The Oregon Trail

0:16 Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Other Castle. The Other Castle, I'm Andrea. And my name is Tom. Here on The Other Castle, we give you the plot, lore, and more behind all your favorite video games, even nostalgic ones like this. We get into the production, we get into the actual gameplay, we get into why these games exist. Yeah, we get into the history, all of it. If this is your first time listening to The Other Castle, you can check us out at theothercastlepodcast.com. That's theothercastlepodcast.com. Over there, you can sign up for things like our Patreon, our Discord, our Twitch channel, all sorts of fun things. We got our merch shop out there. And because this week is the last episode we have for season seven, we will be moving over to doing weekly Twitch streams while we are in production for season eight.

1:00 Yes, we will. It's gonna be very exciting. Playing all sorts of different games so you can sign up for our Discord. We'll do voting on what games we're gonna be playing and stuff like that. Because we don't know what we're playing yet. No, we do not. We should, so we should put that out very soon. So if you're on the Discord, keep an eye out to tell us what to play on Fridays. But what are we doing today? Today, we are doing one of the biggest, actually the biggest ever edutainment game ever made. Minecraft? The Oregon Trail. Oh, that's different. It's very different, right? Now, I think most American kids play this in school, right? Yes, I would say most American kids did. We'll give a little bit of a history lesson for our non-American listeners.

1:41 Okay, because like why were they going to Oregon? Right, exactly. What's so special? Well, what is your experience with The Oregon Trail? I thought you were just going to say Oregon for some reason and I don't know why. Okay, I talked to you about this off mic, but I don't think I had a normal experience with The Oregon Trail. No, you did not. So I went to public schools in the East Bay in California, and my fourth grade year, it was split between a fourth grade and a fifth grade classroom. So there were like 15 fourth graders and 15 fifth graders doing two different curriculums simultaneously, which is some crazy ass public school shit. But there was one unit where they were like, all right, we're going to be doing The Oregon Trail.

2:23 And because fifth graders have to have everything a little bit more difficult, they just like turn up the difficulties. But we did a tabletop role playing version of The Oregon Trail, which I found out recently is not a valid licensed product. Yeah, because I know a lot of people think like, oh, The Oregon Trail had this origin as a board game. A board game, yeah, but I very distinctly remember making a character sheet. Yeah, and you've always told me this. I was like, oh, okay, so this must have existed, you know, before it became a computer game kind of a thing that your teacher had picked up on. As I found out in researching this, this game never existed. No, this would have been like, 98, 99 for context, like late 90s, this was happening, and fully nothing.

3:09 Yeah, your teacher had like this bootleg ass version of The Oregon Trail that they were doing as a D&D campaign, which I'm actually trying to write myself as well right now. Oh, really? Just for funsies, I'm trying to like fully write out a D&D style campaign for The Oregon Trail, which I think will be really cool. I think I was a pelt trader or something. I feel like it wasn't anything physical or really helpful that I was doing. I think I was just kind of a flim flam man. Pelt trading is very important. Yeah, but I don't think I was very good at it. Also, I don't think we ever finished it. I feel like we did maybe two or three weeks, and then she just gave up. It was like, I have to figure out something else. And bless her fucking soul, Miss Miller.

3:50 I think that's your name. But yeah, to have groups of nine and 10 year olds where it's like the biggest distinction in childhood of like, oh no, I need to stop being a horse girl and have crushes on people. And then to do that with two different groups, simultaneously, no teachers assisted. This is ridiculous that we got anything done. Yeah, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Yeah. Public school was a fucking journey, and it was amazing and I loved it. But yeah, I played a bootleg tabletop role playing version of this. I did not. I grew up at the era of when this game was like really at its height and everything. School computer labs, that kind of a situation. So I definitely played this in school in the school computer lab.

4:32 And like the licensed version. Yeah, the full licensed version. Oh, la dee da. You think you're so cool. No, I don't. That's not what this is about. Okay, fine. Well, to begin this story, we're gonna go way, way back in history to the early 1800s in the United States. This is one of the earliest starting points we've had in one of these episodes. It is, you know. Our Donkey Kong episode over on the Patreon channel does go back to 1889, but this goes even further back. Jesus Christ. I don't know if it counts, but yeah, sure, go for it. And we recognize that while today's game is one of the most played by most American listeners, fans from other countries may not be as familiar with this bit of American history.

5:16 So in 1803, explorers Lewis and Clark were tasked by then president Thomas Jefferson to explore the as yet unmapped Western United States. Over the years, trappers and pioneers would follow the maps created by Lewis and Clark, making small settlements and homesteads along the way. Over time, these unmarked trails became the most accessible route across the country. As more people used them, the ground became more of a designated path. With more people came a higher need for things like trading posts and places to live. Eventually, settlers found the west coast along the Oregon coastline and found it to be a lush, fertile, and beautiful land, untouched by anyone and brimming with opportunity.

6:03 Oh. The over-2,000-mile trek became known as the Oregon Trail. Between 1835, which is when the trail first got its name, to 1869, when the first transcontinental railroad went into service. Goodness. 400,000 people would brave the Oregon Trail in search of a new life and a chance at what was being called the American Dream. Holy shit, that's a lot of people, and that's a lot longer than I thought it was. I think I might have gasped a little bit, and I apologize, but... It's all right. For it to be over, was it about 34, 35 years of the Oregon Trail actually being in existence? Yeah, it was very active for about 35 years.

6:45 That's a long time, I feel. It really is. Perhaps I'm just also a bit spoiled from our technology being wildly different every five to 10 years. Yeah, right? And obviously technology wasn't booming like that back in the Oregon Trail days, but 35 years of having generations of families went through that. Definitely. That's wild. Yeah, people brought their kids, and their kids brought their kids. Yeah, and also, kind of news to me, again, we did not finish that unit. We had a full day on creating our characters, and then we did our, like, here's how you meet your camp team and stuff, and then I think she gave up. So, like, bless her heart, we tried. You know, it's been a very educational season of The Other Castle for my episodes at the very least.

7:29 Yeah, you're getting a lot out of it. Yeah. I'm glad. I'm happy for your character growth. Yeah, and for all of yours, too. Yeah. Well, The Oregon Trail was not for the faint of heart, either. It was a month-long, treacherous journey, and the trail is littered with the corpses of the thousands of people who never made it. Ooh, and that's 2,000 miles, like a true Trail of Tears. Yeah. Holy shit. To take The Oregon Trail truly was to risk everything you have and rely on your ability to survive the great and wild, open country that was the United States at the time. A land where some of the animals had never seen a human. Oof.

8:09 Communities that were inhabited by ancient cultures, curious and scared of the strangers on their land. Yeah. They made friends, business partners, loves and enemies while facing the hardships of The Oregon Trail. The reward at the end of the road was a chance at something new. For some, that was an escape from religious persecution, as the Mormon Trail would split off from The Oregon Trail toward Utah. Oh, towards Salt Lake City, right? Yeah. For others, it was a hope to strike it rich with the California Trail, also branching out from The Oregon Trail toward a rumored gold rush in San Francisco. And the gold rush is around the 40s, right? The 49ers, that's about the thing. Yeah, that's the same year.

8:50 But The Oregon Trail was known as the most dangerous, with the highest risk versus reward factor. It took the most northerly route, and that made it only accessible at certain times of the year, as the winter would be too cold for just about anyone to survive. You know, that's actually what got the Donner Party. They started their trek too late, and they were being warned the entire time. They were like, No, you have to wait another nine months. It's too far into May for you to make it through. And they were like, Ah, it's fine. Nah, we got this. And then they ate each other. So hopefully you don't have to go through that. You have to really fuck up your Oregon Trail run. Ain't no party like a Donner Party.

