13 Dead End Drive

Do you enjoy the murder mystery of Clue but yearn for the impossible assembly of Mousetrap? Have you ever said to yourself, why, I really enjoy this board game but I find the simple construction a bit lacking? Perhaps you fancy yourself the type who enjoys poring over 248-step instruction manuals, wishing for more detailed descriptions?

For some people, the journey is more important than the destination. These are the people you see out there now as adults scouring Ikea for the most complicated Splorgerfläts and Hoüfengloubers they can find, if only for the extensive diagrammed wordless instruction packets. They are still out there, looking for their next cheap assembly-induced thrill.

Who says children's games need to be simple? I say sucks to your Hi-Ho Cherry-O and Candyland. I'm talking about something here for our die-hard fans of never-ending, plot-twisting, perpetual board games like Monopoly or Risk. Something that comes with an instructional manual so long that it will make your eyes cross and your brain go numb. Now, if only there was a board game somewhere out there that was equally complicated to the aforementioned interminable bemusement but could be completed in full in roughly a quarter of the time.

13 Dead End Drive was one of these games, and it was gloriously, inimitably complex. In fact, it often required a set-up time nearly as long as the average gameplay. For patient children, however, there was great payoff. For those of us persistent enough to make it through the instruction novella, there was a hefty reward of secret passageways, booby traps, and the aspiration of hanging your character's portrait over the coveted mansion mantelplace.




There's nothing like a children's game with honesty. Kids have all sorts of day-to-day educational exposure from which to garner important if somewhat inapplicable moral lessons. Sometimes, what kids really need is the brutal truth about the way our world works. 13 Dead End Drive was able to fill that void of cynical realism for the under-12 set. The premise of the game centered around a wealthy heirless woman named Agatha whose death had prompted all those who knew her to emerge from the woodwork in hopes of getting their money-grubbing paws on her fortune. Why sugarcoat it? Kids should know it's a cold, cruel world out there, and if they can just obtain the good favor of a wealthy recluse they can undeservedly inherit her hard-earned cash. Nothing wrong with that, right?


For those of you who do not remember the game in all its complexities, I seek to remind you of its intricacies with the following board set-up diagram:



Still not convinced? Here are a couple of close-ups:



If you can't deduce the major aims of the game from those diagrams alone, here's a brief rundown. I'll try to keep it short to keep your head from spinning. At the start of the game, each player picks several cards featuring their assumed character identities. In a large gilt frame above the mansion's fireplace hangs an ever-changing painting featuring the likeness of one of Aunt Agatha's favorites to inherit her millions. While escaping the mansion with one of your characters' portraits displayed in the frame was a way to win and end the game, during the regular course of play it generally meant that everyone else was trying to kill you. Each player could move the game piece of his or her choosing on a given turn, regardless of to whom that character actually belonged. While there are numerous ways in which to emerge victorious, in its most simplified version you were trying to get your character out of this deathtrap safely while displayed as the favorite, end as the sole living potential heir, or go the more honest route and let the detective sort it out while your picture was in the top spot.

Sound confusing? Certainly! Did your eyes glaze over as you found yourself skimming and scrolling down past even that most concise of explanations of the game's rules? Of course! Now, imagine instructions five times as long and twelve times as complex as the preceding paragraph. Also, it was directed at children 8-12. We can only assume that as children, we had far more perseverance and commitment to finish the job than as lazy, web-browsing adults.

It was certainly cool (if a tad cruel) to beam your opponent's game piece on the head with a falling chandelier or a faultily-assembled suit of armor, but these intricate apparatuses don't build themselves. I dare you to check out the assembly instructions and emerge from your reading confident that you when where to attach pieces A-V. The instruction booklet is slightly contradictory in describing its "easy assembly" just briefly before the phrase "Then snap-fit the trigger (J) onto the beam. also in­serting its V-shaped tab into the rod’s slot. See Figure 6B. Hook the small rubber band over the trigger and rod in the notches as shown in figure 6C." Simple, yes?

At least once it was put together, you got to lure your unsuspecting fellow players into well-set mansion traps and bludgeon them to death with all sorts of dangerous fare. There were also innumerable ways in which to be utterly and unapologetically deceitful. You could make use of the secret passageways to push other players into the line of fire. You could also mislead your playmates by strategically choosing to move your own characters into a dangerous area, only to divert their attention from the wicked trap you were springing on one of their guys. In short, the game was endless fun but taught a series of skills more at home in a seedy poker hall than a basement rec room.

