Oregon Trail Clone

Clone of popular 90's computer game for C#.

Cloning Instructions

git clone https://github.com/Maxwolf/OregonTrail.git

Compilation Instructions

The solution builds with the standard .NET CLI on any platform:

dotnet build OregonTrailDotNet.sln
dotnet run --project src/OregonTrailDotNet
dotnet test OregonTrailDotNet.sln

On Windows, ./publish.ps1 produces self-contained single-file executables (game, minigame workbench, and training bot) in the repo-root publish folder.

Simulation Features

The list below describes how this clone actually behaves. Where the clone deliberately reimplements a rule from the original 1980s/1990s game differently, that is called out with a (differs from original: …) note.

Travel

1. The trip is simulated one day at a time; each day the vehicle advances toward the next landmark until it is reached (differs from original, which used fixed two-week segments)
2. A turn counter increments once per simulated day; there is no fixed 18-turn cap (differs from original's up-to-18 two-week turns)
3. There is no time limit: like the 1985 game (which let a party idle for years and still finish), only reaching Oregon or losing the whole party ends the trip. The 246-day figure survives solely as the training bot's pacing horizon
4. Each day's ideal mileage is calculated from the value of the party's oxen plus a small random amount (differs from original's per-two-week ~200 mile projection)
5. Mileage is an ideal figure; problems (dead/wandering oxen, floods, fog, hail, illness) subtract from it, floored so the wagon always makes at least a little progress
6. The travel screen continuously shows miles traveled (odometer) and distance to the next landmark
7. Daily mileage is driven by the oxen-value formula rather than a fixed weekly average (differs from original's ~75 miles/week)
8. The going gets harder later in the trip: later locations use harsher climates, and high mountain passes apply a slow-going mileage penalty
9. Weather changes day to day; carrying fewer sets of clothing than there are party members raises the chance of illness
10. Stopping at a fort dramatically reduces the miles covered on the very next travel turn
11. Bad weather is driven by whether a random daily temperature falls at/below the month's average for the region (differs from original's flat 20%)
12. Injuries (broken arm, concussion, sprains) occur as random Person-category events (differs from original's flat 5%)
13. Random events are selected by context (weather while moving, vehicle events while traveling, river events at crossings, cave-ins/blizzards in the high country)
14. Snow appears through the cold-weather climate system, river disasters occur at river crossings, and blizzards occur at high elevations
15. Clothing and wagon parts cost 2.5 dollars more at each fort further down the trail
16. Food costs 0.10 dollars more and bullets 2.5 dollars more at each fort
17. Oxen cost 5 dollars more at each fort
18. Resting at a landmark lets sick or injured party members recover (quickly if the party carries medical supplies, slowly otherwise)
19. Locations carry a fresh-water flag; a bad-water location doubles the daily chance of contracting dysentery or cholera
20. The maximum weight of food that can be carried back from a single hunt is 100 lbs
21. The fewer animals you kill while hunting, the cheaper the Shoshoni river guide's price in clothing
22. A river configured for an Indian guide will ferry the wagon across for a base of 1-5 sets of clothing (rising with the number of animals killed)

Hunting

1. Hunting is the original's real-time field hunt: the hunter walks a scrolling field and animals wander through, with the roster (bison, antlered deer, bear, small game) gated by how far down the trail the party is
2. Aim with the arrow keys (or the ring of keys around L, or the numpad); SPACE fires one shot, and each shot costs exactly one bullet
3. RETURN toggles walking in the aim direction; ESC ends the hunt early keeping the bag; the hunt otherwise runs out its timer
4. Dressed meat is halved on the walk back, zeroed if the wagon is already full, clamped to the space left, and capped at 100 lbs
5. Headless hosts (the training bot and the test suites) play the earlier word-typing hunt — a port invention, retained as the text-mode implementation: type the shooting word while an animal is targeted, with reaction speed measured in simulation ticks

Eating

1. Food consumption in pounds is calculated from the ration level each day (a higher ration level consumes more food)

Random Events

1. A 0-99 dice roll gates whether a category event fires on a given tick (fires on a roll of 0)
2. Which event fires is chosen by cumulative per-event probability weights declared on each event
3. Events are laid out on a cumulative number line (e.g. 0-6=eventA, 6-11=eventB, …) and a single roll selects one; equal weights reproduce a uniform pick
4. An event typically prints a message and can subtract mileage and destroy supplies
5. More complex events (bandits, wild-animal attacks, weather, illness) combine several effects such as item loss, ammo consumption, and passenger death

Climate

1. Illness risk is checked against the party's clothing count versus the number of living members
2. Insufficient clothing for the party triggers the illness routine
3. The illness routine is also driven by poor eating (Meager or Bare Bones rations)

Illness

1. Checks how well the party has been eating (via ration level)
2. There is a chance to contract a mild, a bad (moderate), or a very serious illness
3. Mild and bad illnesses can be shrugged off; a very serious illness leaves the person infected and needs medical supplies (or lengthy rest) to recover

Mountains

1. Higher elevations risk cave-ins, losing your way, and slow going
2. 80% chance of getting stuck when departing South Pass
3. 70% chance of getting stuck when departing the Blue Mountains
4. Being stuck in the mountains never lasts more than 10 days
5. At high elevations, storms are blizzards 90% of the time

Death

1. Death can come from running out of food (starvation), lack of clothing (illness), or being sick with no medical supplies; running out of both food and ammunition accelerates starvation
2. A short message tells you the cause of death
3. How far you traveled and the supplies you had left are shown on the death screen
4. Historically fewer than 50% (realistically ~20%) of emigrants completed the journey (flavor only, not modeled in code)

Winning

1. Displays the total time and distance of the journey
2. Remaining supplies are shown
3. Scoring matches the 1985 Apple II game, verified against its decompiled disk: 500/400/300/200 points per survivor by party health, 50 for the wagon, 4 per ox (cap 20), 2 per spare part (cap 3 of each of 3 types), 2 per set of clothing (cap 255), 1 per 50 bullets (cap 65,535), 1 per 25 lb of food (cap 2,000), 1 per $5 cash; floored per line, then multiplied x1/x2/x3 for Banker/Carpenter/Farmer. Ratings: Trail Guide 6000+, Adventurer 3000+, Greenhorn below
4. The highest possible score is 13,860: a farmer party of five arriving in good health with every capped item maxed and $360 of the $400 stake unspent (the $40 minimum is the required yoke of oxen). The clothing and bullet caps mirror the original's endgame memory-handoff limits