9:30 Oh my gosh. What? The starting point was Independence, Missouri, chosen for its location on the Missouri River as a popular port city. It's located about one third of the way across the United States from the East Coast. The journey concluded in Oregon City, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. It proved to be one of the most important trails in US history as it helped settle the West. Thousands of journals have been found and passed down through generations, and the tales of the trail are very well documented. Since the 1980s, American school children look forward to this section of history class, because it usually means they're going to get to play a video game titled The Oregon Trail.

10:12 It's the most popular piece of edutainment ever made. It has taught tens of millions of children about the history of this important time in history. It has also made it so the memories of those lost on the trail will never be forgotten. The reason so many school children look forward to it all goes back to one teacher and his desire to make learning just a little more fun. He's one of those guys. Yeah. In 1971, three friends were student teaching at a middle school in Minnesota. Their names were Don Roush, Paul Dillenberger, and Bill Heineman. Don wanted to be considered the cool teacher, and he would often try to make learning an interactive experience, often playing games and dressing up as historical figures as he was a history teacher.

11:00 Oh, he's one of those. Yeah, fully. Comes in in full beat makeup. Yeah, exactly, right? Oh, he's just a little extra. I like him. And he's a student teacher on top of that, so he's younger. He's way cool, you know? He's a 20-year-old theater kid who clearly was like, well, I can perform in front of 30 kids a day. I got an audience. I love it. When Don got to the section on the Oregon Trail, he decided to make a game to teach his students about it. So Don created a board game, not quite a D&D version like yours, but similar, using maps and having students pick cards to represent a different event that could occur on the trail. You know, when I'm thinking about mine, I feel like there were laminated, like, event cards.

11:42 Like, up world, up at the river, you pick out a card to see how bad your water conditions are and stuff. I wonder if your teacher, like, heard the story of how the game got created and was like, you know what, I'll just do that, since your school, like, didn't have, like, a computer lab, right? That's why you couldn't do this. They certainly didn't for the elementary school. Yeah. So it was like, how can I do this still with a whole group of kids? Really smart of your teacher. Way to go, Miss Miller. Miss Miller fucking kicked the shit out of that hole. She slayed that shit. I love her. Hell yeah. I hope she's okay. It's been a while for Miss Miller. We don't know how the years have been to her. I hope you are not as tragically underfunded today, Miss Miller. No, she definitely is. Yeah, I know she is.

12:23 There's no way it's better. Oh, that's so sad. Don asked his two friends, Paul and Bill, to playtest his board game before introducing it at school and asked for their advice. Oh, everyone loves a game night. Yeah, and they said it was super fun, but you know what would make it even more fun? If they turned it into one of those new video games everyone keeps talking about. And this is, did you say 71? 1971. Goodness. Don was like, cool, I'm teaching this shit in two weeks. I do not have the time nor the resources, but great idea, buddy. Yeah, he's like, if you guys can do this, I'll give you the historical information and you guys can build the game.

13:04 And Paul and Bill were like, cool, two weeks. Yeah, we got this. Two weeks. We'll have a whole company in two weeks. The Oregon Trail will be dead. Now, the type of computer available in 1971 took up almost an entire room. Like in the Hidden Figures computer room where it's a whole ass area. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they were not the desktops we know and love today. The single system they had access to at their local college took up an old janitor's closet. Wow. They crammed two folding chairs into the closet and got to work in their free time. My iPhone is more super powered than the entire 70s.

13:46 Oh, yeah. Combined, and that blows my mind. Entirely, yeah. But three of them just barely banged it out in two weeks with Dawn needing to learn how to code on the fly to help them get it done. But he did it. He did do it. And the way he used one of these big-ass room computers remotely so he wouldn't have to take a field trip to a janitor's closet was through a device called a teletypewriter. It's basically a standard typewriter, but it is connected to the giant room-sized mainframe via a telephone line. So it's very early-internet-style connection. Everything's plugged into something, like, physically, yeah. Wireless who, bitch?

14:27 Now, the middle school had just one of these teletypewriters that every class had to share, and there wasn't even a monitor on a teletypewriter. It looked more like an actual typewriter than a computer. So the game they built was just a text adventure. Oh, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, and it would print out on a sheet of paper that could deliver a whopping 10 characters per second. Honestly, that is very whimsical to have it. But no, it's like you're talking to a ghost, and the ghost is spitting out, like, you dead. Dysentery. That's fucking sick. And to put it into perspective, it would take a full second to print the phrase, per second.

15:08 Oh, honey. And the full game's code was 800 pages long. Holy shit! That's longer than the script for Uncharted. There was no script for Uncharted. But no, 800 pages, just to write 800 pages of anything in two weeks is fucking mind-blowing. Wild, right? And I'm sure you can imagine it took a very long time to print out at 10 characters per second. So it's not really captivating for the kids to watch. Well, no, this is just them printing out the code. Okay. Because they wanted to keep it just in case they wanted to use it on another computer mainframe in the future. Gotcha. Now, the trio wanted the game to reflect the real Oregon Trail as much as possible.

15:49 We want the gritty, down-to-earth version of this. Yeah. And they felt that since every single person's experience on The Oregon Trail was different, then every playthrough of the game needed to be different from the last. They were like, David Cage, I feel you. I want to have multiple endings. Yeah, fully. In their programming, Paul and Bill used their math teacher and coding skills to develop a system called Probability Charts. Ooh. This system would allow for every playthrough to play out differently based on random number generators, player choices, location on the trail, weather, sickness, wagon conditions, supply levels, and all sorts of other different factors that would go into the gameplay.

16:34 This does still feel innovative. Right, entirely. And this is on something that's just going to be a text adventure. These could produce an unlimited variety of outcomes for the player, and they would have to react to those situations that were generated. This resulted in random encounters, random terrain, random events, and unique gameplay every playthrough. This game was so realistic, it could result in a total party kill if the player wasn't able to overcome the obstacles they encountered. Once they died, the game would be over, and the player would have to start all the way back at the beginning with a fresh new group. Which means, The Oregon Trail fits all of the criteria to be labeled a rogue-like.

17:18 Oh, shit. I was shocked by this. But here's the thing. The Oregon Trail came out nine years before rogue. Oh, shit. Right. 70s. Which means, the term rogue-like is technically a misnomer. We should be calling games like Hades a trails-like game instead. Thank you for coming, Tom. Holy shit. No, I am far from the first person to say that. Okay, but you're giving investigative fucking journalism. I love this shit. Yeah, I did come to that realization without anyone's influence. Because I was just researching the game and seeing kind of the similarities.

18:00 Honestly, if I hadn't done Hades this season, I probably would have never made that connection. That's so funny. So the game was finished, and Don wheeled the teletype writer into class, and the students had a blast with it as they played this early hybrid board slash computer game. I imagine just 18 small children huddled around a printer being like, yes, yes, yes. What does the computer tell me? Am I dead or not? Yeah, since the computer had no monitor, the board game pieces were used for the visuals. And it was a hit in the school, but they couldn't leave it on the college's mainframe for longer than a semester. And so he deleted it after the semester ended, figuring that was the end of his game.

