The Oregon Trail (2021) [+]
May 27 2024
In The Oregon Trail you lead a party of four characters from Kansas to Oregon during the mid-1800's. You start with an empty wagon and cash to purchase supplies (there are three bundles so you have an effective setup for generic, hunting or fishing).
The journey is in five chapters, each with about half a dozen locations. When you journey to the next location you are presented with a map that has points and trails and you will generally hit four or so points before reaching the next location. Each point has a feature or may be unknown so you can kind of plan on hitting specific points in order to hunt, rest, gather herbs, etc.
As you move to a point there will be one random encounter. Many encounters are part of subplots where you meet the same people and kind of follow along their story. As you move along you use up supplies (there are three food consumption and three speed settings), things break down and repairing takes up supplies, and you gain supplies by hunting/fishing or finding stuff or meeting people.
Meanwhile your four characters have four tracking attributes (health, morale, stamina, hygiene) that you need to maintain high, four social attributes (loyalty, attitude, composure, wit) that help when talking to people, and four skills (shooting, carpentry, wayfinding, medical) used during the journey. Social and Skills are unknown at start and you learn their scores by having a character try the skill or if you stop and tell stories. Characters also have one or more advantages or disadvantages such as Funny (occasionally tells a joke that raises party morale) or Shy (won't bargain with traders).
It's basically a resource management game. Balance what you can carry in the wagon. At each location you can talk to people and trade for stuff (which is usually one item for another and rarely advantageous). At the end of each chapter you arrive at a fort or city where you can both trade and buy supplies with money (though supplies get more expensive as you go along). My strategy is to concentrate on fishing -- you can get 75 to 100 lbs of fish per fishing run which (with bargaining) you can sell for $2 per lb and you build up quite a bit of money that way.
Graphics are nice -- kind of 16-bit retro style. There is a soundtrack which is pleasant. There are different journeys you can take, for example The California Trail which is a journey to Sutter's Mill during the Gold Rush. Three difficulty levels, though the lowest is designed for sight-seeing not danger.
The full journey is several hours of play time and with two difficulty levels and different characters you can get a fair amount of play. The other journeys give variety and can be hard (e.g. Bitter Winter is one chapter where you start with one person and almost no supplies and need to find the other three party members who will all be fairly injured). So if you like the format there can be several dozen hours of game play.
Personally I did The Oregon Trail three times, Bitter Winter, and The California Trail. Probably 15 hours and that's enough for now. Fairly worth it on Apple Arcade maybe not worth $30 on Steam.
The journey is in five chapters, each with about half a dozen locations. When you journey to the next location you are presented with a map that has points and trails and you will generally hit four or so points before reaching the next location. Each point has a feature or may be unknown so you can kind of plan on hitting specific points in order to hunt, rest, gather herbs, etc.
As you move to a point there will be one random encounter. Many encounters are part of subplots where you meet the same people and kind of follow along their story. As you move along you use up supplies (there are three food consumption and three speed settings), things break down and repairing takes up supplies, and you gain supplies by hunting/fishing or finding stuff or meeting people.
Meanwhile your four characters have four tracking attributes (health, morale, stamina, hygiene) that you need to maintain high, four social attributes (loyalty, attitude, composure, wit) that help when talking to people, and four skills (shooting, carpentry, wayfinding, medical) used during the journey. Social and Skills are unknown at start and you learn their scores by having a character try the skill or if you stop and tell stories. Characters also have one or more advantages or disadvantages such as Funny (occasionally tells a joke that raises party morale) or Shy (won't bargain with traders).
It's basically a resource management game. Balance what you can carry in the wagon. At each location you can talk to people and trade for stuff (which is usually one item for another and rarely advantageous). At the end of each chapter you arrive at a fort or city where you can both trade and buy supplies with money (though supplies get more expensive as you go along). My strategy is to concentrate on fishing -- you can get 75 to 100 lbs of fish per fishing run which (with bargaining) you can sell for $2 per lb and you build up quite a bit of money that way.
Graphics are nice -- kind of 16-bit retro style. There is a soundtrack which is pleasant. There are different journeys you can take, for example The California Trail which is a journey to Sutter's Mill during the Gold Rush. Three difficulty levels, though the lowest is designed for sight-seeing not danger.
The full journey is several hours of play time and with two difficulty levels and different characters you can get a fair amount of play. The other journeys give variety and can be hard (e.g. Bitter Winter is one chapter where you start with one person and almost no supplies and need to find the other three party members who will all be fairly injured). So if you like the format there can be several dozen hours of game play.
Personally I did The Oregon Trail three times, Bitter Winter, and The California Trail. Probably 15 hours and that's enough for now. Fairly worth it on Apple Arcade maybe not worth $30 on Steam.