Oregon Trail

[Random_Spock]

Recently thousands of old DOS games were released online for streaming on the Internet Archive.

Naturally, Oregon Trail was one of them, likely a game alot -if not all of us- played on old computers on elementary school. So I took to playing it last night, I've been having a lot if Java/Flash issues on my computer so it was touch of a chore but still fun to do and brought back a lot of memories.

Managed to get to Oregon in around six-months with the entire party intact Though we'd bern moving at an a grueling pace for a couple weeks. A dammit, just 10 miles or so outside of Oregon some thief took all of my oxen! Spent several days waiting for someone to come along who had some for trade.

Definitely! I loved Oregon Trail and still get a kick out of it . Especially when my party dies . Then I can have fun making an epitaph. Something the newer version doesn't do . Talk about taking the fun out of the game .

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Didn't the newer version make it more Edjamacashanal and take out the hunting mini game?

Ironically, kids learned far more from Oregon Trail in terms of budgeting skills than they ever learned from the historical factoids.

I disagree that a computer class would be redundant. Kids know how to use computers, they don't understand or care how they work except the really logic-oriented ones. I've seen some pretty good games aimed at making coding principles accessible to young children.

 

[RoJoHen]

I disagree that a computer class would be redundant. Kids know how to use computers, they don't understand or care how they work except the really logic-oriented ones. I've seen some pretty good games aimed at making coding principles accessible to young children.

But do kids need to learn how to code? That's the kind of thing that some might be interested in, but I can't see an elementary school putting it in their curriculum.

 

[SPCTRE]

Amazing how the simplest games can hold up.

Simplicity in design can be boon in terms of longevity, when it's done right, especially with gameplay.

Agreed. Simple games are usually the ones that hold up the best over the years. It's the more complicated games that push boundaries that generally get dated and rendered obsolete very fast. WarCraft I was easily improved upon and is unplayable today, but Tetris will always be perfect as it is.

WarCraft II is still pretty good

 

[Owain Taggart]

But do kids need to learn how to code? That's the kind of thing that some might be interested in, but I can't see an elementary school putting it in their curriculum.

Don't look at it as needing to learn to code. Look at it from a view of problem solving. Even if the coding is very rudimentary, they will have ability to see cause-and-effect and of finding solutions to problems, and coding just so happens to be a very good way to do this. In addition to those two are the abilities to think ahead, the ability to plan things out. All of which are very good life skills to cultivate and all of which can be learned via coding. Coding then becomes a tool.

At the age of 8, I was experimenting via Basic. Ever since, I've nurtured that curiosity. In high-school, we had a computer class as part of the curriculum, part of which was coding via c++. This was part of the basic curriculum, in that it was mandatory, though you could go ahead and continue taking it beyond that for extra credits, which I did. In my teens, I had built my first website by hand before all of these WYSIWYG interfaces like Frontpage and Dreamweaver came along.

Even when I did finally have one of those, I still preferred to do it all manually. If there were problems with the code, which those programs often liked messing up, I'd be able to know what to look for in the code in order to fix it, where someone who'd rely on the WYSIWYG would just get frustrated. And I'd kept on doing it this way for as long as I can remember. The only reason I stopped doing it that way was because of CSS, which greatly simplifies the process.

So, long story short, coding helped me gain some valuable skills.

 

[Aldo]

I remember Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, but I was more a fan of the PBS game show than the computer game.

I learned so much from Carmen Sandiego. I will never forget what the 5th word of the 3rd paragraph of page 73 of the manual is!

Ah good old fashioned copyright protection. I hated it!

As for Carmen Sandiego, I always liked the "Where in time..." sequel better. Just because of the science fiction element to it.

 

[Random_Spock]

Didn't the newer version make it more Edjamacashanal and take out the hunting mini game?

Ironically, kids learned far more from Oregon Trail in terms of budgeting skills than they ever learned from the historical factoids.

I disagree that a computer class would be redundant. Kids know how to use computers, they don't understand or care how they work except the really logic-oriented ones. I've seen some pretty good games aimed at making coding principles accessible to young children.

Nope. That's still there. I got the 3ds version awhile back for cheap.

Yep. But it was well worth it.