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Halolz is a site for showing off funny game images, not a webcomic
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** The comic strip [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ Halolz]] parodies this, showing Mary dying of dysentery, followed by the caption "You've found 120 pounds of food."
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** The comic strip [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ Halolz]] One fan comic]] parodies this, showing Mary dying of dysentery, followed by the caption "You've found 120 pounds of food."
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* RolePlayingGame
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* RolePlayingGameRolePlayingGame: Especially Oregon Trail 2/5, in which you could have special skills. Oregon Trail 5 further added a point-based character creation system.
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* MagicAntidote: Half played straight, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] (though the latter is not recommended in the modern era with a modern first aid kit) can actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immune system to fight off the infection)
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* MagicAntidote: Half played straight, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] [[WorstAid (though the latter is not recommended in the modern era with a modern first aid kit) kit)]] can actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immune system to fight off the infection)
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* MagicAntidote: Half played straight, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immune system to fight off the infection)
to:
* MagicAntidote: Half played straight, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will (though the latter is not recommended in the modern era with a modern first aid kit) can actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immune system to fight off the infection)
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* AnyoneCanDie: The game.
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* AnyoneCanDie: The game. Anyone can be killed by random chance. Whether they are crushed by a wagon, drowned in a river, catch some horrible disease, gored by an animal, frostbite, or shot. Hope you brought that medical book and wrote down the treatments!
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* InstantGravestone: The game contains this, including player-defined inscriptions. People tend to try to invoke GraveHumor with {{Bottom Of The Barrel Joke}}s, as future players can read the gravestones.
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** It isn't even just the buffalo. If you're overzealous in your hunting early on you'll be lucky to find squirrels by the end.
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** It isn't even just the buffalo. If you're overzealous in your hunting early on you'll be lucky to even find squirrels by the end.end since you already killed every living thing on the continent.
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** It isn't even just the buffalo. If you're overzealous in your hunting early on you'll be lucky to find squirrels by the end.
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** In-game, he's also [[InTheBlood related to]] Dr. Brogan Cavanaugh, a snake-oil salesman.
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it ain\'t probably
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* {{The Millstone}}: In 5 and probably 2, Nicholas J. Tillman is apparently an in-game millstone who cheats at cards and hinders your train as you go up hills. If you speak to him, he also gives horrible advice like rafting the rapids in the Columbia because it will be fun. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking He also wears bad suits]].
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* {{The Millstone}}: In 5 and probably 2, Nicholas J. Tillman is apparently an in-game millstone who cheats at cards and hinders your train as you go up hills. If you speak to him, he also gives horrible advice like rafting the rapids in the Columbia because it will be fun. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking He also wears bad suits]].
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** [[http://jayisgames.com/games/thule-trail/ Thule Trail]], sponsored by bike rack manufacturer Thule, is Oregon Trail on a modern road trip from Chicago to a massive concert in LA. You can choose between a SUV (comfortable but expensive), a hybrid car (cramped but cheap), or a turbo wagon (fast but expensive as well).
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* LuckBasedMission: Pretty much the whole game, particularly the floating of a caulked wagon. A player could be within a mile of the end point with only the main character alive, just to have him be killed by a wild animal.
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* LuckBasedMission: Pretty much the whole game, particularly the floating of a caulked wagon.wagon (one of exactly 3 ways that can result in a TotalPartyKill in the original game). A player could be within a mile of the end point with only the main character alive, just to have him be killed by a wild animal.
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trivia
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* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: A well-known meme from Oregon Trail exists ''because'' of people 'circulating tapes'. Why does everyone remember [[GraveHumor Here Lies Andy: Peperony and Chease]]? Because [[http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25430 a player put that tombstone into the game that was pirated the most]].
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* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick and dying during the height of winter at this point.
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* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick sick, penniless, and dying during the height of winter at this point.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how RandomNumberGod dictates the events; they can be quite frequent and will often come at the worst possible times, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to the whole game being a LuckBasedMission and how RandomNumberGod dictates the events; they can be quite frequent and will often come at the worst possible times, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how frequent the random events can be, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how RandomNumberGod dictates the events; they can be quite frequent and will often come at the random events can be, worst possible times, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how frequent the RandomEvents can be, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how frequent the RandomEvents random events can be, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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* SaveScumming: Quite often you'll find yourself saving your game due to how frequent the RandomEvents can be, especially if the outcome is detrimental to your party.
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[[caption-width-right:250:[[SuperDrowningSkills It's 83 miles to Big Blue River.]] [[EatTheDog We got a full team of oxen,]] [[MoreDakka half a box of bullets,]] [[TheWildWest it's 1848,]] [[AwesomeAnachronisticApparel and we're wearing sunglasses.]] [[TheBluesBrothers Hit it.]]]]
