This overly-long blog post offers my assessment of the 1980s/1990s computer game “Oregon Trail” as a digital storytelling device.
As a child of the 1980s, I couldn’t help but choose the “Oregon Trail” computer game to analyze as a digital narrative for class. According to media scholar Bryan Alexander, digital storytelling is simply telling a story using digital technology. In his book, The New Digital Storytelling: Creating Narratives with New Media, Alexander analyzes a variety of digital technologies and the ways that they can be used to tell stories, including video games. He argues that effective games immerse the player into the world of the game through sight and sound, enable the player to interact with the world, and enable the player to play within a narrative. Most of the games that Alexander examines are more recent Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) and small “app”-style or social network games. However, I think it is useful to apply Alexander’s analysis to a “pioneer” computer game (pun intended) to see how older games measure up to a 21st century model of a good digital narrative.
(MECC) introduced the first “Oregon Trail” game to Minnesota schoolchildren (check out this story from the Twin City’s Citypages for more on the history of the game.) The first version of the game that I remember playing was the six-color DOS version in the 1980s (the one where you could hold down the space bar to shoot a continuous steam of bullets at an unsuspecting squirrel). In the early 1990s, MECC updated the game and re-released it as “Oregon Trail Deluxe.” This is the version I will analyze, as the sights and sounds of the game have been permanently etched into my brain.
Oregon Trail represents a simple yet effective digital storytelling device. The player becomes an emigrant on the Oregon Trail, traveling from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Game play begins with the player creating a main character and family and selecting an occupation for that main character. Occupations range from doctor to farmer, each of which has a certain amount of money to spend on supplies. Next, players purchase oxen and supplies and choose which month to leave Missouri. Then you’re on your way!
While certainly primitive by today’s standards, the game interface nonetheless attempts to provide an immersive environment. The screen features an image along the top third of the page of a wagon moving along the trail (although it ends up looking as if the wagon is standing still and the scenery is moving behind it). The scenery changes as the player travels, from green grassy plains, to dry brown desert, to mountainous landscapes. The player’s wagon automatically stops at key landmarks and forts along the route, giving players the option to visit the site to rest, talk to others, or buy supplies. A different period song is played upon arrival at each landmark. While the song is very simple and sounds terrible (as it is played through the computer’s internal speakers), it nonetheless offers an aural component to the game’s environment. The rest of the play screen is designed to look like a diary and provides the vital statistics for the player’s wagon, including the health status of each family member and the quantity of supplies (pounds of food and number of bullets being key statistics). The game also offers a map so players can visualize where they are in the United States and track their progress. The diary automatically records basic information on the day’s activities (you decided to hunt and bought back 100 pounds of food, you traveled 150 miles, etc.). Players have the option to write their own additional diary entries, providing the opportunity to further engage with the narrative aspect of the game.
While the game offers few choices about how to move between Missouri and Oregon, players are given opportunities to interact with the environment. Sometimes, attempting to mirror real life, the environment interacts with you, as when your wagon tips over crossing a river, or a thief steals two wagon axles, or Edna dies of dysentery. But, at any time throughout game play, players may choose to trade with other emigrants (the computer) or hunt. These options provide a way for players to obtain necessary food and supplies without purchasing them at a fort.
The hunting mini-game pits a player’s patience against the computer. The screen changes to an open landscape with a few rocks and trees. Various animals appear on the screen, running across the screen or darting around, and the player has a certain amount of time to shoot them. Animals range from squirrels, rabbits, deer, antelope, elk, bear, and bison, depending on your location on the trail. Each animal moves at a different speed, and thus is more or less difficult to hunt. Hunting is limited by the number of bullets you have, the amount of space you have in your wagon for food, and the number of pounds of meat you can carry back to your wagon (always 200). This is the most interactive aspect of the game, and probably the part that people who played it 20 years ago remember the most.
The basic trail narrative is fairly rigid except for two forks in the road where players are allowed to choose which way to go. The first, whether to go to Fort Bridger or take a shortcut, is pretty unimportant. The final choice is when you get to the Oregon territory and have to choose whether to take an overland toll road to the Willamette Valley or raft down the Columbia River. Although the Columbia River is extremely simplified for game play (there’s no Celilo Falls to contend with), the option to raft down the river provides one of the most challenging aspects of game play. Using the mouse or arrow keys, players must guide their raft along the fast-moving river, dodging rocks that appear along the way. If you succeed, or once you’ve made your way along the Barlow Toll road, you reach the Willamette Valley and win!
So how well does Oregon Trail tell a story? Oregon Trail does provide a good digital narrative. It offers all of the components that Alexander argues makes for a good digital narrative. It immerses the player into the world of the game through sight and sound – as seen in the changing landscapes, images of forts and landmarks, and songs. It enables the player to interact with the world – through purchasing supplies, trading with others, talking with others, and hunting. It enables the player to play within a narrative – the game offers a clear storyline of emigrating to Oregon, but players create the characters and have some agency in determining the activities of their characters along the route. Of course being from 1992, Oregon Trail does not offer the same level of immersive or interactive experience as modern games, but it still works.