=1&adv_game_name_t=2&adv_game_name=&adv_year=0&adv_publisher_t=2&adv_publisher=&adv_graphician_t=2&adv_graphician=&adv_musician_t=2&adv_musician=&adv_programmer_t=2&adv_programmer=&adv_language=0&adv_genre=117&adv_cracker_t=2&adv_cracker=&adv_control=&adv_display=&adv_players=0&adv_max_players=0&adv_trained=0&adv_highscore=0&adv_loading_screen=0&adv_18=0&adv_TDE=0&adv_Doc=0&adv_game_file=0&adv_sid_file=0&adv_working=0&b=Go%21&a=6 http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?d=45&h=1&adv_game_name_...
  - bemmu 5y ago
    Thanks for the link, it's this one: http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=14318&d=45&h=0 http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=14318&d=45&h=0
sp332 5y ago
Less thorough, but maybe more nostalgia, you can load a bunch of these and play them in your browser now. https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary
pmh 5y ago
https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/educational/ https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/educational/ might be a good start

cameronh90 5y ago

Growing up in the UK, I hadn't even heard of Oregon. But we had more culturally relevant games to play. In my school we played Drug Wars...

fouc 5y ago
on BBS?
- batch12 5y ago
  Could also be the version that ran on the TI graphing calculators.
  - devteambravo 5y ago
    My 1st exposure to programming =) (Also snake, lunar lander, and the ASM games the cable guy had!)
joshuaissac 5y ago
In the mid 2000s, there were also J2ME/JAR versions of Drug Wars that students would install on their feature phones.

II2II 5y ago

As much as I enjoyed those MECC games, I am much more appreciative of how they helped to get computers into schools. With computers being found in everything from computer labs to regular classrooms, it was usually possible to find a teacher who would let me in at lunch or after school to explore programming.

0898 5y ago

Granny’s Garden. Anyone?

pbhjpbhj 5y ago
Yes, I think it was ubiquitous in the UK and have assumed that Oregon Trail was similarly positioned culturally - though of course GG had no external factual basis to it (that I recall). Did you play L-Adventure too? (They're both available online IIRC).
suicas 5y ago
Yes! I was about to post about this. One of my earliest game memories at school.

elliekelly 5y ago

> All MECC games had to do four things, says Rawitsch. First, the information based on real events had to be historically accurate. Second, learning couldn't be spread out in patches; it had to be woven throughout the game start to finish. Third, it had to include thorough documentation for the teachers to use it as a teaching aid. And fourth, the games had to be fun. I wonder how many games today could check all four of these boxes?

totalZero 5y ago
Assassin's Creed comes to mind. https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/18/new-tool-in-history-class-assassins-creed-video-game/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/18/new-tool-in-history-c...
- karaterobot 5y ago
  I see that you're talking about the Discovery mode in some of the recent games, where you don't interact with the plot at all, but can wander around and look at all the models. That's very cool! To be clear though, those games are in general not historically accurate. I mean, about the only thing they got right about Pope Alexander VI is that he had an alien mind control staff and he was involved in a battle with cloned assassins inside the Vatican. But other than that, there were a numerous historical inaccuracies...

atarian 5y ago

Oregon Trail was my first FPS. My friends and I always tried to hunt as much as possible.

hereforphone 5y ago
It was overhead right? Not FPS? I may be remembering wrong.
- Kye 5y ago
  The hunting parts were FPS. At least on the MS-DOS version.
- _whiteCaps_ 5y ago
  The hunting part was FPS
- bluedino 5y ago
  It wasn’t sideview or quite a 3/4 view. There were (much) later versions that were FPS.
- JimiofEden 5y ago
  You are correct, the original version was a little overhead 2D arcade game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7DQrOa70yk#t=2m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7DQrOa70yk#t=2m38s Other revisions of the game were point and click style, closer to a FPS

dekhn 5y ago

I enjoyed the game Taipan a lot more, personally. It tought me to buy opium in batavia and sell it in hong kong for huge profits.

the__alchemist 5y ago

One of the follow-ups, The Yukon Trail, was a brutal lesson in knowing who you can trust. For example, there's a proverbial shell game, where you discover on your own the game is rigged once you start placing higher bets. Or the partner option who was no skills, but lots of money - inevitably ends up getting you killed.

ourmandave 5y ago

If you want the nostalgia you can find all the music (and gameplay) on youtube for nearly every version.