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[[caption-width-right:250:[[SuperDrowningSkills It's 83 miles to Big Blue River.]] [[EatTheDog We got a full team of oxen,]] [[MoreDakka half a box of bullets,]] [[TheWildWest it's 1848,]] [[AwesomeAnachronisticApparel and we're wearing sunglasses.]] [[TheBluesBrothers [[Film/TheBluesBrothers Hit it.]]]]
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Trimming personal comment and a YMMV trope.
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** The comic strip [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ Halolz]] parodies this, showing Mary dying of dysentery, followed by the caption "[[UnfortunateImplications You've found 120 pounds of food]]."
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** The comic strip [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ Halolz]] parodies this, showing Mary dying of dysentery, followed by the caption "[[UnfortunateImplications You've "You've found 120 pounds of food]].food."
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** The problem arises when you ask to go hunting and the other players click "No, I do not want to stop to hunt" instead of stopping to hunt and then clicking "No, I do not want to go hunting". Many of my family died on starvation rations and I had to ask the teacher to tell people to STOP TO HUNT!!!
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* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: A well-known meme from Oregon Trail exists ''because'' of people 'circulating tapes'. Why does everyone remember [[GraveHumor Here Lies Peperony and Chease]]? Because [[http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25430 a player put that tombstone into the game that was pirated the most]].
to:
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: A well-known meme from Oregon Trail exists ''because'' of people 'circulating tapes'. Why does everyone remember [[GraveHumor Here Lies Andy: Peperony and Chease]]? Because [[http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25430 a player put that tombstone into the game that was pirated the most]].
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* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick and dying at this point.
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* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick and dying during the height of winter at this point.
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* RealityEnsues: Characters can die very unexpectedly from gun shot wounds while hunting, drowning, or all manner of random ways, while also be constantly hampered by disease, broken parts, and supply shortages. All this was very common to real life wagon trains.
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* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
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* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
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* CompletelyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
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* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
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* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: A well-known meme from Oregon Trail exists ''because'' of people 'circulating tapes'. Why does everyone remember [[GraveHumor Here Lies Peperony and Chease]]? Because [[http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25430 a player put that tombstone into the game that was pirated the most]].
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Expanded was just an offsite link and nothing else. Expanded it.
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** There's also [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ this]].
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** There's also The comic strip [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ this]].Halolz]] parodies this, showing Mary dying of dysentery, followed by the caption "[[UnfortunateImplications You've found 120 pounds of food]]."
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* MagicAntidote: Half played, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immunity system to fight off the infection)
** Played Straight in the iOS version.
** Played Straight in the iOS version.
to:
* MagicAntidote: Half played, played straight, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immunity immune system to fight off the infection)
** PlayedStraight straight in the iOS version.
** Played
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[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/OregonTrail.png]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[SuperDrowningSkills It's 83 miles to Big Blue River.]] [[EatTheDog We got a full team of oxen,]] [[MoreDakka half a box of bullets,]] [[TheWildWest it's 1848,]] [[AwesomeAnachronisticApparel and we're wearing sunglasses.]] [[TheBluesBrothers Hit it.]]]]
->''"That's how I learned what it means to be [[{{Eagleland}} an American]]. To embrace the pioneer spirit, {{shoot everything that moves}}, [[RiverOfInsanity drown my family in a river, and die of starvation somewhere]] in [[PlaceWorseThanDeath the midwest]]."''
-->--'''1up.com's''' July 4th [[http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3160769 Oregon Trail Retrospective]]
->''"LITTLE JOHNNY [[MemeticMutation has died of dysentery]]."''
-->-- '''Flavor text'''
If you went to an American public school during the late [[TheEighties 1980s]] or most of the [[TheNineties 1990s]], and your classroom was fortunate enough to have a monolithic, clicking heap of machinery called an AppleII, you probably remember a little floppy-disc based game called ''The Oregon Trail''.
If you don't, the premise of this EdutainmentGame, designed by three student teachers for their history class, is to lead your family across [[TheWildWest the American frontier of the mid-19th century]] to reach the promised land, [[TheOtherRainforest or Oregon]]. The game was originally created by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger, with the first version appearing back in 1971. Rawitch later got hired by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. He used his new position to create an improved version of the game in 1974. It later became available in the organization's time-sharing network, where it could be accessed by schools across Minnesota. Further improvements, updates, sequels, etc, have continued appearing over the decades.
