I was just saying on UnderScoopFire’s latest podcast how I don’t have much love for Oregon Trail, which I consider one of the lamest video games of all time (flame away, Oregon Trail diehards!). I know it’s not really meant to be fun and exciting but educational, and therefore I have no business making fun of it, and you’re right. But I still think it’s lame. Don’t get me wrong, though; I was all about it in elementary school when it served as a legitimate excuse to play video games in class.
Now from The Men Who Wear Many Hats there’s a gruesome, zombie-infested parody remake of the classic game, aptly named “Organ Trail” which is due out soon for iOS and Android devices, as well as Mac and PC.
There was a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year to develop a Director’s Cut of the game, which I’m kind of bummed I missed out on because it had some really sweet-looking rewards. And I love this “totally fake” story behind the game:
Originally developed many years ago as a teaching tool for students, schools across America used the game to prepare children for the impending zombie apocalypse, and dysentery. But what the public doesn’t know is that the released version does not follow the program director’s original design. Before they tried to have him killed, he stole all the code and it has taken him 40 years to program the game in his own vision. Unfortunately no one uses the Apple-II anymore, so he’s putting it on those newfangled phones.
Here are a couple of screenshots from the new Director’s Cut version, which nicely capture that classic Apple-II aesthetic:
I’m definitely going to be picking this one up for my Android phone when it’s released.
By the way, you can play the original Flash-based version of Organ Trail for free online right here.
