Everyone of a certain age has their own experience playing The Oregon Trail on a computer as a kid.

Some of us started with the Apple II Oregon Trail, while some of us played later Oregon Trail versions. But we all learned what it meant to “ford a river” and “caulk a wagon.” Some of us played the Oregon Trail Deluxe version on Windows and acted out the scenes of our wagon train passing through what is now Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and, if you were lucky, more western states. Some of us started as bankers and went crazy buying laudanum in the General Store. Some wanted the challenge and started as teachers. Some of us eschewed gameplay when things got dire and spent our time throwing out supplies to make room for everything we brought back from hunting.

The Oregon Trail Card Game doesn’t really facilitate the kind of free-wheeling play that the digital Oregon Trail versions afforded. That’s fine for a card game, though: unless your parents forced you to share every moment at the computer with your little sister (thanks, Mom and Dad), the original games were solitary endeavors. A card game should include everyone at the table, and The Oregon Trail Card Game is better with four or more people. (Although the box says you can play with two, that got boring real quick when I tried it.)

Just like in the original video game, THE OREGON TRAIL GAME has players taking on the role of 19th Century pioneers making their way from Independence, Missouri to settle America's West Coast. Your goal is to complete this perilous journey while keeping your family healthy and having as much money as possible in your pocket. Until, eventually, you find yourself safe, in Willamette Valley. Relive your fond memories of one of the world’s most beloved computer games as you race your friends to victory in “The Oregon Trail: Journey to Willamette Valley.” For 2-4 players, ages 14 and up. 1 Game Board; 48 Trail Tiles; 32 Coins; 1 Die; 1 Hunting Stand.

The goal of The Oregon Trail Card Game is to have at least one person at the table survive through 50 trail cards, at which point your wagon train arrives at Willamette, Oregon. If one person makes it, everyone at the table wins. It’s a nice change of pace from fiercely competitive games in which alliances are formed and relationships are ruined for a night.

Gameplay is relatively simple: everybody is dealt Trail Cards and Supply Cards at the start, and you go around the table putting down Trail Cards that fit with the Trail Card played before your turn. Trail Cards instruct you on next moves. Sometimes your best Trail Card tells you to pick a Calamity Card, and—you guessed it—that brings calamity upon the wagon party. Sometimes the calamity is easily fixed by playing a Supply Card; sometimes the calamity is immediate death. Maybe this is why the game's publisher says you only need 30 minutes to play. (In fairness, some of us modern folk would only last 30 minutes on the real Oregon Trail.)

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As an exercise in nostalgia, The Oregon Trail Card Game is... OK. But as a game, there are issues. The big problem is that some of the cards that are supposed to further gameplay have ambiguous instructions, and I was not able to find any clarifying instructions in the rules booklet.

For example, one kind of Trail Card says, “Roll an even number to ford the river. Roll an odd number and lose one Supply Card.” Pretty straightforward! But then another type of Trail Card says, “Roll an even number and ford the river. Roll a one and die by drowning.” So what if I roll a three or a five? To me, the most logical interpretation is that you lose a Supply Card, but when you’re low on Supply Cards and only five Trail Cards away from Willamette, desperately looking for any reason not to lose that Supply Card, that kind of ambiguity will be exploited.

Calamity Cards can be just as difficult to understand. The Inadequate Grass card reads: “If two Inadequate Grass Cards are face up then two oxen die. One round of play without an Oxen Card and everyone in your party has died.” When, exactly, does the “everyone in your party has died” action trigger? Is it triggered if two Inadequate Grass cards are pulled and no one in the party has an Oxen Card they can play at any time for the rest of the game? Or does an Oxen Card need to be anted up before one round of play is completed? If you need to cough up an Oxen Card right away, it seems pretty unlikely that you’d get two Inadequate Grass Cards in a row (as long as your Calamity Card deck is well-shuffled).

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There are only two Inadequate Grass cards in 32 Calamity Cards, and not every turn requires the table to pull a Calamity Card. So while my instinct is to “leave the Inadequate Grass card on the table for a few rounds of play, and if a second such card is pulled, then someone needs to give up an Oxen Card but otherwise no action is taken,” no other Calamity Card is held on the table for that long. I can also see how the game might be instructing your wagon party to sacrifice an Oxen Card before the next round of play begins.

Another concern: you hardly ever draw good cards on The Oregon Trail. Two Food Cards in the Calamity Card deck allow you to exchange a “bullets” Supply Card for a “food” Supply Card. Two Town Cards and two Fort Cards (out of a deck of 58 Trail Cards) allow you to pull one or two additional Supply Cards or allow you to discard a Calamity Card. That’s it. I know the real Oregon Trail was unforgiving, but even the computer game allowed you to hunt, or loot an abandoned wagon, or come to a cool landmark like Chimney Rock and rest.

There’s no way to gauge morale in this game. Maybe that’s because “morale is low” is the only outcome.

Still, for all these little frustrations, working together with my fellow players is refreshing. Supply Cards are never jealously guarded, and, in some rounds of play, players may simply place them face up on the table to save time. If one person pulls a Typhoid Calamity Card, the next two players will probably use their turns to play their Water and Medicine Supply Cards. Although the instructions tell you that “there may be many times when it is a better strategy to let a player die” than to spend your Supply Cards, in the few games I played with my group, I never came across an instance when letting a player die felt like the better strategy.

