Comments on: Ways I spent my time while playing Oregon Trail in elementary school

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:01:50 +0000

for me the “being afflicted with dysentery” section should be a lot bigger. my entire wagon usually dropped dead

By: MelissaMusicBear8

MelissaMusicBear8 — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 02:45:34 +0000

Me either! I’ve never even heard of it!

By: PurpleSalsa

PurpleSalsa — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:06:27 +0000

I didn’t have it at school like the rest of these people but my dad bought it for me

By: book

book — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:33:28 +0000

yay, someone who spelled “dysentery” correctly!!

By: Lianaloo

Lianaloo — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:46:43 +0000

like the buffalo i live in africa well actualy i moved back to america 7 years ago but whatever

By: Forkatude

Forkatude — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:28:23 +0000

Or have all your children drown after naming them after people you hate?

By: MIXIL

MIXIL — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:14:25 +0000

dont forget (depending on how old you were) spending about 10-15% of the time thinking up “crass” names for your characters, like stupid or shut up or – if you were really daring – butt/butthead…

By: Stardrake

Stardrake — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:11:12 +0000

Floppy discs? Graphics? YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!

I played OREGON TRAIL on the TIES system in Minneapolis–the computer was (I recall) an HP 2000C with drum memory, in another part of town! We used Teletype® ASR-33 teleprinters with big rolls of yellow paper, paper-tape readers to record our BASIC programs, and 110-baud acoustic coupler modems built in (they kind you actually put the phone into a pair of rubber cups–like in the movie WAR GAMES) This was in high school, in 1972-75. And yet, it was the same game–get to Oregon alive by creative resource management.

(I believe OREGON TRAIL is the oldest proprietary computer game still published–chess, etc. all being generic. )

And yes, I AM an old fart….

By: trintyboo

trintyboo — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:20:10 +0000

You forgot to add getting your main character killed so you can write something on the tombstone….like the word POOP, or Oregon sucks. Elementary school…it was a simpler time.

By: Mewzerium

Mewzerium — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:20:17 +0000

Yeah, like…

“Here lies poop.”

By: Hurr

Hurr — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:20:43 +0000

I was in a little rural area in BC, and I had this. Where were you? Manitoba?

By: matt boston

matt boston — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:53:35 +0000

thats awesome, i had this conversation many times before and concluded that thats exactly what happened to all the american buffalo real life.

By: Zero

Zero — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:19:37 +0000

Oregon Trail II. That was actually pretty interesting.

By: Zero

Zero — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:18:15 +0000

My first attempt involved my stupid partner deciding to ford a six-foot-deep river and costing us 650 pounds of food and all three kids.

By: Kurt

Kurt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:14:26 +0000

Agreed. Actually I’d make dysentary about 45%, cholera 25%, malaria 10%, getting mauled by a bear 5%, getting your wagon trained robbed 5%, and having your wagon drowned in a river 10%.

By: Mer

Mer — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:33:41 +0000

That game ROCKED! I usually died from drowning in the river, though. I stuck it out through dysentery. But I shot a crapload of squirrels and buffalos.

By: Calculate900

Calculate900 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:46:54 +0000

I actually bought this game because I liked playing it so much.

All I ever did was bring my group down with diseases, killing them off one by one.

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:48:05 +0000

I always paid five bucks for the ferry.

By: Not you

Not you — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:07:36 +0000

I like to name my people things like “Someone” and “Nobody” and “My Right Arm.”

My Right Arm got a broken leg.

Nobody died of dysentry.

SEE? FUNNIES!!

By: Overkill

Overkill — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:06:22 +0000

Only 3 tons? YOU, my friend, are very LAZY!!!!!!

By: my name is vengeance, etc.

my name is vengeance, etc. — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:33:34 +0000

What about the part where you named all your party after people you didn’t like and then drowned/starved/dysentary’d them? …I am pretty sure that is the only way people played that game at my school.