The game would start in Independence, Missouri, where the player could select from professions such as carpenter or doctor, which provided bonuses such as improved health or repairs, before purchasing provisions and heading west. On the [[DoomedExpedition long adventure that followed, the player would learn how to manage dwindling supplies]], decide whether or not to ford rivers or caulk the wagon and try and float across (paying the ferry was for suckers), manage wagon breakdowns, deal with rattlesnake bites, help rid the West of the buffalo scourge, press SPACE BAR to continue, and lose at least three family members to dysentery. After [[HopeSpot finally arriving at Oregon]], players would abruptly have to [[ThatOneLevel steer their wagon]] down a river, dodging [[InevitableWaterfall rocks and rapids]], before reaching [[EarnYourHappyEnding Willamette Valley]] and the [[AWinnerIsYou end of the game]]. There was an option to take a toll road and skip the river-riding segment, but again, for suckers.
The game was quite popular among both students and faculty: teachers liked it because of the historical aspect and the brain-building challenge of managing the expedition, while students enjoyed shooting everything between the Mississippi and the West Coast while leaving funny tombstones along the trail as the inevitable dysentery-related casualties accrued.
''The Oregon Trail'' was successful enough to spawn four sequels (and that's without counting the text-based version that preceded the beloved Apple II version) and a number of spinoffs, such as ''TheAmazonTrail'' (which had a rather bizarre plotline involving a lot of TimeTravel) and ''The Yukon Trail'' ([[RecycledINSPACE recycled IN]] [[CanadaEh CANADA!]]). It remains a cultural icon and a gaming classic which helped raise American dysentery awareness significantly.
The original is available to play [[http://www.virtualapple.org/oregontraildisk.html here]] and a newer edition is playable [[http://play.oregontrail.com/ here]]. Other versions for Facebook, iPhones and other mobile phones have been released.
----
!!This game provides examples of:
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Prices go up the farther along the trail you go.
** Justified, given that supplies in the harsher wilderness would be harder to come by and cost more.
** Although averted if you are skilled enough in haggling. It is possible to buy supplies, go out of town, and resell them for more than you paid for them. The profit margins are still somewhat thin though, maybe 10-20% per transaction.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Maximum of five people.
* BilingualBonus: In the second game, you can talk to characters who speak Spanish. If you can speak it, you don't have to learn it in-game to understand them.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: The iOS version. You can buy "Oregon Trail Cash" to get the best wagon parts, skip crossing rivers, receive mission rewards instantly, heal sick family members, and buy supplies you couldn't normally get with in-game coins.
* {{Cap}}: Every item has a limit on how many you can carry. In the original: 20 oxen, 50 sets of clothing, 99 boxes of bullets, 3 of each spare wagon part, and 2000 pounds of food. There also is one on hunting: You can only carry back 200 pounds of food per session with multiple people, and 100 pounds of food alone.
* CompletelyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
* CreditsGag: The credits for Oregon Trail 2 contain credits for roles such as:
** "Gaffer,"
** "Only Person at MECC who knows what a Gaffer does,"
** "Rogue Alien Oxen Space Craft,"
** "Oxen that glow in the dark,"
** [[LampshadeHanging "Silly Credits Inserts."]]
* DeadpanSnarker: The father/main character in the iPod version.
-->'''Mother:''' Why doesn't [[HelloInsertNameHere [Daughter]]] ever talk to me?
-->'''Father:''' [[HelloInsertNameHere [Daughter]]] hates you, [[HelloInsertNameHere [Mother]]].
* DiabolusExMachina: The game has a massive hard-on for sending grave misfortunes out of the clear blue, sometimes in such a hurry to kill your party that it forgets what was supposed to do them in (If Hezekiah had a snakebite, why'd he just die from dysentery??).
* DialogueTree
* [[{{EatTheDog}} Eat The Ox]]: If you go for a while without food, you will get the option to slaughter an ox for meat. From ''Oregon Trail II'' on, if a draft animal dies, it can be butchered for meat.
* EdutainmentGame
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: All kinds of diseases and accidents are just trying to kill you and your party.
* FightInTheNude: You can lose your whole clothing inventory and your people still appear fully clothed.
* FinalDeath
* FirstPersonShooter: The hunting minigame.
** In later versions, anyway. The older editions' hunting game was more like ''{{Asteroids}}'' with bears, deer, and buffalo.
*** The first ever version (released for a mainframe) required you to type "bang", "wham", or "pow" quickly, with misspelled words resulting in a failed hunt.
* GameplayAllyImmortality: Averted. In addition to the ubiquitous dysentery, a later game made it possible (and very easy) to accidentally ''shoot'' one of your allies (or yourself) while hunting.