Summarily, the game was undoubtedly entertaining but morally bankrupt. At least we could possibly learn a thing or two about construction from putting the thing together. Kids these days would never be that patient and painstaking in their quest for board gaming fun. Right?

Wrong. There was actually a follow-up game entitled "1313 Dead End Drive" released in 2002. I assume their creative department was on break when that name got passed. Instead of 12 potential heirs, the new version includes a frightening 16. In this version, you also get to straight up steal bags of money, cleverly referred to as "moneybags". Reviews of this new version on boardgamegeek.com have such colorful titles as "Light, Fun, Brutal Game" and "Kill, Kill, Kill!", if that gives settles any doubts you may have had about the new game's nature.



Milton Bradley had it wrong. The game was solid enough in its original form. As too often happens with sequels, flashy gimmicks replace the substance we once reveled in. Then again, who am I to rain on today's kids' bout of light, brutal fun? You can purchase the old or new version and decide for yourself.

And for those of you who have graduated to an Ikea-level of assembly expertise, feel free to use the Swedish version of the rules.

Number/Word Munchers

There were two words every 90s child eagerly anticipated in their elementary school classrooms. No, they weren't "No Homework" or even "Snow Day".

They were "Computer Lab".

Hearken back to a day when computer use was a novelty and not a supposedly integral part of our day-to-day existence. In the 90s, elementary schools began installing state-of-the-art computer labs bursting with educational games galore. It was the ultimate educational experience, as both kids and teachers felt like they were getting away with something illicit; as kids, we couldn't believe we were out there playing games during the middle of our school day with no one vetoing our enjoyment, and teachers couldn't believe that we were actually buying into this emphatically educational experience. Everyone was a winner at computer lab time.

That is, unless you were bad with prime numbers.

Enter a little game that went by the name of "Number Munchers". It sounded innocent enough, but it was enough to boil your blood with rage when those pesky Troggles came to gobble up answers and stymie our most earnest of munching efforts. For those of you unfamiliar with the Troggle genus and/or phylum, they came in a variety of kooky colors, shapes, and sizes. Our friends at the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (the company that produced the software) used their ultimate computer nerdiness to develop complex scientific names and traits for the respective Troggles. Our software designer (dorkius maximus) provided us with a virtual rainbow of Troggolicious nemeses.

My favorite were the fuschia Reggies, or Trogglus Normalus. Sure, they tried to eat me and scramble my equations, but by God were they adorable. The most irritating Troggle had to be the game-foiling Helpers, Trogglus Assistus. They would appear innocently enough, looking like an adorable clone of my green munching self. "Oh!" I thought to myself. "Another little Math Muncher incarnate here to partner amicably with me and win me truckloads of munch-earned points!" Not so, childhood self. These malevolent munchers were up to no good, stealing my correct answers and taking my potential high-scoring points with them. How was I supposed to immortalize myself in the game's Hall of Fame? What good was this game unless kids who had Computer Lab time later in the day could bask in the radiating glow of my newly canonized position amongst the greats?

Number Munchers was essentially a school-sanctioned version of beloved classic Pacman game, but with an underlying element of solving math problems to avoid sudden death. Sure, every once in awhile a "safety square" would appear, but they were pretty fickle. It was all about finding the correct answers and dodging the ever quickening omnipresent Troggles and collecting a great bounty of points along the way. However, it wasn't all just fun and games; there were periods of passive entertainment as well! Imagine, Troggles and Munchers alike would gather round the screen to entertain you with their crudely animated antics. During these short scenes, our mainstay muncher would somehow elude the colassal but dim-witted Troggle's plan for our demise. Think you can light my muncher mansion on fire? Think again, Trogglus Smarticus. My muncher's got a fire extinguisher.



If this account has yet to jog your memory, perhaps this illustrative video will put it in running gear. Though it depicts a slightly earlier version than the one I played at school and eventually begged my way to owning at home, you will probably get the general idea:




We loved this game with a near religious fervor. The only problem was, I was terrible at math. I still am. In fact, I was dabbling in the free online version of the game here and I just realized I don't even know what a prime number is. How am I supposed to confound Troggles without a basic grounding in elementary math? Fortunately, the good people at MECC software came up with an alternative perfect for those of us dorky enough to adore playing Number Munchers, but not smart enough to derive multiples of 16 without consulting some sort of a chart.

