Mars Trail
I made a game! I've been cooking on this one a while but thanks AI, I have been able to bring it to life.
You can play it on itch.io:
It's similar to the original Oregon Trail game as I remember playing it on my mom's old Apple computer sometime in the early 90s. Except now you've got an expedition headed across Mars. And instead of dysentery, it's the cold, dust, running out of oxygen, or homesickness that does you in. You select your supplies from the friendly shopkeeper at the beginning, you set out, things go wrong. Most runs end with you dead, just like the original.
Ways to die
Mars is creative, and it's a long way to Olympus Mons. A partial list of how your expedition can end:
- Oxygen — you ran out. The most common way to go.
- Water — the reclaimer finally gave out.
- The rover — broke down for good and stranded you.
- The cold — a temperature drop you couldn't outrun.
- Radiation — a solar flare at exactly the wrong moment.
- Red madness — Mars gets to people out there.
- Homesickness — morale bottoms out and the crew gives up.
- Your leader — lose them and things tend to unravel.
In addition, I've introduced about 80 events to bring some excitement into each playthrough, including dust storms, breakdowns, discoveries and of course illnesses and waystation and resupply depots.
Some examples of the art style.
Why Mars
It started when I was thinking about a bigger thing: What would it actually take for people to live on the red planet, because apparently we're getting closer to having a colony there. I mean, how ready are we really for that? And as I thought more and more about that question, I kept coming back to frontier times in the west. And of course, my memories of playing Oregon Trail came up. I thought it might be fun to think about what a game like that would look like set on Mars in our frontier days there. Et voila!
Where it's at
It's live and playable, and I'm pretty happy with it and my analytics are already showing a few strangers have tried it out, which is exciting. I've never made a game before and it was pretty fun to do. I think I'll keep adding to it like more events or better deaths (everyone deserves a good epitaph), who knows.
Give it a try and let me know what you think!