* GraveHumor: You can leave whatever text you want to on the graves. People who play after you will have the option to read your tombstones when they pass by where you died in-game. So you can guess what kind of crude and obscene messages kids left for each other back in the day. It was so awesome.
* InevitableWaterfall: The Columbia River Gorge at the end.
* InferredHolocaust: The first game ends when you [[InstantWinCondition reach the Willamette Valley]]. You might be down to two party members, three bullets, and one ox when you get there. In January. Good luck surviving til spring.
** Pioneers had been traveling west to Oregon for years before the 1848 start date in the game - presumably you'd be able to find a settlement in the area where your party could shelter until the weather gets better. Plus, this is Oregon west of the mountains, not Alaska or Montana - it's a mild place with a lot of rain all year round.
* LuckBasedMission: Pretty much the whole game, particularly the floating of a caulked wagon. A player could be within a mile of the end point with only the main character alive, just to have him be killed by a wild animal.
** Combine this with TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. Good luck getting to Oregon when a thief comes in the middle of the night and ''steals all of your oxen.'' Strangely, your player [[GameplayAndStorySegregation doesn't shoot him]] after the third or so attempt.
* {{Macrogame}}
* MagicAntidote: Half played, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immunity system to fight off the infection)
** Played Straight in the iOS version.
* {{The Millstone}}: In 5 and probably 2, Nicholas J. Tillman is apparently an in-game millstone who cheats at cards and hinders your train as you go up hills. If you speak to him, he also gives horrible advice like rafting the rapids in the Columbia because it will be fun. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking He also wears bad suits]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[strike: Can]] ''Will'' happen so, so many times on your way to Oregon.
* NonStandardGameOver: In the second game, you could be kicked out of the wagon train if you were a trail guide and did poorly enough, accompanied by a still [[OhCrap of people looking angrily at you]].
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: In OTII, choose Salt Lake City as your destination and then choose to continue when you get there (as most people would)--which basically means trying to make it through the freaking enormous Great Salt Lake Desert, and then crossing the Sierra Nevada. If you chose the exact same year (1846) as the Donner Party, you indeed get the exact same snowstorm they got stranded in. [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything The dev team thought of everything.]]
** The Donner Party is actually discussed in the 5th version. Talking about everything that happened to them ''except'' what they're most infamous for. When it gets to that part the narrator simply says "They did things to survive that I don't want to talk about." One of the kids says "I heard that they-" before they told him to be quiet.
*** They're mentioned in the 2nd version as well.
*** Probably because Oregon Trail 5 is just Oregon Trail II with a few extra features.
** The leader of the Donner Party shows up in a town in the iPod version, too. He gives your party food, insisting that they've got more than enough to spare. ...Yeah, really.
** There's also [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ this]].
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: In the 5th version, they added cartoon segments throughout the game showing the journey of a boy, a girl, and their BlackBestFriend.
* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick and dying at this point.
* RandomNumberGod
* RiverOfInsanity: '''The. Whole. Game.'''
* RolePlayingGame
* ScareChord: II (and 5)'s infamous DUN DUN!
* SelfImposedChallenge: "Can you kill the WHOLE PARTY before getting to the first fort?" or "Can you get to Oregon with NO DEATHS?"
** The latter is actually more possible in the later games, assuming you're pragmatic when you pick your gear (don't bring the cast-iron stove, it's a dead-weight) and you don't make really stupid decisions (piss off local Native Americans, wait to hunt until you're totally out of food and desperate).
* SoundtrackDissonance: As the status of your party got worse and worse, the music would become more and more frantic/depressing, with {{Scare Chord}}s in the soundtrack in poor condition. But strangely, if a sick party member dies and there aren't any more sick people, THE MUSIC RESETS TO THE CHEERFUL SOUNDING MUSIC. Also a form of MoodWhiplash.
* SpinOff: There's ''The Yukon Trail'' and ''The Amazon Trail'' mentioned above. And then, you know they want a piece of the {{Farmville}} pie when the developers put out a SpinOff that requires you to build a town, that's played pretty much the same way as Farmville including buying premium buildings with real cash. Now you can have [[RecycledInSpace Farmville in Oregon]]!
* SuperDrowningSkills: If you ford a river that's too deep, your caulked wagon tips over, or (very rarely) your ferry breaks loose from moorings, some of your party members may drown in the river. Likewise when you raft down the Columbia River, and crash into a rock or (in the Apple II version) the shore.
** Sometimes your wagon can tip in ''two feet'' of water.
*** And people can almost drown in ''a foot of water'' without the wagon tipping - Were they trying to do hand-stands in the middle of the bloody river?!?