All hail the mighty Word Munchers, redeemer of self esteem for right-brained children everywhere. Word Munchers was essentially the same concept and game construct, but addressing English class standards such as phonics, grammar, and parts of speech. Do I know what part of speech "she" is? You bet I do! Can I identify rhyming words? Absolutely! Recognize antonyms? Piece of cake! Whew, for a second there I thought I was doomed to Apple II excommunication for lack of math ability.

Number Munchers or Word, one thing was for certain. In the ultimate battle of Muncher vs. Troggle, you would give anything for Muncher to be the triumphant victor. Just to see that venerable animated sequence of me, the once lowly Muncher, beating the once all-powerful reigning Troggle to the top of the Math or Word mountain to plan my victory flag (conveniently marked "M" for Muncher). We put that flag in, it's a done deal.

Hall of fame, here we come.




Oh how the mighty have fallen:
View the world's most frightening computer game illustration on the cover the current version of the renamed "Math Munchers" It appears that our old friend Muncher has morphed into a frenzied math addict, eager to get his hands on a quick division-sign fix.

Legends of the Hidden Temple

They just don't make Maya and Aztec-based semi-historical adventure children's trivia game shows like they used to. I know what you're thinking, "I could name dozens!" Well, I admire your commitment to progress, but unfortunately none of them hold a temple torch to the original. And when I say original, I mean original. Well, except for that whole Indiana Jones thing, but hey, this show had a big talking stone head. Totally different.

These days, so many forms of children's entertainment are all too grounded in some realm of reality. Children's television network executives just aren't going out on a limb any more for completely nonsensical show premises. This show was not only immensely complex in its structure and execution, but was also featured incredible details in is design. Sure, its educational value was convoluted at best, but where else where we supposed to learn about such pertinent artifacts as The Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley or The Jewel-Encrusted Egg of Catherine the Great?

Legends of the Hidden Temple featured six boy-girl teams with names that are instantly recognizable to any former enthusiast: Red Jaguars, Orange Iguanas, Purple Parrots, Green Monkeys, Blue Barracudas, and Silver Snakes. Sure, the animals and the colors didn't necessarily match up, but we needed to identify these kids at a distance by colored t-shirt alone. Looking enviably cool in their bright yellow helmets and mouthguards, the teams began their challenge by crossing the mighty Moat. Alright, so it was a long narrow swimming pool with lane dividers, but they used cool things like rafts and swinging ropes. Plus, they got to bang a big gong at the end. We were mixing cultures a bit, but that's nothing in comparison to the legends that were to come.

The four teams who were first to finish the Moat challenge went on to the Steps of Knowledge. Finally, they get to hang with Olmec! Olmec was...well, an Olmec, but as kids we didn't know too much about the cultures of Precolumbian Mesoamerica, so it was all good. Our revered Olmec was a giant animatronic talking stone head who shared with us the wisdom of legends that we can only assume were somehow associated with this Hidden Temple we kept hearing about. The legends were generally historically based, but almost never were tied to the general Aztec/Mayan theme the show had going. For years I thought The Golden Pepperoni of Catherine de' Medici and The Levitating Dog Leash of Nostradamus were in some way associated with preclassical Central American cultures.


Olmec would share the legend, always with a catchy all-caps title generally verging on the ridiculous and irrelevant. His stone-faced (sorry, I had to) seriousness made us all believe in the power of The Golden Cricket Cage of Khan or The Very Tall Turban of Ahmed Baba. Following the brief storytelling, Olmec would ask questions from the preceding tale and teams would buzz in to respond and subsequently progress down the Steps of Knowledge with each correct answer. The first two teams to the bottom were the winners! Hooray! Onto the Temple Games!

The Temple Games were played for the coveted Pendants of Life. Obviously whoever was on the LoHT naming committee deserves several gold stars for both creativity and liberal use of capitalization. The Temple Games were sort of like GUTS physical challenges, only temple-themed. The team with the most Pendants of Life advanced to the ultimate and indubitably coolest round, the Temple Run.

Distinctly less cool for the contestants who did not reach the final round was the truly deplorable state of the consolation prizes. If you thought the Carmen Sandiego parting gifts were mildly questionable, you would be begging for a basketball globe once you realized the best thing a non-final round LoHT contestant could take home was a pair of Skechers sneakers, a Looney Tunes Watch (valued at $9.99!), or a VHS copy of a made-for-television movie. Yes, really.

