http://www.citypages.com/2011-01-19/news/oregon-trail-how-three-minnesotans-forged-its-path/
Fascinating story. Makes me want to get out my ancient copies of Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
Thanks for the link! It’s both inspiring and sad to see the rise and fall of MECC, and to learn the fate of Oregon Trail. I still have a copy of version 3.0.1 that I somehow managed to acquire through a 35mm film promotional deal (back from the days when cameras still used real film).
- Alan
I remember playing Oregon Trail on an Apple II back in elementary school, even though we had the Windows 3.1 remake readily available at home. I recall liking the original better.
That teletype version sounds like it would be a blast to try at least once or twice, given the knowledge of the legacy of the game today.
1971? 1971!
dang…I thought 81 was it, but…19 SEVENTY 1.
I had no clue. I was first exposed to it in the late 80’s.
Hey, those guys all went to my alma mater!
Very interesting story. The 1971 date explains a lot, actually – the game feels very much like a teletype-era game, like Hammurabi.
I really thought I was in on the earliest history of computer games, with programming games on HP 65 calculators, star trek on the PDP 11, cassette reader for my Apple II and my friends IMSAI.
However, Nineteen SEVENTY ONE has me beat by at least 4 years. Surprisingly I really never played Oregon Trails very much, but that was a such a good article it makes me wish I had.
It was one of those games that was awesome for its time, and complete crap by today’s standards. I look back on my time spent playing those older games and can’t figure out what I saw in them. And yet… they were so much fun.
Wow, what a cool story. It’s a shame the way that IP laws protect a corporations “ownership” of titles like these while the people who actually created them get nothing.
Also, this homage is pretty cool IMHO:
http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2010/10/browser_game_pick_organ_trail.html
I liked the iphone version quite a bit.
Yeah it was fun.
Fair to middlin’.
We took a fair amount of inspiration from the iPhone game, like encounters on the side of the road that you have to click on to activate. Obviously that’s on top of some pretty cool mechanics that are unique to our Facebook release.
Also, since it’s mentioned in the original article, I thought I’d bring it up: a week after The Oregon Trail is released, we’re also releasing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? for Facebook.
If people haven’t found Carmen Sandiego by now, they never will…
I’ll check both out but it seems odd that games aimed at elementary school kids is on a platform that requires you to be 13 or older to have an account.
We’re targeting people who grew up with the original games more than elementary school kids. You’ll find the clues in Carmen are a lot more difficult than the original game, for example. It also lets us be a bit more subtly PG-13 in some places, which is fun. (Like the “compensating for something” jokes in Shrek: bits that go over the kids’ heads, but that adults find funny.)
Of course, since there are kids under 13 who use Facebook, regardless of the age requirement, we’re making sure to keep things appropriate for them in hopes of introducing them to the franchise. An original concept for one of Carmen’s henchwomen had her smoking a cigarette, Cruella-de-Vil-style. That didn’t fly.
Wow, we sure have come a long way in game design when a 40-year-old game design is disinterred to become a Facebook app. Coming soon: Wumpusville and Lemonaide Standville (they’ll need to get the rights to “Raindrops are Falling on My Head”, for the latter, or just have Kayne remix it).
Nevermind me, all of the pop culture recycling I see these days is driving me a bit nuts. If someone is making a “Powers of Matthew Star” remake I am going to just absolutely cap someone in the ass.
I always thought in odd in elementary school that almost no one else I knew had a full understanding of the dangers of cholera. I thank this game for that.