By: whitey138

whitey138 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:27:29 +0000

its bison…nobody seems to get this animal right. buffalo live in africa. its like if you called a poodle a hyena. yes they are kind of related (distantly) but WAY different species that dont even exist in remotely close areas.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:13:48 +0000

When i was little, all the girls protested the boys hunting in the game. They said it taught them bad morals. ha ha ha ha

By: joeschmoe

joeschmoe — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:12:36 +0000

Hey–I’m American–and Californian–and I have never played that game because I was homeschooled…

By: joeschmoe

joeschmoe — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:10:29 +0000

THE FEATHERS WEIGH MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: Tommy

Tommy — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:31:06 +0000

Floppy disk? Some us played this on hard-copy text terminals jacked into a dial-up system.

By: ulfin

ulfin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:44:04 +0000

AAHhhhh i loved this game. Me and my sis used to see how fast we could kill everyone. I actually thought that was the goal of the game till i was 8

By: kittehkat

kittehkat — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:12:26 +0000

Probably not, Bee, since it’s about the Oregon Trail, which is big part of AMERICAN history. The Oregon Trail (real thing) really didn’t affect the rest of the world, just the US, so it makes sense for it to not be distributed outside of there.

By: irisheagle

irisheagle — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:56:46 +0000

fjord the river?

you mean like pining for them?

By: Shoopoftheday

Shoopoftheday — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:49:56 +0000

Because NOBODY wants to pay the 5 dollars for a ferry.

By: Shoopoftheday

Shoopoftheday — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:47:53 +0000

Actually being on the trail was easy, you just make your progress like 1,000 miles a day.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:14:56 +0000

at my school, it totally had way better graphics, wayyyyyy bettter

By: Jackie

Jackie — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:13:10 +0000

I totally played that in elementary school, i miss it so much, i would totally kick ass at it now

By: Ruby

Ruby — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:09:50 +0000

Because you’re meant to caulk the wagon and float it.

By: troysethness

troysethness — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:29:31 +0000

I was always sad to have to shoot vitural animals

By: Kelly

Kelly — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:03:01 +0000

i died so many times in this game, and everytime i played, every two days we´d come across another grave from an old game. i think i put elvis and marilyn monroe as characters specifically so i could make a cool tombstone.

By: jl5691426

jl5691426 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:32:32 +0000

Yeah, that dysentery thing is why I always took a sack lunch.

By: Lakiamia

Lakiamia — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:15:52 +0000

There needs to be a section for “purposely killing yourself just so you can make up clever tombstone epitaphs.”

By: Qu

Qu — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:34:29 +0000

Was it all sepia tone, and the shooting bit was more like a sniping game? If it was, I would get a Mac just to get that version back. Ah, good times, good times.

By: dang

dang — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:10:27 +0000

SUPERLOL!!!

OMG!

By: Panthera

Panthera — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:40:08 +0000

We never had this in Canada, either.
I feel so deprived.
Sort of.

By: slupine

slupine — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:50:13 +0000

You forgot one:

“Killing off your classmates by intentionally not resting while they were all sick.”

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:54:36 +0000

I played a more graphical version of this years ago, on a mac. Didn’t realise it was educational, I just thought the hunting was great! That, and killing the people by moving on very time they got infected with something!

By: OLOL

OLOL — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:53:21 +0000

For me, Make red the size of blue, Get rid of blue, and make the res be “Make wagon ultra heavy, attempt to float across river.”

By: Tray Dawg

Tray Dawg — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:47:31 +0000

I named them after people I didn’t like.

By: wallFly

wallFly — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:40:28 +0000

indeed, where else could you die of dysentary and/or be crushed by your wagon during school hours?

By: Cinderpelt

Cinderpelt — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:24:25 +0000

I just played it to watch all the people die. I named my party bob, kenny, kyle, antman, and other random stuff and got them killed on purpose. xD

By: Tray Dawg

Tray Dawg — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:09:03 +0000

Why is “fording the river” not on this graph

By: Hell Hath No Fury

Hell Hath No Fury — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:04:11 +0000

…and then tell her that teachers are endangered because they’re too dumb to realize that when you’re starving to death, ‘endangered’ means ‘eat it while you have a chance’.

By: bobbintb

bobbintb — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:02:33 +0000

i TOTALLY did the same thing. huge win.