Wheel of Time MUD

I showed this game to my son yesterday:

(I mentioned it on discord. I used to play this game in school 30 years ago.)

https://classicreload.com/oregon-trail.html

We made it as a carpenter with a family of 5!

Stats:
5 people in good health
1 wagon
1 ox
5 spare wagon parts
8 sets of clothing
45 bullets
13 pounds of food
0 cash
points doubled as carpenter
5160 points

What score can you get?!?

Orino

I'm curious to see how faithfully this has been translated over. So I played this in childhood - my elementary school literally had this on school computers though I could never finish it in a 30 minute class. I didn't "get it" as a kid so I always bought $$$ of ammunition as a banker. I played it later as a teenager - its very beatable as a farmer. Purchase 0 food and spend the rest on other supplies - hunt a lot. See if you can trade food for other valuables since in general food is readily acquired. When I played it years ago the only way to beat the highest score was to bring 5 healthy people in as a farmer. If you have the food you rest until healthy before Oregon and then enter healthy. That said - I don't know if it was a fluke, but I recall being about to "win" with 5 healthy people entering Oregon and like literally with half an inch of screen left one of my people just suddenly died thereby denying me the highest score. Found myself wondering if somehow the game won't let you beat it. Probably I'm wrong and it was just a fluke, I would say - just play farmer and start over the 2nd someone dies of drowning, dysentery, cholera, and leave plenty of obscene messages for yourself on tombstones.

There is another version that was released years after - my memory is the hunting is much different.

If the first river is 3.5 feet it cannot be forded. I am much poorer now! Save $5 for the first crossing hehe.

I waited until it was 2.5 ft to cross!

Haha!

Get help crossing later (from the locals). Save some $. It's worth the help!

Have been playing the same game all day slowly while working. probably should have started over from the beginning. Took obscene losses on the first river. Lost like 80% of my oxen. Then had two more stolen about one minute after crossing to the other side. No other river losses since. Had no casualties for a long time. kept well stocked on food. Would rest for days whenever anyone got sick. Then had nine pairs of clothing stolen in one fell swoop. During the winter. Lost three family members almost instantaneously. If your group is in bad health and someone gets hurt and you don't rest they will die ridiculously quickly. Had people dying during screens I did not even know you could have them die too. Was hunting to try and stock up so that I could rest because people were in poor health but they died literally after a hunting expedition. Had some luck with trading - I normally only trade when I am at a monument. Always enter monuments with as much food as you can. Any item that you can get in exchange for food is a win since food can be so easily replaced. I think the randomness of the game is what will drive you crazy. 9 pairs of clothing. Are you kidding me. Also, when you get down to one ox you will only move like three miles a day on steady pace. Makes for a very long game.

Can trade for oxen and hunt while resting?

Ouch on the thief!

Orino

Died on the final river where you have to navigate around the rocks. The final get out is surrounded by 3 rocks and I wasn't sure how to approach it.

I think unfortunately hunting counts as its own day. I hunted to get meat to do a 3 day rest, but when the hunt ended I guess it counted as a day so someone in poor health died. I think people die in winter very quickly with no clothes...and typhoid.

You can trade for oxen but they tend to be more expensive. I think its relatively random but still has a component of "filling your need". ie. when you are a farmer and break all your axles/tongues/lose all your oxen/whatever - I've ALWAYS been offered within a reasonable time period something that I have to have. Ideally you do trade often (though maybe you are burning good days doing this) using food as your coin. Anything exchanged for food seems like a win. Course in the spirit of things becoming available I think some of the "steals" are designed to be hardbreaking also. Oregon Trail is like Wheel of Time. When you lose you lose hard.

Started over (but closed my comp and it crashed the game) and followed your advice. Forded the first 2 rivers at like 2.6 feet and only lost a day to wet food.

I am nearly done with my first play though (will finish it something this evening):

Farmer: Tandie
A little bit after Fort Boise and Snake River, my stats were:
5 Healthy family members
17 oxen
9 clothes
~150 bullets
3 wheels
2 axles
1 tongue
? food (low food, but easy to hunt for more)
and $10.

Here's the thing, a few turns after, I started traveling towards the Blue Mountains and then had 3 of my family members die in one go over ~10ish turns... RIP LLewlyn, Thomaso & Bart...
Resting made things worse because of the local quality of the water.

Anyway, rewinding a bit and here is how I played until this point:

I waited out the worst of the winter (January), resting at Fort Hall. I noticed on the map that the mountains were up ahead, so figured a fort would be a good place to rest.

Before entering Fort Hall, I spent some time hunting for max food just outside of town, stocking up for Winter and trading. The hunting right after the fort was also really good, to restock after having used up all of my stores.

One night, a thief stole 3 of my oxen...

For a subsequent playthrough, I noticed that one of the middle Forts sells the oxes for $30 instead of $40. It might be a fun experiment to buy less oxes than the recommended at the start, travel more slowly then load up at that town. I would also probably choose to start with less food than I did, and save the $. Anyway, just a thought!

PS, cool moment in the game: I killed both a fox and a bear with one bullet during one hunting expedition.

Also, is there any way to check on the current health of my family members?
Finally, are there any useful shortcut keys that you know of (ie, leaving hunting sessions early)?

Buy zero food to start. Immediately hunt. That said, I started a new game, bought zero food, exited independence, and immediately lost the trail for five days. With zero food. No worse the wear but I laughed my butt off.

Played with my 8 y/o tonight, with him controlling everything but purchasing and hunting (shooting the gun), he finished with 2200 points. I played in grade school myself on an Apple II GS and don't think I ever finished during computer class.