Only slightly less lamentable were the prizes available for those who actually made it to the Temple. For those who made it through the first Temple round, they could win something in the range of a tennis racket or skateboard. There was usually some form of decently desirable electronic prize for second-rounders; we're talking something like a Casio My Magic Secret Diary here. For those who made it out of the temple unscathed, artifact in hand, they could win a trip to New York City or NASA Space Camp. However, it should be noted that kids who willingly participate in this type of thing would probably love NASA Space Camp, so it's probably not a bad deal.

The Temple Run was by far the most impressive and tension-filled portion of the show. Would they encounter a flamboyantly dressed sentinel temple guard? Those guys always scared the bejeezus out of me. What sort of desperate out-of-work actor brings his headshots to a casting call with the description, "Tall, dark, frightening; experience with child-grabbing preferred"? If you were lucky enough to still have some Pendants of Life, you could buy them off and escape unharmed; there's nothing like teaching children the values of bribery to get their way.

The Temple was a fairly complicated labyrinth composed of a dozen or so rooms, some locked, many of which included some task for the contestant to complete to continue on. The contestants would dodge temple guards, whiz through The Shrine of the Silver Monkey, haphazardly assemble the monkey statue to open the Temple doors, grab the artifact from Olmec's legend and find their way to freedom/space camp.



The show was immensely popular in its heyday and continues to maintain a 90s cult following. We appreciated the show in its quirkiness; where as children we accepted at face value that this was just the way the show worked, as adults we have the perspective to see that this show was outlandishly complicated in design and creativity.

So for those of us still yearning for our run at Space Camp or at least a Skechers-sponsored savings bond, strap on those helmets, bite down on those mouthguards, cue up the youtube, and let yourself be swept up in the mystery of why locating The Walking Stick of Harriet Tubman is your ticket to the NASA non-gravity simulator.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

I spent 5 good years of my life wondering in fact where in the world was Carmen Sandiego. She certainly was a tricky one. To think that there existed a jewel thief manager who could outwit three red-vested 10-to-14-year-old contestants with limited geographic knowledge is absolutely staggering. Even though Carmen and her cohorts were non-threateningly cartoon-animated, we knew of her malevolent misdoings and were eager to locate her and her dim-witted agents. Plus, the victor won an all-expenses paid trip to anywhere in the 48 contiguous United States. I mean, imagine! A chance to fly Delta Airlines coach and stay in a Holiday Inn down in downtown Boise or inner Salt Lake City? Sign me up!

If you grew up in the 1990s and had a head, the Carmen Sandiego game show theme song was likely stuck in it and playing on repeat. Performed by Rockapella, the leading Folger's coffee commercial-starring a capella quartet of the era, the song was possibly the most captivating and recognizable game-show theme of the decade. Just hearing the opening, "do it, Rockapella!" is enough to mobilize me to doo-wop uncontrollably. In case you've ever managed to expunge this catchy chorus from your brain, here is a handy sing-along video of the song:



The show itself was developed as a response to the alarmingly low level of geographic knowledge amongst America's television-polluted youth. They were already watching TV, so why not throw in some desperately-needed geography lessons? Oldest trick in the PBS play book, presented by Viewers Like You. After all, we couldn't have the Soviets out-knowledging us in the field of maps and atlases--especially considering that when the show first aired, a disturbing number of American-educated children could not even locate the as-of-yet-undefunct Soviet Union on a map.

Once they'd hooked you with the rockin' theme song, they capitalized on your love for Rockapella by featuring them as the "house vocal band and comedy troupe". Really, that's how they were billed. Admittedly, this is probably the highest level to which a moderately humorous a capella group could aspire, but its music scene street credibility is definitely questionable. Rockapella's zany madcap skits paired with Carmen and the gang's animated hijinks were enough to make all of us yearn to be game show gumshoes.

Most episodes began a little something like this, minus the special celebrity teammates:



All hail the late great Lynn Thigpen, chief of the ACME detective agency and our hearts. Along with co-host Greg Lee ("The ACME Special Agent in charge of training new recruits,") they somehow made these off-the-wall tasks and missions seem appreciably plausible. Why shouldn't we believe that all great detectives are given detailed briefings chock-full of historically and geographically relevant educational information with little to no information on the case or suspects themselves? Who were we to question the notion that gumshoes typically solve their crimes in three well-defined rounds culminating in a light-speed map identification quest? We could only assume that all failed detectives usually walk away from their task at hand dejected but sporting a t-shirt with the head crook's name and face plastered across the front. You know, in case they run into them somewhere and need the pictorial evidence to make a legitimate citizen's arrest.

Makes sense to me.