Gameplay is quick—downtime for non-active players is short, especially with four players, which seems to be the ideal group. When I tried playing with just one other person, my premature death meant watching my husband draw cards for another five minutes until he died. With four players, we were able to keep three of us alive for a solid 20 minutes (our first death in that game occurred when a player rolled a one on that notorious “Roll an even number and ford the river... ” card).

Oregon Trail moves fast enough that we weren't bored by the end. But getting to Oregon is really hard. We never did.

Listing image by Megan Geuss

My kids are currently learning about the country's Westward Expansion through their school history lessons, so were excited when I brought out THE OREGON TRAIL GAME for us to play. When I was their age it was a big deal at school to be able to play The Oregon Trail video game on our classroom's Apple Macintosh computer which was considered a 'high tech' educational resource at the time. Who else remembers playing the video game at school as an '80s kid? Pressman's tabletop adaption puts that classic video game to shame and is very fun to play.
Just like in the original video game, THE OREGON TRAIL GAME has players taking on the role of 19th Century pioneers making their way from Independence, Missouri to settle America's West Coast. Your goal is to complete this perilous journey while keeping your family healthy and having as much money as possible in your pocket. Hunt wildlife and gather supplies to keep your family alive during the trek. You may even be able to pick up a hitchhiker to make some extra money along the way. Beware though because if a family member dies not only will you be grieving but their funeral cuts into your total fortune that determines who wins the game.

Start off your adventure by loading your ox pulled wagon. Four blocks placed within the wagon represent your family. Each block starts off showing 5 health points. If a family member's health gets down to 0 health points a number is replaced with a tombstone. If your whole family is showing tombstones at anytime during the game you automatically lose. So make sure you keep everyone healthy!
The wagon also holds supplies. Players start off with $300 dollars, 2 barrels of meat, and a pistol. You can buy or sell food and supplies by visiting forts and towns along your route. Your path is determined by blind-drawing tiles that represent the landscape being traveled through. These tiles include forts, towns, rivers, wilderness and winter landscapes that have different benefits and consequences.
For example if a player doesn't have winter clothes stocked in their wagon than each family member loses one point of heath and any hitchhikers DIE immediately if a wagon lands on a snowy tile. On the other hand, winter clothes take up limited room for supplies onboard your wagon and having them with you might mean there isn't room for other things like spare parts to fix a broken wheel or medicine to heal a sick family member. There is a strategic element to stocking your wagon that has risks and rewards during gameplay.

Oregon Trail Board Game Wikipedia

Running low on food? Go hunting when your wagon is in a wilderness tile. Another player draws a hunting card and keeps it information a mystery. For each pistol owned one guess can be marked on the numbers on the target chart of a wagon card. If a shotgun is owned its marker can be placed on the targets on the wagon card counting as a guess for both numbers on either side of the target providing twice the odds of matching the number on the hunting card. Players who don't guess the right number miss their prey.

The Oregon Trail Game Free

Guess right though and you hit the animal which is then identified by the opposing player holding the hunting card. It could be as small as a squirrel or as large as a bison. There are six different type of animals to be hunted and each provides a different amount of food that can be added to your provisions. You have to feed your family with a block of food each turn to avoid losing health points so it is important to be well stocked during the journey.

Oh yeah here is a helpful hunting tip. If you purchase a compass at a town or fort it can be discarded to let you see the front of a hunting card before laying down your pistol and shotgun markers on the wagon card. So you are guaranteed to hit your target during that turn when hunting. That can be a life or death turn of events if your food is running low while traveling along the Oregon Trail.
Hunting and gathering supplies aren't the only challenges of traversing the Oregon Trail. Rivers can be a dangerous obstacle. When players have one blocking their paths, they must either skip a turn to cross it or roll a die to determine if they achieved safe passage across. There is a number on each river tile. A player must roll that number or higher or else they drown while attempting to cross. Is it worth the odds for a quick crossing?
Beware because there is danger in every turn when playing The Oregon Trail Game. At the start of each player's turn they must pull a card from the Calamity deck. A card may announce the path is blocked by bad weather, your wagon may have become damaged, or a family member has died from dehydration. Fortunately, most calamity cards provide a way for someone to avoid a negative fate by achieving a specified result during that current turn. For example, reaching a landscape tile with a river on it negates the calamity of someone dying from dehydration.
Avoid calamities while traveling from Independence, Missouri to Oregon's Willamette Valley. We had a fun family game night competing against one another to see who could make their fortune as a pioneer. So this dad blogger is giving THE OREGON TRAIL GAME a Geek Daddy nod of approval in this board game review. It was nice that playing the game got my kids thinking about their history lessons while they were having a good time. I always appreciate it when an experience can combine entertaining and educating my kids at the same time!

Oregon Trail Board Game How To Play

THE OREGON TRAIL GAME by Pressman is for 2 to 4 players. It is recommended for ages 14 and up though my eleven year old twins were able to play the game with minimum difficulty. For more information go to pressmantoy.com