The Oregon Trail

6 min readMar 3, 2021

Critique Blog — Post 2

Game Metadata

Game Name: The Oregon Trail

Designer/Developer: Don Rawitsch, Bil Heinemann, and Paul Dienberger. Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC)

Platform: Computer: Browser (Emulator)

High-level instructional goal: To understand and describe an authentic experience of settlers traveling on the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s.

Link to Game: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990

Learning Objectives

With regards to prerequisite knowledge, The Oregon Trail requires a handful of basic skills. The player will need to be able to read as well as complete some basic math in order to participate. From a technical standpoint, they will simply need the ability to utilize a computer keyboard. As the goal of the player is to successfully navigate the length of the Oregon Trail in the setting of the mid-1800s, having a general understanding about living and travel conditions during that time period (though not required) would be beneficial to the player and is likely to improve decision making throughout the game.

The primary learning objective is for the player to be able to understand and describe an accurate experience of settlers traveling on the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s. As such, the learned experience (and ultimately the primary learning objective) may also include the ability to identify all or part of the Oregon Trail and its corresponding landmarks, the weather and terrain challenges and settlers encountered during that time period (some especially hard due to the modes of transportation which the player also learns about), and the day to day tasks and struggles they faced along their journey such as managing food, money, and the health of their companions. All of which lead to a better understanding of the significance that the Oregon Trail had on the expansion to the west, the experience settlers had trying to get there, and ultimately American history.

From a more general perspective, this game provides a great opportunity for players to practice their problem solving skills and their ability to make decisions based on the surrounding context and details of the situation.

Map of the Oregon Trail from which the player’s experience is drawn

Game Elements

The Oregon Trail is based upon the narrative of a pioneer (the player) who is leading their five family members across the United States along the trail. Prior to departure, they have a limited amount of money that they must budget for everything from oxen and replacement wagon parts, to food and clothing for each member of the family. The game has three difficulty settings for the player to choose from (banker, carpenter, farmer) which are associated with varying budgets and point bonuses.

As the player follows the provided map of the trail, they and their traveling companions will face the challenging weather and terrain, battle injury and sickness, while managing food supplies and finances. As the leader of their family and friends, the player is responsible for the well-being of all. Via a list of actionable items, they will enter the number that corresponds with their choice, determine what and when supplies will be purchased and/or bartered for, how food should be rationed (including when to hunt and if the hunt is successful), how to navigate difficult terrain, as well as the pace of travel and resting opportunities. The hunting portion specifically is potentially the most complex element of the game, as the player is able to move the character around the screen in an effort to hunt animals for food.

A player hunting for food based on and the instructions provided

Do we ford the river or pay for the ferry? Should we trade an ox for spare wagon parts? Should we brave the rainy weather or rest until the sun returns? Would it be useful to talk to another person to see what information we may acquire about the lands they will face ahead? What is important to spend the limited budget on, and what can the family do without? These are all examples of things that the lead player may encounter on their journey. It is also within these examples, that we can identify the miniature challenges built into the game. With a limited amount of information, and another small list of actionable items, the player can approach the daunting task of completing the trail with focused attention and motivation to continue moving forward. If the player is able to survive the travel, they will receive a final point score (and pride, so much pride) for their efforts.

Since its inception, The Oregon Trail collection has expanded to include card games, board games, Wii and 3DS friendly versions, in addition to multiple editions of the original browser based game.

Learning Principles

One of the most well known educational games ever made, The Oregon Trail with no surprise incorporates a number of learning principles. To begin with the sense-making principles, we can look at the anchored learning aspect of the game. The challenges and scenarios that The Oregon Trail participants are placed in are based off of the real-life experiences of pioneers in the mid-1800s and the factual challenges that they faced. It also utilizes spatial contiguity throughout the course of the game as images are closely accompanied by descriptive text further outlining the media.

Looking at the category of memory/fluency principles, we can see how the game has used segmenting to break down the material into more digestible chunks. For example, as the player travels along the trail, they reach multiple river crossings. In this mini-challenge, the player learns about the methods utilized to cross safely: fording the river, floating, trading goods with Native Americans for help, or paying to take a ferry in some cases. The creators have also designed the game so that feedback plays a significant role in the course of the game. The health of the player’s travel companions can be directly affected by the pace, ration of food, and amount of rest allowed by the leader.

Throughout the game, The Oregon Trail practices guided attention quite well, in the form of status updates, the information pop-ups, as well as the text provided within the mini-challenges (for example when ‘talking to people’. Looking again at the example of travel companion health, we find that an indication a family member is suffering from poor health for example, may prompt the player to change the pace of their traveling, increase the amount of rations, or rest until health has improved. This also demonstrates the limited number of resources that pioneers traveling during this time had at their disposal. All of these mini-challenges could be looked at as small instructional units, through which we see the full picture of the journey connect together piece by piece (linking).

Overall Critique

Even 20 years later, I still remember that feeling of walking into computer class, seeing The Oregon Trail in place of our usual typing exercises, and feeling like we hit the jackpot. So, I must admit that the reason I initially chose The Oregon Trail was pure nostalgia. Little did I know how ingrained the experiences of mid-1800 settlers would be in my mind nearly 20 years later. (Dysentery, am I right?!)

The Oregon Trail is an effective demonstration of how to balance instructional content and the game mechanics itself. Because of this, the game works well. The player cannot successfully traverse the challenges of the game in ignorance of the lessons learned from history and without acknowledging the real-life experiences of the early pioneers.. Even with it’s simplistic action menu, it remains challenging and engaging to so many.

That being said, I do think it’s important to recognize the bias in the narrative of the game. The main player is a white, male settler and the role of women, Native Americans, and others is largely absent. It paints a rather rose colored glass version of the journey west. While looking through the lense of a children’s game, I understand why these decisions were made, it does offer a very incomplete picture by omitting so many of the less flattering details of violence, politics, and racism that marred that time period.