18:40 Let go. That was a good one. Good shit. I deserve a whole summer off. I got an A for my assignment. Yeah, I am the teacher. Well, yeah, but he was also a student teacher, so this was kind of an assignment for him as well. He killed it. Well, two years later in 1973, Don Roush left middle school academia to pursue his newfound passion for programming. Oh, so that was actually a really fun sprint for him. It was, yeah. But the Vietnam War was raging, and he was scheduled to be drafted. Oh shit. In order to legally dodge the draft, he needed to get a job that would be a service to the betterment of his fellow citizens.

19:20 He therefore joined a company called the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. 80s and 90s kids know this company as M-E-C-C or MEC. This company came into existence to make educational video games for school children, and many of us grew up learning everything from spelling and math to history and phonics using their programs. Oh, see, yeah, we didn't have computer labs up until you got to the sixth grade middle school era. Yeah. And I do remember a couple typing class. I think they literally just called it keyboard class, which is very cringy to think about now. Right. They were just calling it typing, which is what it is. They were like, welcome to keyboard.

20:01 Your job is keyboard. Your class is keyboard. And they like spray painted keyboards to be all black, so you'd have to do it by touch and shit. Ooh, smart. Yeah, but we had video games that would like spell the word as it's coming out or like follow along with this shit. So I think I had that touch point, but I did not have the Oregon Trail touch point. Yeah, number munchers, word munchers, these were all games from Mech. Number munchers. Well, Mech had much higher end computers than the middle school Don had just come from. And Don asked permission to put the Oregon Trail onto its system. With permission granted, he spent the whole of Thanksgiving 1973's weekend typing the 800 pages of code into Mech's mainframe.

20:43 So he's just going page by page, uploading it manually? Yeah. Oh, fuck my life. The way Mech worked was they rented out their mainframe's network of educational games to schools. Those schools would have their own teletype writers that Mech supplied, and they could connect to Mech's system via telephone line. Then the schools had access to a library of games to use to teach their students. Quickly, The Oregon Trail became Mech's most popular game and second most popular product, even without any graphics to go with it. Wow. An early version of email being the most popular product. Holy shit, so literally baseline communications, and then this.

21:26 And then The Oregon Trail. Wow. Kids loved it because it was like embarking on a grand adventure that they controlled. Teachers loved it because it taught the students about more than just history. It was teaching them inventory management, decision making, Typing, math, weather, and other cognitive skills. During his time at Mech, Don got access to lots of historical data and archives and updated a lot of the information in the game to more accurately reflect the actual trail. For example, they initially portrayed Native Americans the way movies of the era portrayed them. Yeah, they weren't very kind in their portrayals of Native Americans at the time in film especially.

22:08 Just disrespectful. Yeah, very disrespectful. Great word for it. In doing research, Don found out that the Native Americans were 99.9% of the time helpful and peaceful along the trail. If white people fucked around, they found out, but otherwise, they were very friendly. Yeah. By 1979, the Apple II was becoming a popular home computer. Oh my God, that's that little gray shoe box, right? Yeah, right? Apple had also made deals with schools all around the United States that put Apple II computer labs into many schools as educational devices, knowing that if you hook kids on your products while their brains are all squishy and moldable, you'll have them hooked forever.

22:51 It's like the old cigarette commercials. Honestly, having had friendships end because of my green text bubbles, you can see this tactic clearly worked. Mech knew what all computer companies knew. The money is in software, not hardware. So The Oregon Trail got ported to the Apple II, complete with the now iconic green and black graphics of the era. Is this our first Apple II game? I think it is, yeah. Ooh. Finally, the game had visuals to go with the randomly generated adventure, and it could be played on computers across the country, not just Minnesota. Mech went on to partner with Apple, and the two funded putting computer labs into schools across the country together.

23:32 Hell yeah! Apple supplying the hardware, with Mech supplying the software. That's what's up. Which included dozens of other edutainment games along with The Oregon Trail. They ultimately installed computer labs in one-third of the schools across the country. Hell yeah! In 1985, Macintosh released the new version of the Apple II, which had a full color monitor, and soon The Oregon Trail was given a graphical update to go along with it. I love that they're patching this. Yeah, right? Just along the way. It had done well in black and green, but it soared when it went to color. It's like the trajectory of GTA V.

24:14 Right? With every console we get another update, it looks a little smoother, you know? Looks a little better. I'm just saying The Oregon Trail is basically GTA V. Well, it was soon ported to computers other than the Apple II, like the Commodore 64, and the TRS-80, made by the now-defunct RadioShack. Who? Yeah, exactly. It's probably why the nickname for the TRS-80 was the Trash-80. It finally hit Microsoft DOS-based computers in 1990. The rapid rise in success of mech didn't go unnoticed, and it was soon bought out by some faceless rich people so they could just bank on the success. Totally.

24:54 Five years later, they sold mech to a company called Softkey for around $30 million. That's a lot of 90s money. Oh, so much 90s money, right? And this company was owned and operated by Shark Tank's very own Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary. You love Shark Tank. Oh, yeah, Shark Tank's great. I had never seen Shark Tank until we started dating. I had never seen it until we started dating. I thought you liked it. No. Oh, who got us into Shark Tank? You did. No, it wasn't me. Okay, the sharks did it. Fine. But yes, Kevin O'Leary owned this company called Softkey. And with the purchase, Softkey was then rebranded to The Learning Company.

25:38 Oh. Prior to the purchase, Softkey was similar to Mac in that they had been installing computer labs in another third of the United States. We're getting them all. So now The Oregon Trail was available in two thirds of all the schools. So most American millennials and Gen Z kids have played this. Exactly. Just as a sweeping statement, if you grew up in America within those two fucking generations, this is for you. Very likely to have played The Oregon Trail. And if you're old enough, this also applied to you. Probably not, you're probably dead because of The Oregon Trail. It was also around this time when they released mech games for purchase in stores, as personal computers were becoming more common, and kids were wanting to play The Oregon Trail at home.

26:25 We tricked these fucking kids into learning about their country. We fucking got them. In 1999, just three years after acquiring mech, my teacher released an unlicensed version of The Oregon Trail with hand-laminated cards saying, cross a river. Well, be happy that nobody found out about Miss Miller because... I'm blowing her shit up right now. In 1999, Mr. Wonderful would sell the learning company to Mattel, the company behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, for $3.8 billion. And that's still 1999 money?

27:06 That's 99 money. That's probably, what, $8 billion today. This is why they call him Mr. Wonderful. Taylor Swift became a billionaire this last weekend after a 20-year career or some shit, you know? Three-year turnaround. Whoo! Goddamn! That's why he's a shark. Now, typically, you'd think being bought by the largest toy company in the world would be a good thing. Well, most everyone at the learning company quit upon being acquired. Oh, shit. Because one of the first requests Mattel made was, how can we get Barbie into the Oregon Trail? And they said, absolutely not, and they left the building. They just fucking quit.

27:47 They said, here's my badge and gun. I'm no longer a creative director here. Not fucking doing it. You shouldn't have given me a badge and gun, by the way. That's on you, pal. Every single person has a badge and a gun. But here's the thing, they're all water guns. Holy shit. So to have kind of a revolt and walk out, that's, ooh, holy shit. And it's still over The Oregon Trail. And to be real, this is 1999. There was Y2K mania where people were like, what if everything shuts down on fucking New Year's Day? You know, so it's like you're leaving that security into an unknown world where lunatics are saying that like the microwaves are gonna all explode at midnight or whatever.

28:35 Holy shit, that's ballsy. Well, by 2000, Mattel was so bitter about everyone quitting after the acquisition of the learning company, they let the brand die. They spent $3 billion for something that they gave up on. Almost $4, $3.8 billion. Holy shit, I know there's other assets within the learning company. I know the learning company is not simply The Oregon Trail, but holy shit. No, it was a full, like, whole ass company, but still. That's wild. Well, they sold it for next to nothing in the mid-thousands to a mid-sized edutainment company called Hotten Mifflin under their Gameloft brand.

