Look how close I was to losing . I slid into independence on my back with my last person diseased and made it with literally no health. Also, we need some positive iTunes reviews. This amazing game only has a 3 star rating! Depends, I like Enviro-Beat better. If you can give it the time required to understand the gameplay and actually play it seriously it is an awesome game. Most don't treat it like a game, but like and comedy and just play to laugh rather than to win. You'll get more out of Enviro-Bear than Oregon if you aproach it with the right mindset. Oregon has more gameplay modes, leaderboards, and is great game as well though
Very well put. I agree 100%. In my opinion, So Long Oregon by a mile. Envirobear, while really really funny, I just couldn't get into as a game.
While I don't even have this one yet, I say this over Enviro Bear. Enviro Bear is a clever concept but no real point and once you've played the online web version a bit you'll get the "joke" as it were (IMHO).
Okay, my curiosity got the best of me so I decided to buy this. I am an older gamer, so the retro graphics bring back fond memories. There is a game here and I am surprised to say that I am having fun with it. Making it to the gold twice but unable to survive the trip home was an enjoyable trip that I plan to attempt many more times. I really wouldn't call this game a joke because as stated, it really is a functioning game. Now if someone was to do this exact same game but with great graphics, that would be a joke and I am sure I would avoid it. Controls are fine and The excite bike nature of the game play is fun. I appreciate that this is a universal build, not because it needs to be but it is still nice for iPad owners. I could do with out the blinking orange bar on the top of the screen. I understand why it may be there but it is a little hard on the eyes. Seems worth $2 to me.
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-16/?uid=505 It lacks a lot of the features that the iPhone version has.
Game Impressions OH MY GOD. I didn't expect this game to get even better, but this takes the cake. I disagree that these games are "joke apps". They may be funny, but it's clear that the devs made their design choices purposefully. At first play, both Envirobear and So Long, Oregon! appear to be games where you just go crazy and hope you win, but they are actually very difficult, skill-based games. People like these games because they are genuinely challenging while having well-produced novelty value. The novelty comes first, but as you keep playing, the challenge is what keeps you coming back. Here's the review I just put up for the appstore: A MASTERPIECE First of all, IF DON'T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, DON'T PLAY THIS. Otherwise, this game's unusual aesthetic and gameplay choices will fail to entertain you. So Long , Oregon! is an homage to The Oregon Trail series of games. Instead of going to Oregon, however, you are searching for the famed golden city of El Dorado. In this game, you are travelling from the right side of the screen over to the left to find El Dorado. After finally getting there, you have to travel back to Independence with your gold. The entire time, you have to avoid obstacles, manage your party's health, and try not to starve to death. That is really where the similarity ends, for this game revolves around a completely silly (and challenging) physics engine. The devs of this game (who so famously made Envirobear 2010, another tongue-in-cheek game with crazy controls) decided to make every single hill in this game TRIANGULAR. So instead of cleanly following some hills and having a boring game where you simply keep moving, So Long Oregon! is full of somersaults, twists, turns, and flying wagons. You are constantly trying to dismount off of hills and land without hurting your party members (upside down). It's excitebike on steroids. The entire time this is happening you encounter indian tribes, trading posts, river crossings, poisonous snakes, bandits, haunted ghost wagons, and more. You also have to hunt animals for food-- animals which are even less subject to the game's physics than you are. There will literally be animals and bandits flying all over the place while your wagon is firing out bullets and doing 720s in the air. Sometimes you can get stuck at the intersections of two triangular hills and you are forced to backtrack. This can be frustrating, but it is all a part of the challenge. Like Envirobear, this game relies on its dangerously crazy controls for a challenge. You eventually learn to master these controls, and your successes become rewarding. This game may seem silly, but it is incredibly rare in today's gaming scene-- it is almost completely skill-based, with the player navigating a few choice random elements. There is a clear correlation between your skill-based success and the rewards in the game, which, in the same way as Mr. AahH!!, Mr. Space!!, and Envirobear, makes this game uniquely fun. If you've been a crotchety old man and think that the current gaming scene is full of casuals, buy this game. You won't be disappointed. Compared to its PC predecessor, So Long Oregon! has nearly three times as many features. You are now given two different choices at each trading post. Hunting has been added and there are many times more obstacles and rewards. There are four different challenges which add an additional level of difficulty to the game, and there is a nice easter egg which lets you use Envirobear's car instead of a wagon. The graphics are clean and precise-- a clear homage to old games like Wasteland, and the sound is flawless. This game is brilliantly-made, and if you have a good sense of humor, it is guaranteed to provide you endless hours of fun. It is not for everyone, and I predict that it will create polarized reactions of extreme love and extreme hate. If you want a game that is skill-based, funny, and uniquely challenging, buy this.
And here I initially thought the reference to the Donner and Reed party was a bad pun about the Donna Reed show: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051267/
Excellent review SkyMuffin, and that train image is possibly one of the best game screenshots I've ever laid eyes on.
I honestly feel sorry for the people who don't understand why this game is fun. I thought Enviro Bear was fun as a novelty app, but to me, this is an actual game with real gameplay. Yes, it's goofy, but it's actually playable and fun. I especially like the "historical" race mode. My highest score is something like 1800, I had all 5 family members still alive and 1070 gold. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but you can actually bet on the menu items once you come back to independence with gold. Just press the little el dorado icon on the left side of the main menu. Quite awesome.
Somehow I got Enviro-Bear in my crew. I drove past a bear and it dissapeared and suddenly he was in my crew. At least that is what I think happened, cause I didn't notice it for a while.
Not being that familiar with the original Oregon Trail, much less this twisted take on it, what are the ADVANTAGES of having more folk in your crew? I mean clearly this causes you to consume food faster but I'm sure there is an upside, right?
When they all die, you lose. So by having more people you can last longer assuming you keep your food supply up.
So other than having better hopes SOMEBODY will still be there in the end, are there any little random event/incidents where having a big party is to your advantage or are they really just extra lives in a video game?
Yes, you can lose members of your wagons in two ways. If your wagon flips and gets stuck one of your people loses health in order to get it unflipped. Your people can catch diseases by crossing rivers, coming across plagued tribes or settlements, or getting bit by snakes that lurk along the trails. If a person gets diseased they lose health until the disease wares off, you reach a doctor, or they die.
Hey wait.. how the heck did you get your car turned around? When I'm heading back from El Dorado I always seem to have to just "back up" all the way.
When you get cursed your car/wagon turns around and goes green... I got cursed twice in a row, so I turned around the first time, then turned back again the second time... then when the curse wore off I flipped backwards again and returned to my normal colour. I was still going to El Dorado so I was traveling in reverse.
