Children of the '80s likely have fond memories of playing The Oregon Trail, the primitive computer game which involves traveling from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in a covered wagon via the, er, Oregon Trail. Along the way, you have to carefully ration food and watch your traveling pace, while battling dangerous pitfalls (drowning while fording the river! cholera! broken legs!).
Now, thanks to a trio of developers called The Men Who Wear Many Hats, that beloved educational experience has been combined with a modern fad: zombies.
Yes, zombies. In a new online version of the game, dubbed Organ Trail, you have to again trek across the country -- but instead of battling the wild and woolly prairie, you start in post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. You have a limited amount of time to scavenge for food, fuel, money and car parts, and then you must flee the city and do battle in a zombie-fied America. (St. Louis is one of the stops, as you see above.) Along the way you and four travel companions have to dodge hordes of ravenous zombies, barter with survivors, forage for food -- and oh yeah, try to avoid being bitten by zombies yourself. (You can also kill other members of your party, although during the game Daily RFT played, it didn't have to come to that.)
The game's graphics are lovingly lo-fi and basic, which adds to the charm. And fans of the original can rest easy: You can most certainly catch -- and die from -- cholera in the zombie version of the game. Play it here.