bredren 5y ago

Too bad the game did not include the state name’s pronunciation, which is regularly mangled from the mid-west to east coast. https://www.wikihow.com/Pronounce-Oregon https://www.wikihow.com/Pronounce-Oregon

throwawaycuriou 5y ago
It wasn't until flying into Seattle that this east coaster learned of oreGONN. Which is surprising because I'd always pronounce the game title that way. In any other context I'd say oreg'n. In general east coasters lean on the 'schwa' much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
eplanit 5y ago
It's like how Nevada residents _insist_ on the incorrect pronunciation of the name of their state[1]. I go with the "when in Rome..." philosophy -- I say it wrong when I'm there, too. [1] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/618644/youre-probably-pronouncing-nevada-all-wrong https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/618644/youre-probably-pr...
- reaperducer 5y ago
  It is correct because it is codified. The State of Nevada once had a very detailed web page explaining why the hard A is correct. In some state documents, you will even see it written Nevāda. (iOS doesn't seem to have the proper glyph.) Meanwhile, both Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles, California each have four correct pronunciations. (I prefer the "Los Angeleez" variation because that is what I first heard on KHJ.)

bluedino 5y ago

Number Munchers was my favorite MECC game.

techbrobane 5y ago

related: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-technology-corrupts-education/ https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-t...

failwhaleshark 5y ago

I went to a private school in SV for K-3 (1983-1986) that had Apple //e's (IIe's) with Oregon Trail and LOGO. The popular (myth?) was that Apple donated computers to public schools and some private schools, likely to "get kids hooked young." It's plausible, but I don't know if it was true. The private school could've afforded to buy them outright.

darepublic 5y ago

As a kid growing up in the 90s we did play alot of Carmen sandiego, Oregon trail, number munchers and math blaster. On mac there was also kid pix. And there was a game where you dropped a stick figure from a helicopter into a horse drawn cart (stunt copter)

jdhn 5y ago

Back in middle school (1998 - 2002), we learned about geology through this oil exploration game. It was pretty fun even though we had to play it on a 5" floppy using a computer from the 80's that somehow still worked. I wonder if anybody else played this game, and if so, do you remember what it was called?

themodelplumber 5y ago
In case C64 or a multi-system publisher: Was it any of these? http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?f=0&t=2&s=Oil&b=Go%21&d=18&h=1&a=0 http://www.gamebase64.com/search.php?f=0&t=2&s=Oil&b=Go%21&d...
- jdhn 5y ago
  I believe that it was an Apple computer. Also, it didn't have a colored screen, it was completely green. Thanks for the link though, I may do some sleuthing.

rubyn00bie 5y ago

This brings back the memories. The Oregon trail game is how I even learned what dysentery was! The other game I loved as a kid in school was number munchers. That was my jam.

frabjoused 5y ago

Wow, Number Munchers and Oregon Trail, spot on. Tack on Mavis Beacon 5, Carmen San Diego and Jump Start and we're home.

lastofthemojito 5y ago

Anybody else who grew up playing Carmen San Diego now into GeoGuessr? It'd be extra cool if there were an annotated (perhaps AI-driven?) version of GeoGuessr that provided clues along the way, like "the Cyrillic alphabet is used in these countries", "the giant baobab tree is only found in Madagascar", "tiny kei cars are usually in Japan", etc.

tolbish 5y ago
I recall GeoSafari...is that similar? What really stands out in my memory is the Carmen Sandiego show on PBS with the in-house acapella band.
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  Not quite - GeoGuessr is an online game that drops you somewhere randomly in the world using Google Street View imagery. Then you can navigate around, and based on what you see, try to guess where in the world you are. More and more of it has moved behind a paid subscription, but I believe you can still do their Daily Challenge with a free account if you want to check it out. https://www.geoguessr.com https://www.geoguessr.com
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jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
GeoGuessr is fun. It's amazing how good some people are at that game. One weekend I was having trouble sleeping, so decided to check out what was streaming on twitch. A group of chess streamers I follow was attempting to get a perfect run of 100 in a row. I caught the last couple hours of what was a continuous 48 hour attempt, and it honestly was one of the most entertaining things I've ever watched.

Telemakhos 5y ago

Did anyone else play the Voyage of the Mimi games? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443938500300319 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089443938500300...

terrycody 5y ago

Sry for a weird question, the "wound up playing" in the title, since I am not native, I can't understand the real meaning, I googled but seems no good answer, so whats the real meaning in this context?

nope96 5y ago
It is the same as "how you ended up playing" https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/wind-up-or-end-up.1404965/ https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/wind-up-or-end-up.14...

valbaca 5y ago

Does anyone else remember an educational game that was based in the world of Alice in Wonderland? I think was terminal or DOS and had like math and English problems with like the Cheshire Cat and such. It was from around the time of The Oregon Trail and Kid Pix, most likely before?