29:16 Gameloft would go on to continue releasing new versions of The Oregon Trail over the years, including the beautiful 2023 release of the Switch and Xbox series of consoles. And you're playing the Switch run, right? Yeah, and that's actually the version I'm covering in this episode, as it's the most complete and yet still the same as it was over 40 years ago. Oh. Well, you can't do a lot of rewriting to the core lore there. Yeah, exactly, right? That's so funny. The game has sold over 70 million copies to date and is officially the longest running video game series in history. I can see Mr. Pac-Man shaking his fist like, God damn you, Oregon Trail.

30:00 So close. I played it in school as a child. I played it today as an adult. The level of enjoyment is the same, and it genuinely hasn't changed all that much since it went to color, which was the first time I played it. But that's enough lollygagging. It's time to hitch up the covered wagon, grab some supplies, and try not to catch dysentery goombas. I am a passenger princess. You're gonna have to walk me through all this. Because this is The Oregon Trail. The trail begins May 1st, 1849, in the town of Independence, Missouri. Here, you'll pick your character. Originally, you had one of three characters to choose from, a banker, a carpenter, or a farmer.

30:44 This was essentially how you chose your difficulty level. Oh, it's like cyberpunk. Yeah. Over the years, they had added a ton of different character classes you can have in your party, from prospectors to missionaries. They even let you change the names of your characters, so you can make it your own name or your friend's names. That was the fun part of the TTRPG that I did. Yeah, exactly. You'll also have three others on your journey with you, and you can choose their names and classes as well. But your character is the trail boss, regardless of the class you choose. And you will be making the decisions along the trail, and your team will have to follow. In town, you need to first purchase your wagon, oxen, and supplies. The classes you choose for your team will determine how much money you have, as some classes are wealthier than others.

31:29 But the ones with less money will usually have skills that come in handy along the trail. Once you purchase your shit, you can go around town and meet some people. Some will be other travelers you will encounter along the trail. Others will be locals giving tips. Some of the things people will say to you are quotes pulled directly from travel diaries people kept while traveling the trail. Holy shit, that's cool. Yeah, it really lends the authenticity of the game. That's really incredible. You know, we've done the Titanic official exhibit, and there's something kind of similar where when you check in, you get someone's name and you get to follow their path to see if they passed or survived. Yeah, that was really cool.

32:10 Yeah, I wonder if that... I mean, that immediately makes me feel more emotionally invested knowing that this was true to exactly the words that came out of their mouth. Yeah, it's really cool. And like every stop when you start talking to people, a lot of the things that they say just fully pulled from real people's diaries. Oh, that's so fucking cool. You can even pick up some side quests to complete along the way. Of course, there's a side quest. Is there a generator? There's no generators. There's no goddamn generators. No. Is that why you picked this? Just out of pure bitterness for pressing goddamn triangle for months? Because I wouldn't have to start any goddamn generators. No. In talking with people, you find out that Oregon is a little over 2,000 miles away, and that the terrain can be treacherous.

32:55 Which, as I said before, is true of the real Oregon Trail. 1 in 17 people died while on the trail. I don't like those odds at all. Very low odds. They died of anything from disease, injury, loss of hope, or for simply being unprepared for the hardships they were about to face. Along the trail, you'll encounter settlements and checkpoints. In a settlement, you'll be able to shop and rest and repair your wagon. At checkpoints, you'll have an opportunity to trade with natives and other travelers as well as get some rest if needed. It's always nice to get a long rest in for your party. Yeah, exactly. Once you feel confident that you are ready to embark on your journey, you hitch up your wagon and head out of Independence, Missouri onto the Oregon Trail itself.

33:44 The first settlement on your trip is Fort Kearney, but before you get there, you'll have three checkpoints to hit. Is this a dumb question, but is Fort Kearney real? Yes. Okay. Everywhere we're going to hit is a very real place. Oh, okay, cool. There is nothing made up. This is the most historically accurate game probably ever made. So it's like a little better than those Assassin's Creed games where you do like Benjamin Franklin signations. Yeah, way more so. This is pretty legit. This is way more legit. Remember, this was taught to teach history, so everything had to be as real as humanly possible. That's why I bring up Assassin's Creed. It's like the most historical game ever.

34:25 Aside from this, go on. The first checkpoint is the Kansas River Crossing. When heading to a checkpoint or settlement, you'll have options of paths you can take. Each of these paths will take you to a mystery encounter. They can range from camping with other travelers to hunting in the woods for food. During this decision of which path to take, you'll also decide the pace at which you'll travel and the amount of food you'll ration. If you're like, hauling ass, or if you're like, okay, we can take breaks. Yeah, exactly. And like, your stamina will decrease if you're going too fast, and if you're not eating enough, your group will get upset about it. The game then takes all of these decisions you're making, adds them to the parts you can't control, such as location and weather, and then inputs that into the probability charts I mentioned before.

35:15 These stats are kind of like skill points, and using a random number generator, the game can reward you or punish you for your decisions. Punishments can range from injury, your wagon breaking down, disease, robberies, oxen health issues, food supplies going bad, storms, or just plain loss of morale due to so many maladies affecting your party. If you're able to overcome these issues, you'll make it to Willamette Valley, Oregon at the end of the trail. The start of the journey is always the easiest, as you're on the Midwestern Plains in the middle of spring. Oh yeah, you're also in a race against the clock as you have to make it before winter or your party will be frozen to death.

35:58 Or you'll have to donner party yourselves. Yeah. Otherwise, your party is happy, healthy, and supplied to make the trip. Make it to your first checkpoint, likely without any major issues. And it's the Kansas River Crossing, your first real test on the trail. Here you have an important decision to make. Will you ford the river, cock your wagon, or take a ferry? What do those mean? So fording the river means you will just walk through it and hope for the best. You're just gonna be like, it's probably not that deep, let's figure it out. Yeah, this is only to be done in the event of a very shallow river, like two feet or less.

36:39 And the Kansas River usually is. Okay, okay, that's good. Cocking the wagon removes the wheels, and you seal up any holes in your wagon. Then you basically use it as a boat to float across the river. Yeah, and then your ox just kind of swim. Taking a ferry costs money, and sometimes there's a waitlist to use it costing you a couple days sometimes. That's very lucrative to run a ferry. Yeah, but it's going to get you across safely. I feel like I would just quit and be like, what if I started a ferry business? That's the thing is that it only works once. So you have to be the first one to quit. Fine, let's go to Oregon.

37:21 Well, you have to consider a few other things like the strength of the current and the weather as well. If you make the wrong choice, you run the risk of your wagon tipping over and you losing your supplies, or even worse, your life. Right, you can drown, right? You can fully drown. After crossing the Kansas River, you'll next encounter the Blue River. And it's the same thing here, just the Blue River tends to be a bit deeper and stronger, so you have to really choose carefully with this one. Along the trail between checkpoints and settlements, you'll occasionally encounter people who need help. And the game was always designed to be a positive experience. It encourages the player to help the people they meet along the way, often resulting in a great reward like supplies and money.

38:07 But sometimes those tasks can be annoying or waste your time. For example, you can run into someone who's lost one of their horses. They ask you to watch after their stuff while they go looking for it. This can take days sometimes before the person returns. And the game gives you several chances to just give up and abandon the task. But offering to help someone very rarely results in harm to you, unless you run into a flimflam man trying to trick you. But their tricks are usually really obvious because they'll try to sell you something like a magic item, and magic's not real. Yeah, not even in this universe. No. I love that this is Red Dead 2. It's so Red Dead at the same time, right?