Of course we all knew the premise was thin and the musical comedy sketches unnecessary, but we loved this show with undying fervor nonetheless. At the time, the prizes seemed outstandingly desirable, but in retrospect it becomes pretty clear we were working with a public broadcasting budget. Sure, the winner got to keep their Crime Bucks (conveniently converted to legal tender cash!) but the other consolatory prizes seemed a little "let's clean out the ol' PBS donation closet." Though the nature and value of the consolation prizes remained relatively stagnant, the show did a spectacular job of repackaging the prize pack with a new name each season. Originally the ACME Crimenet Travel Kit, it also went by the aliases of the Travel Pack and ACME Gumshoe Gear. Clearly, it was not only our jewel thieves who were duplicitous.

No matter what you called it, if you failed to win the coveted round-trip ticket to a Holiday Inn anywhere in the lower 48 states you were still going home with...well, something. Just think, you too could win a Rand McNally World Atlas, Official Carmen Sandiego t-shirt, watch, sweatshirt, backpack, a one year full-paid subscription to National Geographic, a BASKETBALL GLOBE (!), ACME crime net cap, ACME stealth pen recorder, and even maybe the ACME Voice Identification Badge and Leave-a-Message Wallet! That's a lot of loot right there. To think we thought the jewel-heisters were thieves!

Carmen Sandiego was a phenomenon in a way that few children's shows are today. We all knew that it was educational; the secret was out. Yet somehow, we got so caught up in the catchy Rockapella-ness of it all and were willing to accept this opportunity to actively learn something about world geography. Exceptionally timely in an era of ever-changing geo-political boundaries, we could always count on Carmen Sandiego to go to somewhere particularly relevant to present conflict and shifts.

At the end of the day, whether or not our postcard records of that episode's loots and locations were chosen for the at-home viewer T-shirt winner, at least the show had given us the attention span necessary to follow Carmen from Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back*.

(*All geographical data is current as of the date this program was recorded)

Bop It

Bop it!




Twist it!





Pull it!




Bop it!

Twist it!

Pull it!


Bop it!
Twist it!
Pull it!

Bopit!Twistit!Pullit!

Bop it was endless hours of fun. Well, endless hours of preoccupation. Okay, maybe just endless hours sacrificed to almighty commander, Bop it.

In the 1990s, parents, teachers, and toy-makers must have sat down and had a meeting. "Kids just aren't obedient enough," the adults probably lamented. "They're always going outside to play and they refuse to sit still and obey our persistent two-word-followed-by-exclamation-point commands."

How could we solve this conundrum of noncompliance?

Bop it.

The notion that the original toy, featuring only three functions, could hold the attention span of an eight-year old is a somewhat baffling one. The toy was essentially the at-home version of the doctor's office knee-jerk reflex test. A small audio system embedded within an oblong piece of plastic would issue forceful, pleasantry-free commands instructing the player on which function to manipulate.

"Bop it!" the machine would urge. And we would comply, locating the bop-centric button and bopping accordingly.

"Twist it!" the contraption would prompt. And so we diligently twisted, maneuvering the crank.

"Pull it!" the device would insist. And so we pulled, slightly dislocating the handle on the opposite side.

That was it. I mean, that was it. The entire toy. Sure, it started slow and gradually built speed in its commands, but that was the whole shebang. If nothing else, Bop it taught the wrenching pains of stress and mounting pressure to perform onto young, unsuspecting children. Our hearts would beat quickly, our blood pressure would soar; to examine our physiological response you would think that we were experiencing extreme anxiety over a big boardroom presentation or an impending job promotion.

Like its similarly (though slightly more enthusiastically) titled 90s toy cousin, the Skip it!, the main objective that kept us sadistically coming back for more was the personal best scoring function. On an aside, it seems that at this time, Hasbro's marketing team was padded with semi-literate foreigners with a limited vocabulary and a penchant for profuse punctuation. Let us briefly envision a marketing meeting at Hasbro in the 1990s:

Marketing Director: Alright people, we've got two new toys to name.
Team Member: What do they do?"
MD: Well, one you have to bop and the other you have to skip.
TM: Great, we've got our first words. Could we possibly identify them by definitive, meaningful pronouns?
MD: No, no, I think we should go with "it". Gender neutral, flexible meaning. The feminists will go wild for it.
TM: Okay, so can we leave it at that? Bop it and Skip it?
MD: It seems to lack a certain pizazz...it needs some punctuation to punch it up a bit.
TM 1: Question Mark?
TM 2: Semi Colon?
TM 3: Ellipse?
MD: We're not quite there...
TM 4: Exclamation Mark? But only for the Skip it, let's not push our luck.
MD: Bingo! Team member 4, you've been promoted to head of the Hasbro toy naming department. Ingenious!