* TotalPartyKill: The most common ending.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The hunting minigame and the river-riding segment at the end.
* VendorTrash: In the second game you can buy things like china sets and grandfather clocks that just make wagon tipping more likely and give you something to trade with people.
* VideogameCrueltyPunishment: If you neglect burying bodies in Oregon Trail II, morale takes an EXTREME drop. See YouLoseAtZeroTrust.
* VideogameRemake: Quite a lot of them; a special note is the fifth edition being largely a remake of the second game, which is literally the exact same game with a couple new mini-games, and they added cartoon segments throughout the game.
** The 3rd Edition is a throwback directly to the 1st game, with fewer options than the second game when you have to make decisions.
** And a fan-made [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies zombie version]], [[http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html Organ Trail]].
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: From ''Oregon Trail II'' on; the main character's death ends the game, even if the other party members are still living.
* TheWildWest: The setting.
* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: Usually not a problem, given that buffalo are plentiful, huge targets, and provide more food than can be carried back to the wagon.
** The problem arises when you ask to go hunting and the other players click "No, I do not want to stop to hunt" instead of stopping to hunt and then clicking "No, I do not want to go hunting". Many of my family died on starvation rations and I had to ask the teacher to tell people to STOP TO HUNT!!!
** Can be a problem if you're, say, trying to cross a desert without buying a crapload of water containers first. Or if you forget to vary your party's diet and they all come down with scurvy or beriberi. It's easy to have your whole party die in the desert because even though you bought the canteens, they are usually the first things to go if you tip in the river.
** Can also be a problem if you lose all your bullets or gunpowder (if you've been using a shotgun) in a river crossing/Hill tip, or food and then cross the deserts since there's only the very hard to hit pronghorns and groundsquirrels/rabbits and their population numbers are smaller.
* WorstAid: In the second game, rubbing snow on frostbitten areas (this "treatment" was actually used until the 1950's) is an option. OUCH!
** The game provides you with many options to treat injury or illness, one of them usually being the ''very worst'' thing you could do. Go ahead. Rub some salt into that gunshot wound.
** How about "exercising" a broken limb?
** Got snakebite? [[SarcasmMode Just run some laps, you'll be fine.]]
** Got Cholera or Dysentery? ADMINISTER EPSOM SALTS!!!
** In Taxman's LP of Oregon Trail II, the Goons told him to (predictably) bring tons and tons of laudanum. Sick with absolutely anything whatsoever? Have some laudanum! Got to love 19th century medicine. For those of you who don't know, laudanum is whiskey diluted with grains of opium, and prior to opium becoming a controlled substance, people actually would take laudanum for their headaches and such. As you might guess, taking what amounts to a whisky/heroin cocktail might fix your headache, but causes some very real other problems.
* YouLoseAtZeroTrust: When playing as an adventurer or trail guide in OTII, your job depends on the morale of the wagon train, which is a reflection of their confidence in you; once it drops below a certain level (even if due to factors outside your control), a bunch of angry people will appear and forcibly demote you. If you're an adventurer, this just means you continue as an ordinary pioneer, but if you're a trail guide, the game is over.
** Morale is largely based on the health of the party, and factors such as success at river crossings and food amounts. If you also refuse to bury your dead, it will plummet.
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Oregon Trail, now on Facebook! Kill yourself and your real life friends, then message them about how they'll never want to go camping with you.
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[[caption-width-right:250:[[SuperDrowningSkills It's 83 miles to Big Blue River.]] [[EatTheDog We got a full team of oxen,]] [[MoreDakka half a box of bullets,]] [[TheWildWest it's 1848,]] [[AwesomeAnachronisticApparel and we're wearing sunglasses.]] [[TheBluesBrothers Hit it.]]]]
->''"That's how I learned what it means to be [[{{Eagleland}} an American]]. To embrace the pioneer spirit, {{shoot everything that moves}}, [[RiverOfInsanity drown my family in a river, and die of starvation somewhere]] in [[PlaceWorseThanDeath the midwest]]."''
-->--'''1up.com's''' July 4th [[http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3160769 Oregon Trail Retrospective]]
->''"LITTLE JOHNNY [[MemeticMutation has died of dysentery]]."''
-->-- '''Flavor text'''
If you went to an American public school during the late [[TheEighties 1980s]] or most of the [[TheNineties 1990s]], and your classroom was fortunate enough to have a monolithic, clicking heap of machinery called an AppleII, you probably remember a little floppy-disc based game called ''The Oregon Trail''.
