After all these years of cloudy memories, I finally found it! I can live again!
Back in the 80's
When I was busy trying to be an 80's kid, my life was always being interrupted and I was forced to go to school.
School wasn't the worst thing that could happen to me though. I learned a lot, especially in computer class. I'm not sure if the teacher knew much about computers though. Knowing how to insert a flopping disk into the correct slot was probably the full extent of her knowledge. She knew how to type, but at the time, we were just dumb kids who could barely read. Computer class meant we were either going to play Number Munchers, a game about munching numbers, or we'd be treated to a round of...
Oregon Trail
Recently, I discovered many old computer games from my youth have been abandoned. Nobody wants to make money by selling their classic software anymore, so anyone can play for free. I'll link you all to the website later. Don't worry either, this is all legal now. We're free!
I won't tell you what the game is about, because that will ruin the surprise. I have a better idea anyway.
Let's Play Oregon Trail!
Intense title screen. I selected option one.
Yeah, I think those names should suffice.
March is too cold. April it is!
Sounds like good advice.
...but I spent it all anyway. It's better to be prepared for anything.
Thank you, Captain Obvious!
April Fool's Day, but I'm no fool!Ready Maw! We'll be in Oregon in no time! I know what I'm doing!
...but I'm warning you kids! Go easy on the food!
And we're off. Don't be falling off the back now! I ain't stopping for nothing!
Damn kids! We didn't even get ten feet down the road! Behave!
Making great time! Only took one week to get here. ...but how in the hell do we cross?
Oh be quiet Maw! It's not too deep! I know what I'm doing!
See Maw! Almost there! Too deep, pfff!
Oh be quiet Maw! Three kids was too many mouths to feed anyway!
Shut up Maw! I can hunt for food. We's wild people now!
Pew! Pew! Pew! Amerikuh!
Be quiet Maw! I ain't no weakling.Maybe if you got off your fat ass and helped, things could be different around here!
Yup! Just what I needed! Kids! Get out there and help push the wagon!
This one looks easy! Looks like a nice place to rest too, but we ain't got time!
Be quiet Maw. I'll do inventory when we get outta here.
Lord help me Jesus! I'll go hunting once we get to Fort Kearney.I know I only got one shot left Maw! Don't make me use it on you!
Maw! Get on over here and stop flirtin' with the locals!
You better not run off with him while I'm out huntin'.
He walked right up to me Maw, so I blasted him! We's eatin' good now!Let's get back to the trail!
Oh be quiet Maw! I thought I told you to leave your damn cramps back in Independence!
Free at last! Yee-haw!
See kids, I told you Maw was cursed! Things is lookin' up now!
Ain't it beautiful, kids! You keep staring, I'm going go find us some food.
Kids! Success! Some pervert wanted Maw's old dress and gave us some grub for it!
Everybody inside? Let's go!
Oh quit your whining back there! I'm trying to drive!
Go pick the berries boy! Hurry up! Paw needs a rest anyway.
Look, kids! Someone didn't make it! Let's go have us a look-see!
What kind of crazy Offspring would write that on a tombstone? Oh well, let's get going.
Well, we made it. You kids stay here. I'll go looking for supplies.
See that, kids! They say there's a sucker born every minute!
I thought I told you two to be quiet! Don't make me come back there!
You'll be fine! Be a man!
Oh! Just cuz he's sick, you gotta be sick too, huh! Damn kids!
What a view! Next stop, South Pass.
Hello there! Do you have anything you'd like to trade? What! No, sorry, the kid isn't for sale.
Better have a look at the map!
Well... if the map is accurate, I'd be an idiot to choose the other trail.
I hate rivers... Kids! We're floating across this time!
Yes I know I should have done that before! Sit down and be quiet!Damn kids think they know everything.
You feeling good back there? Good! Go pick them berries!
See kids! That's how a normal family acts. Let's get going.
Not again! Other Kid! Get out there and push!
Say again! What? I can't seem to hear you! Keep pushing! Almost there!
