The Oregon trail

The Oregon Trail is one of those games that is as much a draw for its nostalgia as it is for the gameplay. Even if you've never played the original computer game, it still feels like you are playing an 8-bit kind of game, which is nostalgic all in itself. I love co-op games, and Oregon Trail does co-op in the best possible way. It manages to give everyone something to do without pitting you against each other. It is both challenging and silly. My only complaint against the game is all the constant dying. Knowing you can catch dysentery at any moment is funny and adds risk, but I hate when teammates are eliminated from a game and just have to sit and watch the rest. Lots of games do this , but it bothers me. It was my main complaint against Exploding Kittens too. At least in The Oregon Trail watching after you die is still pretty engaging.

TGN scale:

Story - 5
Ok. There is a story here, characters even, and even story progression beyond the initial premise. You are a group of people trying to follow the Oregon trail without dying completely out along the way. Well, actually you are a bunch of gamers playing a video game about people trying to follow the Oregon trail without dying along the way. Too meta? . . . No. It's fun.



Immersive - 7
The setting and story progression are absolutely what this game is about. No, you don't feel the pain of the sicknesses or the animal encounters, but you sort of feel like you do. This game draws you right into the story, and doesn't release you till it is over. The game is basically just drawing cards, but somehow it draws you in all the same.

Learning Curve - 2
There isn't much to this game, when it comes to gameplay. The cards tell you what to do, and as long as someone there knows how to play, the explanations can be minimal to the rest of you. Nor is there much strategy to learn.

Time - 4
You can expect the game to take about a half hour to an hour, depending on how many people are playing. And how anal the group is about straight piles and lines.

Final TGN score - 4.75
Like I said, most of the nerdiness draw comes from the nastalgia. But because the game goes pretty quickly and takes almost no time to learn, I think it could be interesting to just about anyone who likes games, even if they haven't ever played the computer game. So that puts it around the same level as Dominion or Forbidden Island or Flash Point, slightly above games like Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride, but below some more complicated games like Legendary.