Oregon Trail II: Flash Fiction

 

Have you ever played the computer game Oregon Trail II? It was my life back in the early 2000’s (I didn’t have many friends, okay?) It’s basically a text based game where you are a pioneer attempting to cross the continent on, you guessed it, the Oregon Trail.

Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I’m sure it would be if the game designers weren’t sadists! I swear, after three years of intense gameplay, I made it to Oregon maybe twice and then only technically… The game developers specialize in cultivating a false sense of hope as you navigate their trail of horrors. They take sick pleasure in killing you and your party as creatively as possible.

The game begins innocently enough. You name your “wife” after your current crush and start off in a Midwestern town to buy supplies. You aren’t even on the trail yet and already you are faced with a major conundrum. What to take: Horses or oxen, mittens or medicine, a rocking chair or a spare axle (obvious one there, your axle broke last game)? You make these decisions very scientifically: spend half your money on ammunition for hunting and the rest via random selection (and the axle). Then you are off, travelling by map across the Great Plains.

It doesn’t take long before you run into your first crisis. A window pounces up, shouts the calamity and gives you a list of options:

THE MISSOURI RIVER!

1. Ford the river.
2. Caulk the wagons and float.

3 .     Wait.

No matter the issue, “wait” is always an option. I suppose if you wait long enough the river will just dry up and the problem will resolve itself, right? The river is too deep to ford, so you caulk the wagons and float. This brings up an animation showing your wagon floating across the river.

You are praying: “Don’t hit the whirlpool, don’t hit the whirlpool, don’t hit the…”

YOUR WAGON HAS OVERTURNED!

1. Try to salvage what you can.
2. Swim to safety.
3. Wait.

You lose half your stuff. But that’s not all….

YOUR WIFE /Anne/ CAUGHT PNUMONIA!

1. Give her medicine.
2. Forage for wild herbs.
3. Wait.

The medicine seems like a good choice…

HER CONDITION WORSENS!

So you go foraging, and find a “wild medicinal plant.”

YOUR WIFE /Anne/ DIED OF PNUMONIA. THE STINGING NETTLE YOU FED HER HAD NO EFFECT!

1. Bury the body.
2. Eat the body.
3. Wait.

Following numerous other catastrophes, such as your horses getting mired in mud, your wagon wheel (not the axle you’d been lugging around) breaking, and frostbitten fingers, you are finally approaching Oregon. It’s in view and you think that you might just make it this time. When out of nowhere:

YOU DIED OF STARVATION, AN ACCIDENTAL GUNSHOT WOUND, A SNAKEBITE AND DYSENTERY!

GAME OVER

To be honest, I never actually got to Oregon, not even technically. But really, deep down, I just wanted to hunt buffalo.