No time to rest! Let's get moving.
Not another one! Son! It's your turn to push!
Suck it up buttercup! We're almost there!
Okay, you can rest now. The friendly Indian told me this river is very easy to float across.
Float it across they said. It'll be easy they said.
Well Son. We're going commando. Get used to it.
Son... are you made out of glass? What is your major malfunction!
Why didn't you just shoot me! Ahhhhhh!
Well hello there. We have three seats available. Would you like to come to Oregon with us?"Stay away from the strange man, dear."
Push harder Son! Mush! Mush! Mush!
I heard you the first time!
Just kill me already!
See! I told you we'd reach the mountains before you die!
I told him he'd see the mountains before he died.
It's just a scratch! I'll be fine! I'm not even stopping here. The place smells of problems.
Pure skill. If only my dead family could see me now.
Paw made it! Now to just float down this river to my new home!
Just like whitewater rafting! Please don't hit a rock. Please don't hit a rock!
Success! I made it to Oregon! Paw is an American hero!
Double points! I'm the best!
Screw you top ten jerks! I nearly died for this!
Rage quit!
In Conclusion
Oregon Trail was the first video game I took a shining to. It's still a good game. I can enjoy it, if I try hard enough. The version I played as a kid was available for the Apple II and produced in 1985 by a company known as Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). The version I played above came out some time after that, but it's still the same game that I remember.
Here is a link if you would like to try it out. The game plays inside the web browser.
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990
There are also many other old DOS games available to play, for free. Clicking this image will lead you straight to the source of this retro smorgasbord of old awesomeness. If that's your thing, please, do enjoy.
I do hope some of you were able to enjoy this. I do let my inner nerd show from time to time. I guess this was one of those occasions. I had fun.
Have a great day!
All images seen here were screenshots from the linked source. 
"Be quiet, Maw!"
Follow @nonameslefttouse [email protected]
I also played that on an Apple II in school.
Yup, same here. I think I can remember that part about my early days more than I can remember the math class.
This post really triggered my nostalgia
I lost weeks of my life trying to beat this game as a child, those were some great weeks!
It was so much harder as a kid! This play through didn't take me long at all. As you can see though, I barely passed the game. It was my first go at it though!
Nostalgia.. Wow. I remember playing this grade back in grade school along with the Yukon Trail. I spent way to much time playing both of those games!
Yukon trail? I don't think I've played that one. I bet it's up on the site I linked though. Maybe I'll check it out later.
I am pretty sure they were created by the same company.
I think MECC was one of the big names back then.
I played this on My Commodore 64 at home...
You were one of the lucky kids then! Some weekends I was tempted to break in to the school just to play this game!
Oh how I remember this, we fought over this game at school. He who finished their daily work first got the computer with this one and only game on it.
To add to what I've learned today... I did not realize so many schools also had this game. I thought I was special! It seems all the schools were the same. I remember one kid wasn't allowed to play because of the "violence" involved. I'm starting to think he might be the only one who didn't play this!
The commentary was superb.
Thank you for the laughs
Thanks a lot assh... I mean @klye! This was fun to put together. I don't normally write about games nor do I write reviews of any kind, so I had to add in my unique flavour to make it mine. I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the commentary. I still laugh when I go back and read it. Good times!
Some @asshole stole all my oxen and condemned my wagon party to death on my playthrough tonight.
Someone should flag that asshole and force him to eat raw squirrel!
Holy crap this must have taken forever and annoying to put together...(that sounds like it wasn't worded correctly but it somehow works so I'm leaving it, haha!) I'm glad you got compensated, after the ordeal of getting your whole family killed. At least you got son to the mountains.
You left a link, oh God, there is nothing I like better than awful graphic old video games. That is not sarcasm, that is fact, I have an atari and I play it merrily.
This took way too much time to put together! ...but it was a labor of love. As soon as I found the website and realized everything was abandoned, I knew exactly what I'd be writing about next. I didn't plan the outcome of the story though. The game gods graciously gifted the gags. I could not have planned it any better. I have no idea how I even managed to beat the game! This was a lot of fun though and I might do something like this again in the future. I enjoy these old games as well.
