Oregon

Oregon is an educational resource-management simulation in which the player leads a wagon party from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon in 1847. The objective is to survive the journey by managing supplies, responding to dangers, and reaching the destination before the onset of winter.

Before departing, the player distributes a limited budget among oxen, food, ammunition, clothing, and miscellaneous supplies. Spending more on oxen allows the wagon to travel faster, while the other resources are needed to feed the party, hunt, endure changing weather, and recover from illness or injury. Additional provisions can sometimes be purchased at forts, although prices are higher than at the beginning of the journey.

Each turn represents approximately two weeks. The player may continue travelling, stop at an available fort, or spend time hunting, then choose whether the party will eat poorly, moderately, or well. Hunting requires ammunition and presents a reaction test: in the original text versions, the player must quickly type a word such as “BANG,” “POW,” or “WHAM,” with faster responses producing better results. Some microcomputer adaptations replace this with a simple graphical shooting sequence.

Random events may include storms, extreme temperatures, wagon damage, fires, illness, injuries, getting lost, or encounters with bandits and other riders. Their consequences depend partly on the player’s supplies and decisions. Poor rations conserve food but increase the risk of sickness, while spending too much time hunting or visiting forts delays the expedition. The party is represented collectively rather than through individually named members, and the game ends if the wagon leader dies or fails to reach Oregon in time.

The original version was created in 1971 for use in an eighth-grade history class. Don Rawitsch reconstructed and revised it for the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) in 1974, and it became available to schools across Minnesota in 1975. Early versions ran entirely through text on teletype terminals. The later microcomputer adaptations retained the same basic simulation while adding features such as a progress map and rudimentary graphical shooting sequences.