38:49 It's just random encounters with strangers. They're a bit more pessimistic, certainly, than The Learning Company's version of Oregon Trail. Right. No, we're gonna hit one actually coming up here that is feels straight out of Red Dead. Oh, good. So the next checkpoint is Alcove Springs. And a pretty waterfall into a small pond where lots of travelers tend to take a break and relax for a while. Here you can also carve your name on a rock wall. And if you visit Alcove Springs today, you can still see many names carved by these early settlers. Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah. And while traveling, a man suddenly falls from the sky and crashes in front of you.

39:30 Oh, no. His name is Thomas Pepper, and he's an eccentric inventor. I love him so much already. I'm Thomas Pepper, and I'm here because I'm looking for the big city. He tried to build a flying machine. Oh, no. But clearly it failed, as he just crashed in front of you. Tommy Pepper's taken to the sky, but the ground's coming up real fast, you see. Yeah, and this guy really gave the Red Dead vibes to me. Yeah, I was just like, this is a crazy person. He says that while he was falling, he realized that he's been going about this invention all wrong. He had a moment of introspection. He should be using the wind to push a sail on a wagon.

40:12 Then you wouldn't need oxen to pull your wagon. He says he heard some bankers were looking to invest in new ideas out of a place called Julesburg and asks you to put a good word in for him. Tell him that Tommy Pepper's taken to the sky. Tell him Tommy Pepper sent you. Is he a real person? I don't think he is, no. But bless the Pepper legacy for that one. Right. Around this leg of the trip, you should be running low on food, and you'll hopefully get an opportunity to hunt. Hunting is a randomly generated task, so there's a chance you won't get to hunt.

40:52 Hunting is probably one of the most memorable things from this series because it's simple and yet still difficult. The bullets travel at such a weirdly slow speed, even on the Switch version today. You can skin some of their pelts off as well during the hunting that can be used to trade or sell with other travelers. What kind of animals are you hunting? You can hunt anything from foxes, rabbits, deer, bison, bear, moose, there's all sorts of different things. So you can get really small to really, really, really big game. Yeah, and actually the smaller stuff's really hard to hit. It's a smaller hitbox. Yeah. I see that. And they're really fast, and like I said, your bullets are weirdly slow.

41:33 However, hunting isn't the only way to acquire more food, because this game, like most games, has fishing. Tom, I keep fucking telling you, every game has fishing. Every fucking game. Yes, and this one does too. It's not the best mini game, but it somehow gets you more food than a bison. Really? Yeah. So fishing is the one you want if you're going to succeed on the trail. Because it's lean protein? I guess. I don't know. I think just wildly misprogrammed, like, the amount of food you get on this. No one at Team Oregon Trail has ever seen a bison. They're like, no, it's like a dog, right?

42:14 Like a big dog? It's fine. Yeah, a bison gets you like 30 pounds of food, and then fishing gets you like 40 pounds of food. Bison are like 300 pounds. You're telling me they're getting a 10% meat yield on that? You're just really bad at your job. Yeah. Well, finally, you make it to your first settlement on the trail, Fort Kearney, Nebraska. Unlike most forts in the US, this was not set up during or for a war. It was specifically built as a stopping point on the Oregon Trail, as a place to restock and rest up. It also became a stop point on the Pony Express. And the Pony Express was how male traveled across the country quickly at the time.

42:55 Via pony? Yeah, young men would tear ass across the country on horseback, going full speed for as long as the horse could go. Were they really hot? The guys or the horses? The horse... the guys! I have no idea what they looked like. They probably didn't get all the good looking guys to be stuck on the back of a horse for ages at a time. It's giving thirst trap though, you know. It might have been. Well they would have stops like Fort Kearney where they would drop off some male, pick up some others, and then switch to a fresh horse. And on the trail, you can encounter a Pony Express rider who has injured themselves. Oh no, he's at work! Yeah, and you can take on the task of delivering their male to the next checkpoint for a reward.

43:37 That is some big side quest energy. Oh right, and no, you don't get the option of reading people's male like you're Sadie Adler. That's a felony, Tom! This isn't about instilling criminal instincts in the youth, this is about history. Exactly. For a lot of travelers, Fort Kearney was a turnaround point, as people would hear horror stories of the dangers ahead. Oh shit. Or they'd find a group of like-minded others and set up settlements along the way, which is how we began to settle these middle sections of the United States. The flyover states. Yeah. From Fort Kearney, you have an optional checkpoint to head towards next in Julesburg.

44:18 Julesburg? It's optional because you can head straight to a checkpoint called Courthouse Rock, and Julesburg will also send you to Courthouse Rock, but Julesburg has some good trading and shopping, as well as those bankers Thomas Pebble mentioned. So it's just another commerce point to stock up and shit. Yeah. Now, you said Courthouse Rock. Yes. Is that where the guy goes, I'm only a bill, yes, I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on what's that? Capitol Hill? Courthouse Rock. No, that's Schoolhouse Rock. Also, classic 1980s edutainment. Yeah, I thought there was a crossover, I fully assumed this was like one cycle.

45:03 Okay, got it. Again, Courthouse Rock, real place. Name a more ambitious crossover. Well, disturbingly, a lot of the accidents you encounter, whether it be someone in your group or a stranger, involves someone shooting themselves on accident. Oh, Jesus Christ, isn't that true to form like in life though? It is, and honestly, this comes from the fact that a vast majority of the tombstones found along the actual trail said they died from an accidental gunshot wound. Wow, so this is morbidly accurate. It's morbidly accurate. It feels too fucking dark for this education game. But they do have a lot of accidents involving a gun going off.

45:45 So I guess, yeah, it's just because it was so historically accurate to happening. You're gonna handle a firearm, you have to go through safety and understand everything about a fucking weapon before you put your hands on it. Fully, fully educate yourself first. Oh, Jesus, that sucks. I'm assuming it's a lot of oops, I shot my foot like I'm an eight mile, and then it gets infected as well. Yeah, there is that, but I had somebody like shoot themselves in the stomach at one point. Oh my God. Yeah. They survived it somehow, but. Really? Yeah. You rolled well on that one. Yeah, right? She took a long rest.

46:27 Little bardic and spoon never hurt anyone. God damn. Well, you arrive in Julesburg, which is a hybrid Arapaho tribe and colonizer settlement with tents and some permanent buildings. So it's a lot of mixed communities. Yeah, it is. That's cool. Here you can trade and shop and repair, and there's some side quests you can both take on and complete, including telling those bankers all about Thomas Pebble and his amazing sailboat wagon. This man fell from the sky. Yeah. Well, you don't want to tell them about that because they'll think he's crazy. I would have led with that. You get the option to. Good. I think it's fair to paint a full picture of who you're investing in.

47:11 That's what I learned from Oregon daddy, Mr. Wonderful the Shark. There you go. Tell them everything. Be real. Well, yeah, they don't like the whole flying thing, but the sailboat wagon, they're actually kind of intrigued by, and they say they'll look into it. I appreciate that you're kind of pitching to the sharks on this, too. Yeah, you are, right? And they're like, well, you do a royalty deal. You next head to Courthouse Rock, a naturally occurring rock formation that looks like an ancient European castle's ruins. Where bills are made into law. Yeah. It's not wildly far from Julesburg, and you have some opportunities to collect fruits and berries along the way, as well as help some travelers.