If you don't, the premise of this EdutainmentGame, designed by three student teachers for their history class, is to lead your family across [[TheWildWest the American frontier of the mid-19th century]] to reach the promised land, [[TheOtherRainforest or Oregon]]. The game was originally created by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger, with the first version appearing back in 1971. Rawitch later got hired by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. He used his new position to create an improved version of the game in 1974. It later became available in the organization's time-sharing network, where it could be accessed by schools across Minnesota. Further improvements, updates, sequels, etc, have continued appearing over the decades.
The game would start in Independence, Missouri, where the player could select from professions such as carpenter or doctor, which provided bonuses such as improved health or repairs, before purchasing provisions and heading west. On the [[DoomedExpedition long adventure that followed, the player would learn how to manage dwindling supplies]], decide whether or not to ford rivers or caulk the wagon and try and float across (paying the ferry was for suckers), manage wagon breakdowns, deal with rattlesnake bites, help rid the West of the buffalo scourge, press SPACE BAR to continue, and lose at least three family members to dysentery. After [[HopeSpot finally arriving at Oregon]], players would abruptly have to [[ThatOneLevel steer their wagon]] down a river, dodging [[InevitableWaterfall rocks and rapids]], before reaching [[EarnYourHappyEnding Willamette Valley]] and the [[AWinnerIsYou end of the game]]. There was an option to take a toll road and skip the river-riding segment, but again, for suckers.
The game was quite popular among both students and faculty: teachers liked it because of the historical aspect and the brain-building challenge of managing the expedition, while students enjoyed shooting everything between the Mississippi and the West Coast while leaving funny tombstones along the trail as the inevitable dysentery-related casualties accrued.
''The Oregon Trail'' was successful enough to spawn four sequels (and that's without counting the text-based version that preceded the beloved Apple II version) and a number of spinoffs, such as ''TheAmazonTrail'' (which had a rather bizarre plotline involving a lot of TimeTravel) and ''The Yukon Trail'' ([[RecycledINSPACE recycled IN]] [[CanadaEh CANADA!]]). It remains a cultural icon and a gaming classic which helped raise American dysentery awareness significantly.
The original is available to play [[http://www.virtualapple.org/oregontraildisk.html here]] and a newer edition is playable [[http://play.oregontrail.com/ here]]. Other versions for Facebook, iPhones and other mobile phones have been released.
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!!This game provides examples of:
* AdamSmithHatesYourGuts: Prices go up the farther along the trail you go.
** Justified, given that supplies in the harsher wilderness would be harder to come by and cost more.
** Although averted if you are skilled enough in haggling. It is possible to buy supplies, go out of town, and resell them for more than you paid for them. The profit margins are still somewhat thin though, maybe 10-20% per transaction.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: Maximum of five people.
* BilingualBonus: In the second game, you can talk to characters who speak Spanish. If you can speak it, you don't have to learn it in-game to understand them.
* BribingYourWayToVictory: The iOS version. You can buy "Oregon Trail Cash" to get the best wagon parts, skip crossing rivers, receive mission rewards instantly, heal sick family members, and buy supplies you couldn't normally get with in-game coins.
* {{Cap}}: Every item has a limit on how many you can carry. In the original: 20 oxen, 50 sets of clothing, 99 boxes of bullets, 3 of each spare wagon part, and 2000 pounds of food. There also is one on hunting: You can only carry back 200 pounds of food per session with multiple people, and 100 pounds of food alone.
* CompletelyMissingThePoint: The game designer actually made it possible to hunt the buffalo into extinction, as an educational lesson. Didn't stop anybody from doing it, or even make them realize what they had done.
* CreditsGag: The credits for Oregon Trail 2 contain credits for roles such as:
** "Gaffer,"
** "Only Person at MECC who knows what a Gaffer does,"
** "Rogue Alien Oxen Space Craft,"
** "Oxen that glow in the dark,"
** [[LampshadeHanging "Silly Credits Inserts."]]
* DeadpanSnarker: The father/main character in the iPod version.
-->'''Mother:''' Why doesn't [[HelloInsertNameHere [Daughter]]] ever talk to me?
-->'''Father:''' [[HelloInsertNameHere [Daughter]]] hates you, [[HelloInsertNameHere [Mother]]].
* DiabolusExMachina: The game has a massive hard-on for sending grave misfortunes out of the clear blue, sometimes in such a hurry to kill your party that it forgets what was supposed to do them in (If Hezekiah had a snakebite, why'd he just die from dysentery??).
* DialogueTree
* [[{{EatTheDog}} Eat The Ox]]: If you go for a while without food, you will get the option to slaughter an ox for meat. From ''Oregon Trail II'' on, if a draft animal dies, it can be butchered for meat.
