The Oregon Trail | Ep. 6 – The Harmonica Played. The Love & Dysentery Spread. Gary & Samwise Remain.

Against all reasonable expectations, Gary and Samwise remain. The harmonica has played, the love has spread, the dysentery has spread considerably more efficiently, and somehow the wagon is still moving west. We should probably stop tempting fate.

I genuinely expected this session to last about twenty minutes before everybody died and we moved over to Marbles on Stream. Instead, two and a half hours later, we somehow reached the end of The Oregon Trail for the first time.

🎮 About the Game

Gameloft’s The Oregon Trail brings the classic journey west back with charming pixel-art characters, 3D environments and modern lighting, while keeping the familiar problem of trying to get a group of increasingly unhealthy people to Oregon in one piece.

You choose your travelling party, pack the wagon and make decisions along the way while dealing with broken limbs, snakebites, exhaustion, starvation, blizzards and, naturally, dysentery. Random events mean a sensible plan can fall apart very quickly, which has been demonstrated repeatedly during this playthrough.

🛤️ Where We Are in the Journey

This was the third session of our current playthrough and our second proper attempt overall. We resumed around the midway point at the Parting of Ways, after the previous stream had already taken a considerable toll on the group.

Royalty had died, One Mile had been removed because everybody hates One Mile, and only Gary and Samwise remained. One Mile did keep trying to rejoin throughout the evening, but we continued sending him away. Given the condition of everybody when we started, I was once again convinced we were only minutes away from game over.

⚠️ What Happens in This Episode

Disaster arrived almost immediately. We resumed at the Parting of Ways with Gary already in terrible condition: a broken leg, dysentery, almost no stamina and effectively one remaining hit point. Samwise was healthier, although on this journey that was always a temporary condition. Somehow we had also accumulated a frankly ridiculous amount of food, which would turn out to be one of the main reasons the run lasted as long as it did.

The wagon wasted no time reminding us what sort of evening this was going to be. It broke within the opening minutes, the weather turned miserable, and Gary managed to pick up mites after wandering through the long grass. Fortunately, The Oregon Trail once again demonstrated its medical expertise by prescribing bacon grease. Gary covered the bites in it and immediately felt better, establishing bacon as one of the most reliable treatments available on the American frontier.

Then a snake appeared in the wagon and bit Samwise. Gary grabbed her arm, sucked out the venom and saved her, only to develop dysentery shortly afterwards. Not long after that, Gary became our first and only death of the evening. Chat naturally treated this solemn occasion with the respect it deserved, helping us work through the available epitaphs until Stryker’s suggestion won out: “In remembrance of Gary, tragically died of marriage.”

That left Samwise as the sole survivor, and luckily the real Sam was actually in chat to watch what happened to the character we had created for her. Given the state of the expedition, I was convinced she would be dead shortly afterwards and we would finally move on to Marbles on Stream. Instead, Sam began what turned into one of the most stubborn survival runs we have had in the game.

One of the first major decisions came when we found a small pond and desperately needed water. The surface was hardly reassuring, complete with mosquito larvae, so I handed the decision over to Sam in chat. She chose to replenish the water despite the obvious danger. The result was immediate: Samwise contracted typhoid. It was exactly the sort of decision-making this playthrough had trained us to expect.

From there, her health became an ongoing catalogue of everything the trail could throw at one person. There were mites, exhaustion, falls, filthy clothes, typhoid, dysentery, cholera and broken limbs. At one point the mites returned and Samwise followed Gary’s example by covering herself in bacon grease. It worked again, because apparently bacon grease was more dependable than most of our actual medical supplies.

A dust storm then separated us from some of the oxen. We had the option to send Sam searching for them, but with her health already low and her skills not exactly suited to wilderness rescue, that seemed like an excellent way to get her killed. We abandoned the missing animals and carried on with a single ox pulling the wagon.