But again, I digress. Bop it may have been simple and exclamation-point-free, but it did have a certain charm. It was endlessly frustrating in an encouraging, self-improving way. Bop it (at least the early, non-sellout model) was refreshingly simple and required a great deal of concentration. This was Simon for the colorblind, whack-a-mole for the vegetarians. For every 10 points a player earned, Bop it would give you a congratulatory burst of audio and bragging rights to lightning-quick albeit unnecessary reflexes. The Bop it knew better than to let us become big-headed from our victories, though. For every mistake, the Bop it would cackle maniacally at your general ineptness. It was certainly humbling, if a little cruel.

Of course, as our generation evolved into miniature multi-taskers, so too did the Bop it evolve and betray its original design and develop into a more mature "extreme" version of itself.





Though not completely true to tradition, the Bop it Extreme had its high points. Just imagine, now you could also spin it! And flick it! How did they ever achieve this brilliant feat of engineering?

In a crazy twist of toy-naming fate, Hasbro's latest rendering of the Bop it toy (scheduled for a 2009 release) is a throwback to the Hasbro of the 90s and their distinct brand of earnestness and zeal that so defined their work. The new 2009 version of the Bop it will be called...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

BOP IT!

With an exclamation point.

Sorry Marketing Team Member 4.

You're fired.

Oregon Trail

For any child growing up in the nineties, Oregon Trail was the number-one selling manifest destiny-themed 19th century Western expansion settler game on the two-color screen computer market. In an era ripe with educational computer games full of thinly disguised learning opportunities, Oregon Trail stood out as the the most exciting thing thing to hit our elementary classroom-based Apple IIs since Pacman.

Though meant to evoke our good old American pioneering spirit, players quickly learned to circumvent the multitude of educational elements in favor of endlessly hunting buffalo. Ah, glorious, slow-moving buffalo. They can creep by slowly, but they can't hide. Imagine, a game endorsed by parents and teachers in which we were allowed to wield rifles, shoot any innocent creature that dared venture across our monitor, and morbidly pile up our "kill" to revel in our own uninhibited bloodthirsty nature. There's nothing like a lighthearted killing spree to memorialize the devastation of the rudiment of Native American existence.

We would round up our ludicrously self-named wagon crew, loaded up my oxen, get tricked into learning some light math as we stopped by those handy local trading posts, and bravely pressed space bar to continue. In the process of fording the river and thus turning my wagon into a shoddy ox-laden raft, we frequently found that three of our five wagoneers had drowned. Clearly, we were just not cut out for fording. Either that or maybe we should not have chosen to buy a yoke of 8 ill-fated and unnecessary oxen. But hey, at least we learned the word yoke.

Thankfully, we could have another buffalo shooting spree to bury our grief at the loss of our wagonmates. We could choose to test my skill at the occasional quick-darting rabbit or deer, but let's not fool ourselves. In our own modern lazy American spirit ironically in contention with the gung-ho pioneer spirit, we all just wanted to kill things that couldn't outwit or outrun us. There was no more irritating pixelated proclamation than that regarding our inability to effectively tote buffalo carcasses from trading post to trading post along the Western plain. Sure, I had killed 14000 pounds of food, but my wagon could only hold 80. Especially if dysentery or smallpox had yet to kill off my sole remaining human companion, there was never nearly enough room to bask in my buffalo bounty. A travesty, indeed.




Along the way, we would pick up some useful tidbits of information about the local landmarks and suspiciously knowledgeable settlers we passed in our wagon travels. No matter how educational this game claimed to be, I challenge you to find a single grown former Oregon Trail junkie who can name a single landmark or historical figure that they encountered out on the trail. Most of what we remember has more to do with the morbid ability to engrave our own tombstones and the frustration of losing yet another pesky wagon axle.

The truth of the matter was that the educational aspects of the game were its fatal flaw. Those of us with a lot of time on our hands and a distinctly impatient attitude toward forced history lessons realized that if you quit stopping by every place to learn something and just pressed "continue", you could both survive your journey and reach your final destination without learning a thing. In those days though, there was still enough fun left in the novelty of colorful graphics and computerized music to keep us coming back for more.

Buffalo, that is.


Check it out:
Hitting the Oregon Trail on the iPhone