I finally got to play the Oregon Trail card game. It's not a good game.
I felt bad because a friend bought it, and she was really excited to play it. I wasn't much in the mood for a second game, but she wanted another one, it's not terribly long, and I didn't really experience that much in the first go. My first turn consisted of me getting a broken arm and skipping two turns. Then I died of dysentery soon after. The most impact I had in that game was what two items to will to the survivors. My second game was a little more eventful.
So let's start with the good: The theme is heavy with this game. The entire look is circa 1985. Even the die faces were pixilated. You can actually lay out the trail as you move, but you have to survive 50 trail cards placed end to end. Nobody has room for that, so players are instructed to create a stack when five cards are laid out. For that reason, you shouldn't need more than 3 feet of playing space for the trail. It tries hard to mirror the computer game.
And that leads to the negative of the card game. The capricious nature of the game was the charm in a single-player computer game. It kind of sucks for a tabletop card game. When someone dies (and someone will), that player sits out the rest of the game. Eventually it comes down to one person playing card after card (or drawing, drawing, drawing, then playing a card). If the game were more exciting, this little flaw could be worth it.
The cards are confusing. We had Inadequate Grass come up. If another copy of that card comes up, then two oxen die. What does that mean? We didn't know. We only knew that we had to play an Oxen card in the next round or we all die. Well, okay, but does that event go away then? Is it recurring? Does it only happen when both copies of the card are in play? We had to house-rule it, which is pretty sloppy. Another confusing card was crossing the river. In at least one of them, the card instructs you to roll the die. On an even number, you make it across safely. On a 1, you die. There's no indication on the card what happens if you roll a 3 or 5. The text about an even number hints that you don't make it across without incident. We had seen other river cards that say that even is good while odd means you make it across while losing a supply card. We extrapolated that's what they meant, but it's not clear.
This game is great at making you appreciate how well defined the cards are in Dominion. Sure, there are some interaction weirdness, but that's to be expect in a game with 34,284.6 kingdoms. A self-contained game with probably only a couple dozen unique cards really should have been designed better. Frankly, I suspect the designer is not a gamer. In fact, a quick look at boardgamegeek.com shows N/A for the designer name. I wouldn't put my name on this either.
The game also scales horribly. Each person gets a starting hand of five Supply cards if you have 2-4 players. Then four Supply cards for 5 and three Supply cards for 6. As you can see, the ideal number of players is 4-5 since you'll have 20 Supply cards total. I'd wager that 5 is better so that you lose fewer cards when someone dies.
This game is nothing more than a novelty hack. It's cute, and it can sit on your shelf looking all cute, but it's not all that engaging. The "Press Space Bar to continue" loses its charm after a while. If it comes out, I'll begrudgingly play it—the same I do when Cards Against Humanity comes out—but I won't devote much brain power to it. Counting cards is the most strategy you can use on it, and there are much better games to count cards with.
