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Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

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Re: Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

#31

Post by daveslash »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #28
daveslash wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re>> "It was... really easy" Says the guy posting on Hacker News in the year 2022. Tell that to my 6 year old self in 1990 who didn't have a computer at home and only used a computer once a week for an hour during "computer lab" time and had to share with 2 other kids equally as dumb as myself on some old Tandy computer. Personally, I much preferred Lemmings .

Eh. Yeah sure things are hard for kids who aren't very good at figuring out basic concepts. But a lot of games from that era were actually genuinely really hard and still are. I just thought this one was supposed to be a really tough game.

Haha, yes. I was being a bit snarky, I apologize if that didn't quite come through. You are completely right; it is a very easy game. I went back and played it through about 5 or 6 years ago and was surprised by how easy it was compared to my memory. I suspect that many people who played it as ankle-biters themselves probably have a skewed memory of its difficulty.

Many of the difficult games from that era were game games ~ they were difficult be design, to be brain teasers. The Oregon Trail, by comparison, falls into the educational games specifically aimed at lower-elementary school. Similar games from my school's weekly computer lab...

- Treasure Mountain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HAxdTacsgQ

- Reader Rabbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re-3D8TSYd8

- Mixed Up Mother Goose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r28woUwTib0

- Where In The World is Carmen San Diego https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL-13NZAXuE

Re: Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

#32

Post by spywaregorilla »

mattkrause wrote: post #30
spywaregorilla wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree if you were allowed to leave once you collected all the meat you could carry.

That mattered less (mostly) when you were six and the alternatives were Mavis Beacon or a multiplication worksheet :-)

I remember racing to complete multiplication worksheets for candy prizes. They were super fun.

Re: Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

#33

Post by flanbiscuit »

ianbicking wrote: post #15

I picked up a handheld version [1] for like $10 on sale and was surprised that it was actually an excellent rendition. Then I also picked up a card game [2] at a thrift store and it was one of the worst games I have ever attempted to play, literally unwinnable. Oddly the reviews are good, which definitely makes me doubt reviews. (Exploding Kittens also gets great reviews and every game of theirs that I've played is t…

My girlfriend just picked up the Carmen Sandiego one for around US$ 13 at HomeGoods Store, they are selling for $40+ on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Fun-Sandiego-Handheld-Electroni...

I really want to take it apart and see what's inside it, but it works great and I don't want to mess it up.

Re: Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

#37

Post by mikewarot »

Ok, having really gotten into optimizing games in the years since Long Covid took me out of the labor pool. (I played universal paperclips 100 times)

It took dying a few times to finally get over my class resentment and start as a Banker (ewwww) instead of a nice honest farmer. It's better, but not a guarantee of success.

Re: Play MSDOS Oregon Trail 1990 on archive.org

#38

Post by selimthegrim »

daveslash wrote: post #31
spywaregorilla wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. Yeah sure things are hard for kids who aren't very good at figuring out basic concepts. But a lot of games from that era were actually genuinely really hard and still are. I just thought this one was supposed to be a really tough game.

Haha, yes. I was being a bit snarky, I apologize if that didn't quite come through. You are completely right; it is a very easy game. I went back and played it through about 5 or 6 years ago and was surprised by how easy it was compared to my memory . I suspect that many people who played it as ankle-biters themselves probably have a skewed memory of its difficulty. Many of the difficult games from that era were game…

I played Mixed Up Mother Goose as a child and later took a job at the same company as one of the developers (not Sierra or Mattel). It was kind of disorienting.
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