* EdutainmentGame
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: All kinds of diseases and accidents are just trying to kill you and your party.
* FightInTheNude: You can lose your whole clothing inventory and your people still appear fully clothed.
* FinalDeath
* FirstPersonShooter: The hunting minigame.
** In later versions, anyway. The older editions' hunting game was more like ''{{Asteroids}}'' with bears, deer, and buffalo.
*** The first ever version (released for a mainframe) required you to type "bang", "wham", or "pow" quickly, with misspelled words resulting in a failed hunt.
* GameplayAllyImmortality: Averted. In addition to the ubiquitous dysentery, a later game made it possible (and very easy) to accidentally ''shoot'' one of your allies (or yourself) while hunting.
* GraveHumor: You can leave whatever text you want to on the graves. People who play after you will have the option to read your tombstones when they pass by where you died in-game. So you can guess what kind of crude and obscene messages kids left for each other back in the day. It was so awesome.
* InevitableWaterfall: The Columbia River Gorge at the end.
* InferredHolocaust: The first game ends when you [[InstantWinCondition reach the Willamette Valley]]. You might be down to two party members, three bullets, and one ox when you get there. In January. Good luck surviving til spring.
** Pioneers had been traveling west to Oregon for years before the 1848 start date in the game - presumably you'd be able to find a settlement in the area where your party could shelter until the weather gets better. Plus, this is Oregon west of the mountains, not Alaska or Montana - it's a mild place with a lot of rain all year round.
* LuckBasedMission: Pretty much the whole game, particularly the floating of a caulked wagon. A player could be within a mile of the end point with only the main character alive, just to have him be killed by a wild animal.
** Combine this with TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. Good luck getting to Oregon when a thief comes in the middle of the night and ''steals all of your oxen.'' Strangely, your player [[GameplayAndStorySegregation doesn't shoot him]] after the third or so attempt.
* {{Macrogame}}
* MagicAntidote: Half played, half averted - Some stuff like gradually warming frostbitten areas and [[SuckOutThePoison sucking out snake venom]] will actually work. Heck, ''Peppermint'' actually really helps if you administer it to someone with Cholera. (The menthol actually eases the symptoms and allows the immunity system to fight off the infection)
** Played Straight in the iOS version.
* {{The Millstone}}: In 5 and probably 2, Nicholas J. Tillman is apparently an in-game millstone who cheats at cards and hinders your train as you go up hills. If you speak to him, he also gives horrible advice like rafting the rapids in the Columbia because it will be fun. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking He also wears bad suits]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: [[strike: Can]] ''Will'' happen so, so many times on your way to Oregon.
* NonStandardGameOver: In the second game, you could be kicked out of the wagon train if you were a trail guide and did poorly enough, accompanied by a still [[OhCrap of people looking angrily at you]].
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: In OTII, choose Salt Lake City as your destination and then choose to continue when you get there (as most people would)--which basically means trying to make it through the freaking enormous Great Salt Lake Desert, and then crossing the Sierra Nevada. If you chose the exact same year (1846) as the Donner Party, you indeed get the exact same snowstorm they got stranded in. [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything The dev team thought of everything.]]
** The Donner Party is actually discussed in the 5th version. Talking about everything that happened to them ''except'' what they're most infamous for. When it gets to that part the narrator simply says "They did things to survive that I don't want to talk about." One of the kids says "I heard that they-" before they told him to be quiet.
*** They're mentioned in the 2nd version as well.
*** Probably because Oregon Trail 5 is just Oregon Trail II with a few extra features.
** The leader of the Donner Party shows up in a town in the iPod version, too. He gives your party food, insisting that they've got more than enough to spare. ...Yeah, really.
** There's also [[http://www.halolz.com/2009/04/22/mary-died-of-dysentery/ this]].
* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: In the 5th version, they added cartoon segments throughout the game showing the journey of a boy, a girl, and their BlackBestFriend.
* PyrrhicVictory: Arrive in Oregon with a sole surviving party member; you made it, but the rest of your family is dead as a result. You yourself may even be sick and dying at this point.
* RandomNumberGod
* RiverOfInsanity: '''The. Whole. Game.'''
* RolePlayingGame
* ScareChord: II (and 5)'s infamous DUN DUN!
* SelfImposedChallenge: "Can you kill the WHOLE PARTY before getting to the first fort?" or "Can you get to Oregon with NO DEATHS?"
** The latter is actually more possible in the later games, assuming you're pragmatic when you pick your gear (don't bring the cast-iron stove, it's a dead-weight) and you don't make really stupid decisions (piss off local Native Americans, wait to hunt until you're totally out of food and desperate).
