Oregon Trail

By: Ashten Elliott


In the mid-1800s thousands of people began their journey on the 2000 mile long path across the country known as the Oregon trail many would die on this trail on their way to find their fortunes out west so in 1971 Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger created a videogame about it. Originally the game was produced in 1974 the Minnesota educational computing consortium. The game was designed to teach kids about the historical event in game form. The game has been remade many times over the years and has been on everything from the macintosh to the Wii, within ten years of its release the game had made ten million dollars and made up one-third of Mecc’s annual revenue. The game involves you getting through random events and planning ahead in order to reach Oregon without everyone in your party dying, the game can be really nice about this or absolutely brutal ending you run in a matter of minutes. So with a game this popular and this luck-based, it stands to reason that there would be a card game based on it, I present to you Oregon Trail the card game. In 2016 Pressman toys took the classic game and made a version for those who prefer their games in card form. The game comes with three types of cards, Trail cards that build the trail and allow you to continue along it, supply cards that are randomly dealt cards that allow you to fix calamities that will kill you if not resolved. The game begins once every player has been dealt five trail cards and supply cards based on how many people are playing. The first player places a trail card that begins the game, unlike most other games this game is about working together not working against each other so when that first card causes a calamity everyone can use supply cards to resolve the problem. Almost every trail card will cause a calamity most can be fixed while a certain amount of cards will cause instant death to that player, the other trail cards require the roll of a dice to determine if you cross a river or loose supplies and or die in the water. The cycle of playing trail cards and resolving calamities continues until you reach your destination where that cycle repeats seven more times until the end of the game. The game sounds very tedious but can actually be really fun to play with friends thanks to its gameplay leaning heavily towards luck, so you could be just hanging out one second when suddenly you die of dysentery. Overall the game is fun if you have a few friends to play with, so if you’re in the market for a game to play with friends or maybe you really wanted a card game of the Oregon trail this game is the one for you.