I did play at least one version when I was younger, but recently devoted a few weeks to diving into every version of the most famous edutainment game of all time. I played this on an online emulator, and that bit of preserved save data has become part of the history of The Oregon Trail itself. Be sure to buy spare parts, and save money for ferries if you intend to use them.The Oregon Trail (1991) Mac B&W. If you start too late, you risk not making it to Oregon Territory because of the snows.
Oregon Trail Emulator Code Only ExistedIt proved so popular that it eventually inspired the 1980 Apple II version.This was actually the first one I cleared on my first try, but it didn't feel particularly satisfying. For a few years, the original 1971 code only existed on a printed out stack of paper, before Rawitsch added it to a MECC mainframe. Originally published by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium as an educational tool for schools in Minnesota, it was so popular it became a breakout hit, sold around the world across PCs and a variety of other platforms down the years, and spawned spin-offs like The Yukon Trail and The Amazon Trail.That's pretty much my experience with this one, which was the first created at MECC by programmer Don Rawitsch.I'm not saying I have the mind of a child who can't follow a story unless there's pictures, but I'm also not not saying that. The game is literally all text, so it's a bit hard to get to grips with. I mean, a kid died on me, but other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing.You can shake your phone to pan for gold, steer the cart through a river to collect coins, hammer nails in a rhythm, and a lot of other nonsense. It's basically a lot of those annoying mobile minigames you see advertised while you're waiting for your own annoying mobile minigame to load, with some Oregon Trail flavor in there. The Oregon Trail HD (2010)This is a mobile game which has been pulled from the App Store, so I technically haven't played this one but I did watch a full Let's Play of the journey, so feel confident enough to put it on the list. I'm sure it was impressive back in 1975, but I'm not ranking them in 1975, so… what are you gonna do? 9.![]() ![]() The graphics looked pretty neat too, and this one doesn't suffer from trying to be too techy like Oregon Trail 2 did, instead the gameplay felt more involving without trying too hard to move away from the classic typing/clicking. One even rested on the picture frame he lived in while telling me he was tired—just A+ scene chewing. They were far more entertaining than the 3rd Edition's click-the-crotch to talk function or the 5th Editions' cartoons. Rather than just reading what my party thought, each interaction with them came with a short clip, performed by some terrifically over-the-top actors. I died following a broken leg the first time, which feels embarrassing more than anything else, but we made it along the trail the second time. Animals can't just go off the screen and cease to exist. At first I thought this was just the version I had downloaded, but after checking around online it appears that it was always this bad.The hunting has perspective and scope, and is trickier but in a more rewarding and realistic way. View individual email addresses in a group in outlook for macBANG BNAG was better than this. You wander around aimlessly and the animals stick religiously to corners, then disappear forever. It's not the best version of The Oregon Trail to play today, but it is perhaps still the most well-rounded.The hunting, however, is maybe the worst of any game in this long lineage. It's not the smoothest version of the game, but it does so much right that you have to score it highly. There's also a lot to like about this version it's not surprising that it's the one that took off. Travel Oregon (2017)This isn't actually an Oregon Trail game, but is a tribute created by the state of Oregon's tourism department, aimed at highlighting the joys of modern day Oregon. The portability is novel, but the already bad hunting minigame is even worse on the handheld's controls. I'm giving this one some points in the rankings for it.One other historical wrinkle: the MS-DOS version of this 1985 Oregon Trail was slightly modified to serve as the basis of the Oregon Trail handheld game released in 2018. I played this on an online emulator, and that bit of preserved save data has become part of the history of The Oregon Trail itself. From the pixel wagon being pulled by the ox, the robbers who routinely stole single bullets rather than a box, to the gravestone I discovered which read, and I quote, "Here lies andy, peperony and chease." Wise words to live by. It's an educational game all right.Travel Oregon's description encourages you to "keep playing until you win," but most of the time it didn’t feel like there was a focus. Being from the UK, I immediately let a 19-year-old inside and was promptly fired. I played as a yoga teacher named Dakota, and was offered some free beers in exchange for working the door and checking IDs. Hood, the Willamette Valley, and more. You play as a tourist freshly arrived in Oregon, looking to take in the sights of Portland, Mt. The Oregon Trail 2 was the first version which really felt 'alive', the first which took the game off point-and-click text based play and into something approaching player agency. It doesn't look particularly different from 2, but it understands its limitations and pushes forward in the right places. The Oregon Trail 3rd Edition (1997)This one is worthy of praise mainly for taking the new ideas of The Oregon Trail 2 and making it much more fun. It's not a proper Oregon Trail, but it's very fun, so it's getting a bronze medal. It actually felt like being a tourist, and had significantly lower stakes than a 19th century Oregon Trail, which is exactly how it should be. The 3rd Edition is desperate to show you real images when the pixel cartoons have much more charm. Being boring is surely part of the appeal, right? The textbook presentation style is a little bland, though. I feel like it would have been a welcome addition, flaws and all, in 1997. 3rd Edition has learned from those mistakes.Fishing is a bit boring here, but as a new feature, it's also a fresh step in the right direction. Actually, sort of because they died. The Oregon Trail Deluxe (1992)This was the first version that I played for this incredibly scientific ranking, and I think it's the best version even though on my very first run three of my party died on consecutive days. I can’t decide if it should lose or gain points for that. Also, because clicking their limbs and heads didn't always work and they were often in the background, I found myself clicking their crotch to get them to continue. The only issue is they'll stop halfway through a sentence, waiting for you to click to continue, which seems to negate the point of having an actor do it. The little pixelated animals actually looked like they were supposed to, aiming was fun and challenging enough, there was a good range of animals and obstacles, and the little rabbits zipped across the screen while the big buffalos lumbered. I prefer the mouse interface to the original's typing, or the later attempts to make it more sophisticated. For me, a quintessential part of The Oregon Trail is that I suck at surviving it.The hunting minigame plays really well in this version, and it all felt mostly intuitive. I kind of knew I'd be in for a lot of death, though, so having three hit me in a row during my first playthrough meant the game immediately earned a place in my heart. My rankings are based entirely on my own experiences, and perhaps a better player would rank them differently.
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