Oregon Trail: Finally Made It

I recall playing Oregon Trail when I was a child, and I had never made it to the destination. Something always went wrong, and I didn’t have the decision-making skills required to keep my party alive. Playing it today, I’m happy to announce that my party and I have successfully arrived!

I think Oregon Trail was one of the most popular games of its time because of its progressive difficulty, variety of decisions, and moments of relief through a hunting mini-game. If we consider the multitude of ways that things could go wrong: health, maintenance, unforeseen circumstances; each of these factors include contributors to the likelihood of obstacles. For example, one of the first decisions made is to decide what time of year to begin the journey. The user’s choice is significant because it influences the remainder of the game; if the party leaves in the Springtime, precipitation may slow them down, but the weather will clear up as the journey continues. Conversely, if the party leaves in the summer, the temperature will drop by winter and increase the likelihood of illness.

If we look at Oregon Trail as a decision tree, each singular game play a user may partake in will yield a different result. Considering the number of factors that contribute to why he or she may not make it (i.e. who’s to say if taking a day of rest before it starting raining would have saved the family from dysentery?) and the inability to “restart” or return to a checkpoint, users are forced to start from the beginning to reassess their strategy, resulting in a greater number of gameplays. In conjunction with the unforeseen consequences and uncertainty of decisions, the game provides a steady progression of difficulty through scarcity of prey for hunting, and increased prices of supplies. By doing so, the player remains challenged and engaged even after multiple plays over an extended period of time. There is a balance between a game being too easy, and not being engaging enough, and being too difficult, where the user’s motivation is too low to continue playing.

I feel a great sense of accomplishment in finally winning Oregon Trail after failing to do so in my childhood. As this is the first time I’ve actually seen the final screen, I notice that I not only win by way of “arriving”, but that my success is also on a spectrum based on the amount of supplies I sustain. This poses as another challenge: not just to make it to the destination, but to beat my last score and do it better.