47:52 Taking place about 20 years before the American Civil War, an addition that became included in later versions of the game are former slaves. You can encounter people who are on their own journey along the Underground Railroad as they escape to the Free North. You can help them out by offering them food for their journey, of which they are eternally grateful. Fortunately, the Oregon Trail is primarily Northern States, so we don't encounter any terrible people involved in that whole situation. We're just helping people gain their freedom. That's incredible. However, one dark and unfortunate truth about Oregon at this time was the fact that black people were not allowed to live in Oregon.

48:35 Like by law, right? Yeah, like at all. It didn't allow slavery, but it also just didn't allow black people in general. The game does not shy away from this fact either, and it does address it at points. But I'm pretty sure they let black people live in Oregon now, though. But yes, that is a dark side of Oregon at this time. The game doesn't gloss over it, though. I appreciate that the game is accurate to history. Yeah, at the very least. Holy shit, that's a horrific piece of American history. Yeah, it's a very, very dark piece. You know, in Los Angeles County, it was like Alhambra and that kind of inland part of LA where Asians were allowed to start to own property in LA.

49:18 County for the first time. That's why there's such good Asian food out there and like decades and generations of communities that have lived there, because that was like the first place where they could settle. Oh, wow, fascinating. Yeah, you know, there's some really horrific historical truths to why some communities have ended up in certain areas of cities and counties. Hmm, very good. Not to be a super bummer. Right. Well, anyway, but I'll bum you out real quick back on the trail. Courthouse Rock, Nebraska, is a beautiful area, which makes a lot of Europeans feel at home in a weird way, affectionately referring to it as McFarland's Castle because of the shape of the mountains. Oh, lots of people ended up falling in love with this area and settled Nebraska as a result.

49:59 Someone had to. Well, because, again, people heading from west to east are still telling stories that not far from here, the trail really takes a turn and the hard parts are about to begin. Oh, shit. But we have another rock formation to head toward, and from here, it's off to Chimney Rock, which is so tall, it's visible from Courthouse Rock 50 miles away. That's fucking cool. Like, you're going that way. Yeah. Going that direction. You got this. Oh, it's a wild natural formation as it looks like a huge mountain used to exist there, but it got chopped away little by little until it was just like this skinny pillar reaching toward the sky.

50:39 A mountain got whittled, and that's the formation? Yeah, like, if you ever, like, took a pencil and kept shaving it down so that way it's just the lead. That's really cool. You know, and you make the lead super, super long. Yeah. That's what Chimney Rock looked like. That's really fucking cool. Just jutting straight up into the sky, like a fucking skyscraper. There's not a lot to do here, as it's just a checkpoint, though. And you continue on your way toward Fort Laramie, Wyoming, the next big settlement. On the road here, you can find Thomas Pepper, as he shows off his inventions to the bankers. And he got there because he took to the wind. That's right, Thomas Pepper flying with the clouds.

51:21 Well, the wagon takes off nicely, but it suddenly gets sucked into a tornado. Shut up. Is this how he dies? No, he does not die. He was not on the wagon. He was running next to it. It's like that's how Superman's dad died in that one Superman where he was like, it's okay, let me go, Clark. Let me die. You can't out yourself. That's Thomas Pepper. Yeah. I love Thomas Pepper. Well, the tornado shreds the wagon to pieces. Oh, thank God he wasn't on there. But Thomas says, good. That saves him the time of having to dismantle it to work out the kinks. Well, that saves me some click clack time, you hear? I don't have to undo all these knots.

52:02 Yeah. Clearly the wagon works. It just got caught in a tornado. Yeah. That's not my fault. That's Mother Nature just giving me a spanking, you see, for spitting in her face by using the wind. I love him. Well, from here on, you can actually buy the sailboat wagon if you want, and it does work. It is. It's so good. I know that this wasn't necessarily the terminology used in the room while they were structuring this, but as a modern gamer, that's very funny. Like, the logic is sound in the, do this and this is the consequence. Right. But yeah, I don't think this type of wagon ever existed in the real world. You don't think they had the flying wagon that Thomas Peppa penned?

52:44 No. Well, historically, this area had a lot of bison roaming the plains, and you have a higher chance of hunting them on this leg of the trip. That's a lean protein, I think. It is, yeah. It's a good opportunity to gain some much-needed food and pelts for the coming mountain section of the trail as well. As so far, we have been on flat plains and hills so far. Now, we're heading into the Rocky Mountain Range. Even though it's mid-summer, there's going to be cold and snowy conditions, and the trip gets much more difficult. We lived in Denver for like a year and a half. Yeah, summer isn't always beautiful. Right, it can get cold.

53:25 Fort Laramie is another one of those settlements that was set up just to help people on the trail. It's got some native support as well, and it's a good spot to rest before heading into the Rockies. From Fort Laramie, the journey has a few forks in the road, and you can take a northern or southern route. But first, we have to go through the checkpoint Independence Rock. I love that these are all rocks. They're just like, find a sick-ass rock. Build a town around it. Profit? Yeah, that worked. That fucking worked. It makes for really easy kind of like landmarks for people to find, you know? Oh, true. Something really tall. You see that giant chimney fucking shaped mountain?

54:06 It's called Chimney Rock. Go there. We live in Las Vegas. It literally has a light that just shoots into the sky so people can find it. That's how I can tell where south is. Exactly, right? Anytime. I see where the strip is and where Luxor is in relation to it, and I know that's south, and I'm fine anywhere in town. Exactly. Independence Rock likely became a stop just because it had the same name as Independence, Missouri, where you started your journey. Oh, so it's a little like, you'll get it. Yeah. And it's also just really close to Fort Laramie, so it's like, why was this even a checkpoint? Yeah. And here you can once again carve your name into the rock side. Oh. And historians used these carved names to track certain groups as they made their way along the trail.

54:49 That's really cool, too. Oh, I love that. So while at Independence Rock, a woman can approach you telling you that her daughter, Little Mary, has gone missing. And you can help the family form a search party and find Little Mary just drawing pictures into the rock face. From Independence Rock, you move on to the next checkpoint, the parting of the ways, which sounds so dramatic. Are we gonna sacrifice someone? No, not at all. It's literally just a fucking fork in the road. That's way too dramatic. I was like, okay, so half the party is gonna divert. Yeah, this is where you're gonna decide whether you're gonna take the north or south route. Dramatic as fuck.

55:31 And one of my favorite little side adventures you come upon is a wagon train where one of the members had been murdered. There's been a murder. By someone else in the group. Oh, my stars. And yeah, you have to do a full Batman-style investigation. Oh, shit. And do interrogations and everything and figure out who the murderer is. Wait, so you go by and you're like, what's your alibi? Yeah, literally ask them what their alibi is. Oh, and that's so cool. They just inject a whodunit into this role-playing game? They did. Yeah, we didn't get this far. It was the self-appointed cop. Whether you choose north or south at the parting of the ways makes little difference, as either one will put you on the path to the Green River, which you will need to cross.

56:19 Probably best to take a ferry across this river, as it is famously one of the strongest currents on the trail. This one really sucks. This one really sucks. If you took the southern route, you'll be heading to Fort Bridger next. It's another situation like Julesburg where you could have skipped it and gone straight to the next checkpoint if you had taken the northern route, but it's also colder and more treacherous that way, so there's a higher chance of injury or sickness. Oh, right, because the more north you are, the farther from the equator, the colder it'll be. Exactly. Fort Bridger is worth stopping through, as it is the last time the Oregon Trail, the California Trail and the Mormon Trail all intersect. Oh, and then they all start to divert from there?

