Blessed are you who remember playing Oregon Trail in elementary school, that fun little game where you help the naive travel across the U.S. in search of the great land of of the Northwest. The difficulty of course lied in staying alive. Your traveling party would run out of food if you were not smart about bartering or monitoring supplies. Then there was the difficulty of shooting for food. I could never quite shoot enough deer to survive the trek. And then if starvation didn't get you, cholera or dysentery would. Ah the fun of education.I have a very vivid memory of sitting at the one computer in Mr. Philips' fourth grade classroom at Fullerton IV playing Oregon Trail. It was near the end of the day because it was dark outside and I remember watching the raindrops drip down the reflection of our milk-carton bean sprout experiments in the window (mine never grew, but that's another story). I was trying to shoot those darn deer and I remember thinking, "I wonder if this is how it looks when dad goes hunting." I think that is so funny now as it is clear that five or six four point bucks don't just prance gingerly in front of my dad as he sits patiently in a clearing. But in my head, the game seemed real enough to pose the question.
Now, years later (never mind how many) I co-own a company that develops online applications for social networking sites and analyzes complex algorithms to try to get a marketing edge. I guess the game is a little reminder that where we are now technologically is going to look so old in just a short amount of time. But I hope it will still seem fun and interesting.
It is exciting news to find out that this fun-loving game will soon be available as an app for the iPhone. Supposedly on February 28 you will be able to download this little gem from the app store.
I can't wait to try my hand at the journey again.
Check out screen shots from the iPhone version of the game.
