Oregon Trail

[Scottay]

Man this game was Edutainment at it's finest. Thanks to this game I now know when to Caulk a boat crossing a river, that people very commonly get Dysentary and that when visiting a town anywhere it will have a very poor sound clip playing.

Now this game is OLD-skool.

[rosetaylor01]

The best thing about Oregon Trail is that it doesn't shove educational crap down your throat. Learning sucks, dude!!!!!!

Let's go through a typical game of Oregon Trail shall we? Pull up your socks, we're going back to elementary school! Whee! Or something.

Let's see… first thing we have to do is name the people in the game. Heh heh… Let's name the leader Poop! Heh heh. Who else… how about Pee, Booger, Snot, and Stinky! Wheee! Next it's time to choose who you want to be, a farmer, a carpenter, or a banker. Hmmm… the banker has the most money, and that's good because we can buy lots of ammo at the store! Oh, and better buy some other crap too… food, oxen, clothing, spare parts… hey, did I just accidentally learn some math?

[Candice]

This was a really fun game for me as well. Apple ][ in elementary school... but all my people would die of dysentery. I had no idea what that was until much later. I wish I knew what it was back then, as it would have made the game even more fun.

[Rob]

This was a really fun game for me as well. Apple ][ in elementary school... but all my people would die of dysentery. I had no idea what that was until much later. I wish I knew what it was back then, as it would have made the game even more fun.

I never precisely knew what it was either, until I looked it up just now. I just knew it had something to do with diarrhea.
Actually, I found out more than I wanted to know:

"... consumption of fresh, warm camel feces has been recommended by Bedouins as a remedy for bacterial dysentery; its efficacy (probably attributable to the antibiotic subtilisin from Bacillus subtilis) was confirmed by German soldiers in Africa during World War II."[4] In addition, sheep feces contain the same antibiotic as camel feces. There are numerous reports from German soldiers of the effectiveness of sheep and camel feces being effective cures for dysentery.

I never played the game, but did Oregon Trail simulate this?

(Side note: 17 years online and this is the closest I've come to having a legitimate reason for posting a picture of a steaming pile to a gaming forum thread.)

[Candice]

I don't think you got over dysentery. I think people just died.

[kawaiku]

Oh yeah! I remember this game as well! I played it a lot! It was a good challenge, always trying to do better than last time haha. I think I succedded once or twice in finishing the game, but dozens of other times my characters just died on the way till no one was left. Manya good times I had with that game.

[SkaterMcgee]

Oh! I remember this game from 5th grade... wow.. We use to beg our teacher to go to the computer lab to play this game. Forgot all about it.