* SoundtrackDissonance: As the status of your party got worse and worse, the music would become more and more frantic/depressing, with {{Scare Chord}}s in the soundtrack in poor condition. But strangely, if a sick party member dies and there aren't any more sick people, THE MUSIC RESETS TO THE CHEERFUL SOUNDING MUSIC. Also a form of MoodWhiplash.
* SpinOff: There's ''The Yukon Trail'' and ''The Amazon Trail'' mentioned above. And then, you know they want a piece of the {{Farmville}} pie when the developers put out a SpinOff that requires you to build a town, that's played pretty much the same way as Farmville including buying premium buildings with real cash. Now you can have [[RecycledInSpace Farmville in Oregon]]!
* SuperDrowningSkills: If you ford a river that's too deep, your caulked wagon tips over, or (very rarely) your ferry breaks loose from moorings, some of your party members may drown in the river. Likewise when you raft down the Columbia River, and crash into a rock or (in the Apple II version) the shore.
** Sometimes your wagon can tip in ''two feet'' of water.
*** And people can almost drown in ''a foot of water'' without the wagon tipping - Were they trying to do hand-stands in the middle of the bloody river?!?
* TotalPartyKill: The most common ending.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The hunting minigame and the river-riding segment at the end.
* VendorTrash: In the second game you can buy things like china sets and grandfather clocks that just make wagon tipping more likely and give you something to trade with people.
* VideogameCrueltyPunishment: If you neglect burying bodies in Oregon Trail II, morale takes an EXTREME drop. See YouLoseAtZeroTrust.
* VideogameRemake: Quite a lot of them; a special note is the fifth edition being largely a remake of the second game, which is literally the exact same game with a couple new mini-games, and they added cartoon segments throughout the game.
** The 3rd Edition is a throwback directly to the 1st game, with fewer options than the second game when you have to make decisions.
** And a fan-made [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies zombie version]], [[http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html Organ Trail]].
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: From ''Oregon Trail II'' on; the main character's death ends the game, even if the other party members are still living.
* TheWildWest: The setting.
* WizardNeedsFoodBadly: Usually not a problem, given that buffalo are plentiful, huge targets, and provide more food than can be carried back to the wagon.
** The problem arises when you ask to go hunting and the other players click "No, I do not want to stop to hunt" instead of stopping to hunt and then clicking "No, I do not want to go hunting". Many of my family died on starvation rations and I had to ask the teacher to tell people to STOP TO HUNT!!!
** Can be a problem if you're, say, trying to cross a desert without buying a crapload of water containers first. Or if you forget to vary your party's diet and they all come down with scurvy or beriberi. It's easy to have your whole party die in the desert because even though you bought the canteens, they are usually the first things to go if you tip in the river.
** Can also be a problem if you lose all your bullets or gunpowder (if you've been using a shotgun) in a river crossing/Hill tip, or food and then cross the deserts since there's only the very hard to hit pronghorns and groundsquirrels/rabbits and their population numbers are smaller.
* WorstAid: In the second game, rubbing snow on frostbitten areas (this "treatment" was actually used until the 1950's) is an option. OUCH!
** The game provides you with many options to treat injury or illness, one of them usually being the ''very worst'' thing you could do. Go ahead. Rub some salt into that gunshot wound.
** How about "exercising" a broken limb?
** Got snakebite? [[SarcasmMode Just run some laps, you'll be fine.]]
** Got Cholera or Dysentery? ADMINISTER EPSOM SALTS!!!
** In Taxman's LP of Oregon Trail II, the Goons told him to (predictably) bring tons and tons of laudanum. Sick with absolutely anything whatsoever? Have some laudanum! Got to love 19th century medicine. For those of you who don't know, laudanum is whiskey diluted with grains of opium, and prior to opium becoming a controlled substance, people actually would take laudanum for their headaches and such. As you might guess, taking what amounts to a whisky/heroin cocktail might fix your headache, but causes some very real other problems.
* YouLoseAtZeroTrust: When playing as an adventurer or trail guide in OTII, your job depends on the morale of the wagon train, which is a reflection of their confidence in you; once it drops below a certain level (even if due to factors outside your control), a bunch of angry people will appear and forcibly demote you. If you're an adventurer, this just means you continue as an ordinary pioneer, but if you're a trail guide, the game is over.
** Morale is largely based on the health of the party, and factors such as success at river crossings and food amounts. If you also refuse to bury your dead, it will plummet.
----
Oregon Trail, now on Facebook! Kill yourself and your real life friends, then message them about how they'll never want to go camping with you.
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