57:01 And they do, yeah. But for people traveling west to east, it was the first time the three trails merged, and it created an opportunity for trade of exotic goods from all three trails. So this is a really important pit stop. It is, yeah. A lot of people coming through, a lot of resources coming through, very cool. But it was also just kind of like an optional stop. Fort Bridger was founded by the real life mountain man, Jim Bridger, and the man historians call his partner, Luis Vasquez, as their own little trading post in their retirement years. And yeah, like I said, historians call it partner.

57:43 Don't you hate that shit where you're like, Emily Dickinson wrote about licking the fucking envelope that you lick just so your lips could touch in some long way, and they're like, she was her best friend. Yeah, I think we used to buy pet food from these guys in West Hollywood. Just let people love who they love. It's okay, we're literally forging a new world, like, who gives a shit. Well, speaking of letting people love who they love, in Fort Bridger, you can attend the wedding of a couple you met while on the journey. Wait, that's very romantic, I love that. Yes, the woman was betrothed to a man selected for her by her father. Oh, I don't love that part.

58:23 But she fell in love with another man and ran away with him on the Oregon Trail to start a new life together. Yeah, you help her avoid her family at one point on the journey, so she invites you to the wedding. That's beautiful, holy shit. The mountain man Jim Bridger himself even officiates the wedding between the woman and her love. After the wedding, you all agree to get dinner once you're all settled in Oregon. That's beautiful, I love that. Yeah, let love be love. You're just making your own community, too, of like, all right, I'll eventually see you in Portland, I guess. Yeah, exactly. The next stop before reaching the settlement, Fort Hall, is everyone's favorite checkpoint, Soda Springs.

59:06 Soda Springs? It's a naturally carbonated spring. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, and people like to swim and also take a drink from the fizzy water. Everyone loves sparkling water. Yeah, including little Mary, who we met earlier. She sees your group splashing in the water and swims over to let out an enormous belch. That is the worst way to greet a group of people. That is so rude. She's four years old. Yeah, but still. And then she breaks down into a fit of giggles, begging you not to tell her mom that she just did that in public. She then says that her birthday is coming up soon, and she'll be turning five. She asks if you'll please come to her birthday party when you all get to Oregon, and of course you agree.

59:50 Yeah, you're like, I might be dead, but good luck. Sorry if I'm dead. Right, I'll do my best. Finally, you make it to Fort Hall, Idaho, the largest of the forts so far, with tons of shopping and trading to be done. Travelers are often tempted to just stop here and settle down as it has beautiful mountain views, without all the problems of actually living in the mountains. It's at the base so you can appreciate the view and still grow crops. Right. With the trail getting harder and harder, many people realize they might not be cut out for this journey. They just go, you know, Idaho's kind of beautiful. What if we just stayed here?

1:00:31 I'm kind of cool with this, yeah. I can grow potatoes. It'll be fucking great. And this is a huge fort that was sadly demolished in the 1860s. Oh. But the settlements around it have thrived. Beautiful. The stretches between settlements are getting further apart, and you have to be better at managing all of your resources and your timing now, as the summer is starting to come to a close. If you're in Idaho, is that putting you at the halfway point or the two-third point? Soda Springs is right around the 60% mark. Okay, so we're a little over halfway there. That's great. If you're in the Rockies still during the winter, your party's not going to make it, and you're going to have a full party kill.

1:01:12 One of the fun parts of playing this game in school, especially a school that had a connected network, was that all the school's copies of The Oregon Trail were connected. So if your friend Jimmy dies while playing on another computer in the lab, their character will have a little tombstone that you can see on the trail where they died. Oh, no, so you can see how far your friends made it and be like, haha, I beat you. Yeah, you can. That's hysterical. And when you die, the game tells you what killed you. Oh, which has led to the ever famous. You have died of dysentery. And what is dysentery, Tom? That we all know and love today. Yeah, this taught children everywhere that you can die from having too much diarrhea.

1:01:56 You pooped yourself to death. You pooped yourself to death. It's a very serious thing that still plagues communities to this day. Oh, fully. It is very bad. But. And very dangerous. But to a kid finding out that this is somebody pooped themselves to death kind of funny. It's the best thing for an 11 year old ever. Holy shit. Well, you're also able to write your own epitaph. Oh. And you could leave fun notes to your friends and sneak curse words and insults into it. Nice. The game could also just write a random one for you if you didn't want to write anything. Oh, no. Yeah, eat your heart out, ChatGPT. After Fort Hall, you have another north south split.

1:02:39 One will take you along the Snake River, and the other through a northern route along the Three Island Crossing. I personally always took the Snake River route, because when I was a kid, my dad took me whitewater river rafting on it. Oh, Steve actually lived it. I actually lived it, and he almost died. Oh, my God. Yeah, he almost died of hypothermia because the water was so fucking cold. And you're like, this is the safe route to take? Yeah, honestly, I've been terrified of cold water ever since. But regardless of that, I always take this path because, you know, at least I've been down it before. I don't think you took the right message from this interaction. You know, it's that the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't.

1:03:21 So I survived it. It was my dad that had the problem. Yeah, you definitely did not absorb this correctly. No, I did not, did I? I think you should do some journaling on this one. Yeah, well, like I said, I'm still terrified of cold water ever since, so. Sure. Anyway, so I went down the Snake River. After making it through the dangerous and deadly rapids of the Snake River, you've likely caught several diseases. Oh no. Maybe even lost a party member or two to something like cholera or a broken leg. Which one's cholera? It's also very similar to dysentery. It's like a stomach bug issue. Got it. But as long as you have your main party member still alive, you make it to Fort Boise, which is not where Boise, Idaho is today.

1:04:05 I had one assumption and it was wrong. Yeah, we've had two places named Boise, Idaho in this country. What? We needed a backup of Boise? We needed a second one. There was an air and a spare for Boise? Well, Fort Boise was abandoned shortly after the railroad would make the Oregon Trail obsolete, and they established a new Boise in the 1870s, which is the state capital today. New Boise? Right. I love that. Now we head into the rocky part of the Rocky Mountains as we head towards the next checkpoint, the Blue Mountains. We're starting to get into some Last of Us 1 road trip territory. Yeah, right? This is the same kind of area.

1:04:46 This is the University of Eastern Colorado. Yeah, the Snake River actually is very near Jackson, Wyoming. Oh, shit. Okay, so we are just Joel and Ellie now. Yeah, I was visiting Jackson Hole, Wyoming when we went whitewater river rafting down the Snake River. Can we do a Last of Us Oregon Trail? Crossover? Yeah. Yeah, The Last of Us is basically the Oregon Trail. It really is. They add another thousand miles because you start in Boston, but yeah, basically. It's the Mormon Trail, though, because you go to Salt Lake City. I was going to say Joel should have probably known the trail. Yeah. He played this, guys. Well, regardless of the time of year, it is cold and snowy through these parts.

1:05:27 Travelers in Fort Boise warn you, you are probably going to want to turn back or just stay here. It sucks from here on out. Especially when you come across the headstone for Little Mary. Shut up. That sucks. Oh, it fucking hurts. That really fucking sucks. You see this headstone and it's got a little fucking doll on it, and you're like, fucking do not tell me that's Little Mary. That's exactly what they did for Henry in The Last of Us 1. Remember, it's the headstone with the doll on it. It hurts. Damn. And Joel goes, that grave's too small. It is. Oh, my goodness.

