Apple II Bits

Last month, 1990s kids played Oregon Trail. They had nostalgia going for them when they set out from Independence, Missouri. Would a new generation of travelers, untested on the Oregon Trail, find a similar appeal on the road to Williamette Valley?

A year after shooting the original video, Buzzfeed returned to the Oregon Trail with that question by inviting three pairs of teens to play Oregon Trail.

"I have trouble believing this is from the 1990s," said one kid; "it looks prehistoric." Well, sure: the original version was released in 1971, and the Apple II edition from 1985 remained largely unchanged for the 1990 MS-DOS port played here. By that point, the game had nearly 20 years of history behind it. But kids who are teens now likely weren’t alive in the 1990s, so in that sense, the game is "prehistoric".

Even though today’s gamers may be accustomed to more action and less information, I’m still surprised by the response of one teen who survived all the way to Williamette Valley: "It’s pretty underwhelming." Oregon Trail’s graphics aren’t significantly different from the variety of pixel-art retrogames available today, such as VVVVVV, or the reading required by gamebooks, such as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Given that many of these kids had never heard of Oregon Trail, I’d be very curious to know if their impressions would’ve changed had Oregon Trail been presented as a modern game designed with a retro aesthetic.