I already put the link in another tab....my eye keeps drifting to it, haha, I know if I get started I will be at it forever, especially if I suck and die over and over. I'm glad you had fun, it was fun to read your play by play ;)
I'm about to start round two! Gotta beat that score.
I would send you a picture of my amazing score board...except I have not yet seen a scoreboard because 1)Everything was going great, so of course Girl Child got lost for four days and I should have left her scrawny ass out there because she was found only to die of exhaustion after thoroughly screwing the time table 2) stopped to rest for This Kid and That Kid (and yes, they were named in your honor that smells like pooh this time around, since it is entirely your fault that I am playing this aggravating as piss game so at least I can take comfort in watching your namesakes suffer and die of every awful plague known to man) every time they got cholera, fever, dysentery, and snake bites to preserve their health-and I should have let them die right away because they died of measles and exhaustion anyway after thoroughly screwing up the time table 3) three oxen ran off and cost us three days because they are big dumb animals who we called Nonames1, 2, and 3 and of course they THOROUGHLY SCREWED UP THE TIME TABLE causing us to freeze to death 4)Pa couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with that shotgun unless there was another barn opposite of where he meant to shoot....stupid PA!!!
RAGE QUIT
...until tomorrow, damn it.
(This comment was meant to be funny, I didn't actually name them this kid and that kid-though the thought of it does make me smile evilly, and even though I totally SUCK, it's still fun, lol)
I guess it would be a bad time to mention how this game was for... children?
~evil laugh
Sidenote: I don't normally vote so deep in the conversations because it screws up the flow, but damn, this comment cracked me up. Sounds like an acceptable rage quit to me!
Yankee doodle went to town...and drove me batshit crazy with that music, thank god for mute!
It was perfect, they all died but ma...she was footloose and fancy free...XX Crap, stupid game!
Survive a snake bite, a broken arm, a fever, and then die of dysentery??? Bullshit.
Um, pa's hunting skills are awesome...lots of circles and he sure got that tree! He was unable to get any food and he died. Of embarrassment I'm assuming since they gave no reason.
I wish I knew how to screenshot (shock that I wouldn't know, as skilled as I am at such things) because I had something way better to show than a scoreboard, I had epitaphs. They went like this--1)crap 2)Crap! 3)CRAP!!!!! 4)STUPID PA!!!
I also wish I could have recorded how pa thought hunting meant doing a demented version of the hokey pokey and the funky chicken. After which he died of exhaustion.
At least you're having fun! I think I just triggered a troll...
How?
I noticed my feed was full of spam, so I unfollowed the person and let them know why. It didn't take long for me to realize this user was a troll, for they threw a hissy fit which escalated into... and I quote:
So I got a chuckle and flagged them because they said it about twenty times, copy/paste style. Oh well...
I'm sure you're very worried...lol, I hope they come to your post, we can have ourselves a flag fest!
They already flagged about ten of my posts, while on their blog talking about how people who do that sort of thing are inhumane or something like that.
Normally I don't engage these people. Yesterday someone was busy bashing the platform, calling it BS, so I told them they're wrong. I should probably just go back to keeping my mouth shut, but these people are starting to annoy me with their whining.
Ha, sometimes you have to unleash. Do they have any clout?
Nope. It's just someone possibly related to the other spammer/flagger stuff.
I used to love Oregon Trail as a kid. This was hilarious. It made me laugh multiple times. (Notably, "MAW HAS DIED. 'Free at last! Yee-haw!'") Subscribing.
I can finally play this game without a teacher telling me to stop, some other kid whining about not getting a turn, or a damn bell ringing my life away! I loved it too and I just finished another round. I'll think that will be enough for now though. I'm happy to hear you enjoyed this and got a few laughs as well. This was a lot of fun to put together. Thanks for following as well! I truly appreciate that.