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Organ Trail is a ?retro zombie survival game? that parodies the 1971 educational game The Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail game was designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th-century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail, a historic emigrant trail in the US. Whereas in The Oregon Trail game you travel west to Oregon from Missouri via covered wagon, with your ?family? looking to settle for a better life, in Organ Trail you travel west from Washington DC in a station wagon with 4 of your friends, scavenging for supplies and fending off the undead, looking for ?Safe Haven.?
If you?ve never had the chance to experience the original The Oregon Trail, you can still play it for free in your browser on playclassic.games. The developer behind Organ Trail, the Men Who Wear Many Hats, created a loving, detailed, tribute to the original game that inspired them.
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In both games, you begin by choosing your starting resources ? In The Oregon Trail, your chosen profession allots you a certain amount of money ? and more money buys you more supplies for your journey west in your wagon. In Organ Trail, you have a limited amount of time to scavenge for resources before leaving the east coast in your aptly named, more modern mode of transportation ? a station wagon.
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During the trip, you have the opportunity to stop and gather supplies ? whether by attempting to trade with other travelers, or in The Oregon Trail hunting for food and in Organ Trail scavenging for all types of supplies, from fuel, to food, to money, to scrap that you can use to repair your car through its journey.
All the while fending off ravenous ? and sometimes tanky – zombies! And fear not ? even though it looks like a DOS game, the gameplay and shooting mechanic feels good and easy to maneuver with a mouse.
In The Oregon Trail, at the various stops on the road, you have the opportunity to chat with other people, look at the map to see your progress and at times have to make certain choices ? like to how to handle a river crossing. In Organ Trail, you have similar options, but there are even MORE of them: if there?s an auto shop, you can pay to repair your car or buy upgrades or parts for it, you can sell your items and buy some of what?s available, take jobs eliminating zombies or dangerous groups and you can even learn advanced combat techniques to help you during jobs or scavenging missions.
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You also have to escape from bands of biker gangs out to destroy your car ? a nice throwback to the raging river rapids in The Oregon Trail. And of course, if your friends get bitten by zombies, you gotta decide whether to heal them or kill ?em. And in both games, it seems no one escapes dysentery.
Initially released as an Adobe Flash-based browser game, you can now find Organ Trail on Steam, PS4, and Vita, as well as on iOS and Android. In addition to the campaign mode ? where the game ends when you reach Safe Haven ? there is also an endless mode, and Organ Trail expansions introduce a co-op mode, as well as new unlockable characters, cars, new boss fights, new zombie types, new mission types, a choose-your-own route with twice as many cities, fishing and more!
For more information on the game and its developer, check out hatsproductions.com/organtraildc
