I ended up playing The Oregon Trail and When Rivers Were Trails and got very invested in each of the games for pretty different reasons. Both of them involved survival, Oregon emphasized the survival of your family during migration while Rivers focused on the survival of yourself while experiencing displacement, It’s a bit disturbing to realize that both games seem to take place around the same period, both games involve loss but one’s loss in Oregon is at the direct expense of another in Rivers.
I feel that Oregon looks at Western history in a very textbook way. It also goes by video game logic is a very textbook way considering how old the game is, you exchange money for goods and rely on Western maps. I only got halfway through this game before losing but the few depictions I saw of Indigenous people seemed to be indifferent, even in a subservient way, they were there to trade and be in pixelated background art that I notice is similar to other Western art of Indigenous/Settler relationships. As I got farther into the game, I was way more invested in survival than I was in other characters’ histories, at many points, I only cared about matters of trade, almost in a colorblind way.
Rivers goes out of its way to teach indigenous history as it affected real indigenous people at the time. Admittedly, they had slides of history that ended up looking “textbook-y”, but the information it gives is far more testimonial to actual indigenous experiences than anything in Oregon. In terms of survival, you don’t just survive on food and medicine, but on spiritual wellness, I think I remember that you only even die in the game after running out of spiritual wellness. When finding other characters along the game, it was way more personal than in Oregon the recourses I would trade were more important to me and I also felt it was more important to have a good relationship with every other indigenous person I came in contact with. I wanted to see survival for everyone I met. I also noticed it was way harder to hunt in this game than in Oregon, I assume this is to put more value in hunting and the skill it really takes.
Lua– your post made me think differently about survival as a theme in *both* games, yet executed in vastly different ways. By following how “survival”, and conversely “loss,” is portrayed in both games, we garner a more insightful understanding of how history is being represented in each game (as well as its limitations).
I completely agree that The Oregon Trail offers a very “textbook” version of western history and glorifies the rugged struggles of settlers on overland trails. Your post also describes an important aspect of the game play; that players can become easily fixated on the logistics of survival (crunching numbers, having supplies, and trading) rather than engage with history in a meaningful way. I think this version somewhat strays from what the game’s creators intended, but at the same time I think they considered the logistics as parts of “history.” Conversely, When Rivers Were Trails embraces historical narratives and contribute to the game’s strengths. I also like how spiritual wellness is an important part of one’s overall survival. As you profoundly suggest, we interact with a powerful network of survival throughout the game and it reveals a much larger web of social and cultural relations across communities.