| The Oregon Trail | |
|---|---|
&sq=Qlik&lang=&file=File:The_Oregon_Trail_cover.jpg) 1990 MS-DOS cover art | |
| Developer(s) | MECC |
| Publisher(s) | MECC |
| Designer(s) | R. Philip Bouchard |
| Programmer(s) | John Krenz |
| Artist(s) | Charolyn Kapplinger |
| Series | The Oregon Trail |
| Platform(s) | Apple II, MS-DOS, Mac, Windows |
| Release | 1985: Apple II 1990: MS-DOS 1991: Mac 1993: Windows |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
The Oregon Trail is an educational strategy video game developed and published by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC). It was first released in 1985 for the Apple II, with later ports to MS-DOS in 1990, Mac in 1991, and Microsoft Windows in 1993. It was created as a re-imagining of the popular text-based game of the same name, originally created in 1971 and published by MECC in 1975. In the game, the player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon's Willamette Valley via a covered wagon on the Oregon Trail in 1848. Along the trail, the player makes choices about supplies, resource management, and the route, and deals with hunting for food, crossing rivers, and random events such as storms and disease.
The game was designed and created by a team at MECC led by game designer R. Philip Bouchard over a ten-month period from 1984 to 1985. It was intended as a core part of MECC's shift from games and software on mainframe computers accessed by remote terminals to those on home computers, as well as MECC's first game intended primarily for home consumers rather than for schools. It is the first graphical and the most well known entry in the Oregon Trail series, and was MECC's flagship product from release until the company was bought by SoftKey in 1995. Games in the series have since been released in many editions by various developers and publishers, many titled The Oregon Trail. The multiple games in the series are often considered to be iterations on the same title, and they have collectively sold over 65 million copies and have been inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. The game had widespread popularity in schools in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been described by publications such as the Smithsonian magazine as a cultural landmark.