Oregon Trail: Hot Pursuit by merrak
You and your partner are on the run! Can you make it to Oregon before Sheriff Marbles catches you?
Oregon Trail: Hot Pursuit takes you back to a time when pioneers strapped rockets to their oxen and jet across the open frontier. Youngsters will learn all about "American history" in this new take on the under-appreciated edutainment/racing genres! Seven glorious colors and Apple ][ 280 x 200 resolution. Oregon Trail: Hot Pursuit is a learning experience your children will be sure to never forget.
Some tips: * Set a fast pace to stay one step ahead of the sheriff, but be sure to set additional rations to meet the demand * Nitrous oxide bottles can get you out of a real jam * There are eight scenes with three shops along the way. Prices climb as you steer farther from home * If you have less than four oxen, you will travel slowly * You can rest to heal. You also heal a bit when you make it to a landmark * If the sheriff is not in sight, you can hunt for additional food * Press 'B' to shoot at the sheriff (if he is in sight). He'll lose some speed if you hit him * If you press 'enter' to "size up the situation", you'll need to wait for the end of the round before you'll have a chance to act.
Change Log:
Changes made before deadline
- Fixed difficulty menu cash value labels to match actual cash values
- Added hunting mini-game
- Various balance-related adjustments
Changes made after deadline
- Added an HTML5 port of the game. Please note I'm using a beta version of Stencyl. While I played through the HTML5 port and didn't notice any new bugs, there still may be some that aren't in the official LD version of the game. Other than that, this port should be identical to the official LD version. I didn't make any changes to the source.
Ratings
| Overall | 24th | 4.063⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 79th | 3.833⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 419th | 3.22⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 256th | 3.78⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 48th | 4.14⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 93th | 3.604⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1th | 4.5⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 10th | 4.25⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
The police lights over the sherif wagon... 10/10 Bow Bones would die with a broken bone again.
I made it 189 days before being shot by the sheriff.
I love the graphics, this art style is really cool, dithering for the win! :-)
The 8 bit music and sound effects fit the graphics very well, the mood of the game, the atmosphere is very consistent, great job!
I think a little more instructions on what to do and what the next goal and current progress are would be nice. The sheriff shot us a couple of times, seems I was out of luck so far.
Overall a cool idea, nice job!
I think the original game came with a separate manual--probably in a folder with other materials for the teacher to use in class. It would've been nice to have had time to write up a proper manual. One of the bigger features I didn't have time to implement was the map of the entire trail, which would help with planning.
For anyone wondering, here is the trail:
(start)---(river)---(outpost)---(river)---(river)---(outpost)---(barrier)---(river)---(goal)
The sheriff gets faster in the later "levels", and the probability of successfully rafting across the river decreases. The main difference between the difficulty levels is how many nitrous oxide bottles you can afford.
You can only hunt if you're far from the sheriff. If you run low on food you can use a nitrous bottle to leap far ahead of him, then go hunting for a couple of rounds.
@epiin Thanks for your interest! I added an HTML5 version. Please see the comment in the change log, though. I didn't make any changes to the source, so this should be identical to the Flash version--but I'm using a beta version of my development environment (Stencyl), so I can't guarantee there aren't new bugs in this version that aren't present in the Flash.
I really like the art and the music! I can't personally say that I'm a fan of Oregon Trail style gameplay though :(
@raiyumi Thanks! I thought about having a selling goods option too, actually. I tried to stick as close to the Apple II version, though--which I'm glad I did. I pushed this one right up to the last minute. (The hunting minigame was the last thing I did and I had about 30 minutes to do it).
@dark-roast-studios Sometimes it takes a while for animals to appear. For better or worse, I think I did capture the feel of the original hunting game. I remember sometimes nothing would appear. It works on a timer--every so many seconds one tick passes, and there's a chance an animal may appear at the start of a tick. After so many ticks your hunter will give up. If you're unlucky, all ticks may pass without an animal appearing at all.
@jeffrey-hwang Thanks!
@sophie So close! I think people remember the game more fondly because it was a game we could play at school.
It would be nice if you could trade or sell items. I spent all my money and then realized I didn't need 500 bullets.