1:06:07 Damn, what a gut punch. Also, that bitch was feral. She ran up, open mouthed to you, and then invited you to her birthday party several states over. Yeah. Oh, she had so much life. She did, but not anymore. Not at this point. Thank you for your service, Mary. The trail was too hard on that poor little four-year-old girl, and she did not make it. That sucks. Honestly, it's likely she got sick from the water in Soda Springs. She really shouldn't have been, like, open mouth gulping and swallowing and burping it up. Yeah, and she did not make it to her fifth birthday. So you can erase that off your social calendar. As you cross the peak of the Blue Mountains and begin your set into the Willamette Valley, you head toward one of the final checkpoints before make it to Oregon City, a fort called Fort Napierce after the native tribe of the same name.

1:06:59 Oh, great. Problem was, it was located nowhere near their homelands. Oh, they had, like, a remote station? Yeah, it was actually built on the land of the Walla Walla native tribe, and eventually it was renamed to Fort Walla Walla. Is that Walla Walla, Washington? It is, yeah. Okay, I know one thing about Walla Walla Washington, and now I know two. One was it exists, and two is where the name came from. Exactly, right? Well, it's another non-military fort, mainly just there for trade. It was the last stop before the final and most dangerous stretch of the Oregon Trail, but that also made it the first stop on the way back east, often for broken and desperate people who failed to achieve their American dream of striking it rich in Oregon.

1:07:48 So this fort stopped letting people inside the grounds and only allowed trade through a small service window cut into the side of the fort. Wow, so this is like a check cashing place where they've got the bulletproof fucking window and shit? Yeah, it was considered kind of dangerous just because there were some desperate people there. Oh, that sucks. And you're like, the horizon is right there, and it's like the saddest fucking fort. Yeah, it's like having to go through the slums before getting into the town, you know? Yeah, holy shit. From here, you head to the final decision point at a small crossroad outpost called The Dales. The Dales is in Oregon, but it's not the final destination as you have the choice of taking the wild and dangerous Columbia River or the rocky and difficult mountain path into the Willamette Valley and Oregon City.

1:08:37 With the river, you can hire a guy to take you down the rapids because you won't be crossing this river. You'll be traveling down it. Oh. Or you can take the road that has recently opened, but it will have a high toll since it was built by a business tycoon who wants to capitalize on people not wanting to get wet. Son of a bitch. So I didn't want to give a business tycoon money. And the river offers the only change in gameplay anyway, so that's the one worth taking. You're like, emotionally vote with my wallet. As a gamer, I want to play this. Right, exactly too. Otherwise, you're just walking to the city and the game's over. And the river is a great experience, honestly, especially on the modern version. You cock up your wagon, throw it onto a wooden raft, and you have to guide the river down the rapids.

1:09:24 And a lot of people in real life and in the game lost everything here. Oh, just right at the end? Right at the end. It's not a safe or easy passage. Oh, that sucks. And the chances of hitting a rock and flipping are very high. Oh, shit, so it's like, you're really threading the needle. You really have to, yeah. But if you have the skill and patience, after months of turmoil, fearsome dangers and matchless wonder, your party finally makes it to the Willamette Valley. Yay! You've traveled 2,183 miles. So many more than little Mary ever could.

1:10:06 Oh. You probably lost a party member or two of your own. You've helped countless people along your way, and likely shit your brains out from dysentery once or twice. Who doesn't? But you made it, like so many that actually braved that long and difficult passage across the United States. Something about the challenge and adventure of traveling through The Oregon Trail has resonated with pretty much everyone who has played it. Thank you so much, everyone, for taking this actual journey with us, even if it was your 50th time going down it. I think I should play this for the first time just to start off with. This sounds fucking great.

1:10:47 Because that was The Oregon Trail. Hell yeah, we made it! We made it. Time to make our fortune for ourselves. Are you happy I never said, are we there yet? I'm very happy, thank you so much. I was tempted. Oh, I imagine anybody who said it on the actual fucking trail just got shot. Just slapped. They were one of those ones that got the tombstone that said that it was an accidental gunshot wound. You hear from across the computer lab, stand up, walk over to that desk, slap them, and then go back down to your desk and calmly keep playing The Oregon Trail. Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah, so I played maybe an hour of this cumulatively.

1:11:28 I really kind of want to go back and play it. Yeah, you should actually play it. I can't believe that you're like one of that one third of the students that never got to play it. The timing didn't work out. My teacher had a solution. It's fine. It doesn't have to be name brand. It doesn't have to be. It was an Oregon Trail dupe. Just like the bodega earring dupes are like viral on Amazon right now. Exactly, right? It's fine, everyone. It's fine. That was fucking great. Oh, thank you so much. And Goombas, honestly, just thank you for being with us this season. That was season seven of The Other Castle. It was a huge season. That is the most hours we've put into any season so far.

1:12:11 I am so proud of the work that we've done. I'm so proud of you, Andrea. You've done so well this season, especially. You are so horror focused. You somehow kept your mind together during all of that. That's an overstatement. The Callisto Protocol broke my brain a little bit. That one was real gory. It's all right. Okami broke me. I know. From living with you, yes, I'm aware. No, this has been really great. And thank you. This episode was more fun. You wanted to do this for the Patreon. I did, yeah. And I bullied you into doing it for... The main series, yeah. The main series, and then we somehow both bullied you into doing it as the finale, which has been great.

1:12:52 Yeah. So this really is going to show that we can bully Tom into getting a tramp stamp. Will you stop with trying to get me to get a tramp stamp? It's not me, it's the Discord. No, it's not. It's also me on the Discord. Well, if you liked this show, if you liked everything you heard, please remember to like and subscribe us. We will be back next season. We will definitely be dropping stuff in between. If you want to keep hearing us in the off season, check out our Discord for just $2 a month. Every month we are dropping episodes still. So today I am actually in honor of Halloween, dropping a spooky game. I did an episode on Polybius, the game that never was on our Patreon.

1:13:34 Oh yes, if you don't know the story of Polybius, it is an insane story. You can go to our Patreon and just do a free trial and check it out if you want to. Yeah, that's fine. We made this, we want people to hear it, but it's part Polybius, part recap of the last season, just because we got really excited about all the fun games we got to play. But I do cover all of Polybius all the way up until now. Mwa ha ha ha ha. And you can sign up there at our website, theothercastlepodcast.com. That's the othercastlepodcast.com. We also have our Twitch channel that we are going to be Twitch streaming every Friday evening at 8:30 PM Pacific Standard Time. That's 11:30 PM Eastern. Oh, wow, that's pretty late for that. I'm sorry, guys.

1:14:15 But then it'll be on YouTube the next day if you want to hang out with us. When we do games that we've already done, we actually just get to go off about all the fun shit we didn't get to talk about in the episodes or elaborate on the wild behind-the-scenes stories, which I think is very fun. Yeah, it's a really fun time. We also want to give a big shout-out to the people who are on our Patreon already. We have Paul, Omar, Erin, Cyrus, Trevor, Molly, and Ellen. Krisha, Molly Muck, Jackie, and Tijen. Thank you guys so much. We will see you on the Discord, where we will continue to bully Tom into body modifications. And just talk about, like, we're talking about the new FNAF movie on there right now. Lots of Rockstar Grand Theft Auto 6 watch.

1:14:59 It's mostly me just going, all right, all right, all right. They opened up the fucking website on Metacritic for this page, like, let's go. Ah, it's good times, but thank you all so very much. Thank you so much for being here, Goombas. And please remember to tell people about us, tell your friends to listen to us. And this is Tom and Andrea reminding you. Just take the fucking bus. And don't skip the cutscenes. Bye!