The Oregon Trail (video Game) - Legacy

Legacy

The game was popular among North American elementary school students in the mid 1980s to late 1990s. Most students in the United States and Canada had access to the game at school. MECC followed up on the success of The Oregon Trail with similar titles such as The Yukon Trail and The Amazon Trail. The original title has been re-released many times, for different platforms and on different media; it is currently up to the fifth edition.

The phrase "You have died of dysentery" has been popularized on T-shirts and other promotional merchandise.

In 2007, Thule corporation created Thule Trail as a promotional tool. It changed the starting location to Chicago, Illinois, the destination to the "Atlantis Music Festival" in Santa Barbara, California, wildlife to snacks, and made other modern adjustments. In 2008, the band Fall Out Boy released a similarly altered version of the game, "Fall Out Boy Trail," to promote the release of the Folie à Deux.

The game resurfaced in 2008 when Gameloft created an updated version for cell phones. A new release for the iPhone and iPod Touch is also available from Gameloft. The game went live in the iTunes App Store on March 11, 2009. On January 7, 2010, the Palm webOS version was released to the Palm App Catalog. On November 11, 2010, an Xbox Live version was released on Windows Phone 7.

The cell phone version of the game is similar to the original, but varies in that the player can choose one of three different wagons: A basic wagon, a prairie schooner or a Conestoga Wagon. The player can also choose to become a banker, a carpenter, or a farmer, each of which has unique benefits. Unlike the computer version of the game, players in the iPhone and iPod Touch version do not need to buy guns and bullets. The game has received a major update, which had the player using trading and crafting to upgrade their wagon, buy food, and cure ailments.

On December 28, 2009, a Nintendo DSi DSiWare version of the game was released in North America.

On February 2, 2011, a new version of Oregon Trail was released on the social networking site Facebook. The rights for this version were later bought up by SpeedDate.com, which replaced the game with an online dating application.

In 2012, a parody called "The Organ Trail" was released by the Men Who Wear Many Hats for browsers, iOS, and Android, with the setting changed to human survivors fleeing a zombie apocalypse.