If you're into retro computing, you probably know about Oregon Trail; a simulation of the hardships faced by a group of colonists in 1848 as they travel by covered wagon from Independence Missouri to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The game was wildly successful in the US education market, with the various editions selling 65 million copies. What you probably don't know is the game's great untold secret. Two years ago, Twitch streamer albrot discovered a bug in the code for crossing rivers. One of the options is to
While this is entertaining and a great story of reverse engineering, I feel it kind of defeats the purpose to cheat to make this work, and the writeup could have been more forthcoming about that aspect. It’s stated in a single sentence like some sort of aside, even though it’s half of what makes the hacked solution even work.
It’s not only a fix for the year rendering code on the results screen that allows this to work, they also reset the starvation value to zero each day the wagon waits at the river.
Given how many games lately are getting similar stories and headlines using exploits that don’t require modification of the game code/mechanics, I found this one just a little disappointing in comparison.
Imagine you’re someone that started testing this back when this was launched on home microcomputers. You’re 40+ years into the real live test. You own UPS and diesel generators to ensure your system is kept powered through nuclear Armageddon.
You have a multi-generational plan to test this properly in real-time. Then, some dork releases this paper.
I’d sue!