That became the general philosophy for the rest of the journey: do not touch anything unless absolutely necessary. People asking for help were largely ignored because we were in no position to help ourselves, never mind anybody else. Hunting spots were skipped because we had spent much of the journey without ammunition and Sam was hardly our finest hunter anyway. Fishing challenges were treated with similar suspicion. Even bushes became something to avoid because every time we gathered something from the roadside, it seemed to come bundled with another illness.

Occasionally, however, taking a risk actually helped. An abandoned pile of supplies eventually produced medicine just when Sam desperately needed it. Nearby we found the body of an older man and, fully committed to survival at this stage, searched him for anything useful. Instead we found a partially written love letter and managed to upset Sam for disturbing the body. The medicine was considerably more useful: after everything she had been through, we were able to restore her health completely.

For about thirty seconds, things looked positive.

Sam then tripped over a small bump in the road.

That was essentially the entire evening in miniature. Every time we managed to recover, The Oregon Trail found another way to knock us back down.

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When we reached Fort Hall, another familiar problem appeared: One Mile. We had already thrown him out of the party because everybody hates One Mile, but the game seemed determined to keep offering him back to us. The response remained the same every time. No. Absolutely not. “Not him again” became something of a recurring theme whenever he appeared.

Fort Hall also offered wagon repairs, but money was tight and previous experience suggested that spending everything on repairs would only guarantee the wagon broke again five minutes later. While trying to check our inventory, I then pressed the wrong button and accidentally sent Sam straight back onto the trail before we had finished preparing. There was no carefully planned departure. We simply left.

The wagon itself became our biggest recurring enemy. Axles snapped, yokes broke and the storage space steadily deteriorated, forcing us into repeated rounds of wagon Tetris as food, medicine, tools and everything else were rotated and squeezed into whatever usable spaces remained. Eventually we suffered a breakdown that looked capable of ending the entire run.

With Sam alone, the game would not let us send for help because the wagon could not be left unattended. We tried searching for supplies. We tried finding materials. We tried repairing it ourselves. Again and again, Sam came back exhausted without the parts we needed. At one point it genuinely felt as though we had become trapped permanently at the side of the road. Chat described it first as a death loop and then, more accurately, a death spiral.

That was when we stumbled onto the strategy that saved the journey. Instead of repeatedly sending Sam out to fail, we started camping. Every camp allowed us to restore a little health, stamina or hygiene, so we simply kept Sam alive while waiting to see what the game would do. Eventually another group of travellers appeared and offered us the part we needed.

Later breakdowns followed the same pattern. We would camp, rebuild Sam’s health and wait for someone to wander past. Sometimes we had enough to trade. On other occasions we admitted we had nothing at all, and remarkably they still gave us the replacement part. Our proposed alternative explanation involving special “Bouncy Bouncy” favours therefore proved unnecessary.

The oxen caused more trouble as well. After losing animals earlier, we eventually found ourselves needing another replacement. More camping, more searching and another encounter with familiar travellers finally allowed us to buy an ox for a few coins. Somehow, we were moving again.

Sam herself was not getting through any of this unscathed. Her foot was crushed beneath the wagon wheel. She wandered hours off course. She found a gold coin in the dirt. She suffered another snakebite, this time with no Gary around to perform his heroic and ultimately fatal venom-removal service. At various points she was exhausted, feverish, injured and carrying permanent reductions to her stats. Later, the wagon itself barrelled into her and left her with yet another broken leg.

Somehow she kept going.

As Oregon grew closer, we became increasingly unwilling to risk anything unnecessary. Suspicious food stayed where it was. Carcasses were left alone. Hunting opportunities were ignored. Anyone sitting beside the road wanting assistance would unfortunately have to solve their own problems. The mission had become very simple: keep Sam breathing, keep at least one ox moving and hold the wagon together for long enough to reach the next waypoint.

The final mountain stages were especially grim. Up in the snowy hills, the wagon broke repeatedly and there were several moments where I genuinely believed we had finally reached the end. We camped, healed, waited for help, acquired parts and set off again, only for another component to fail later down the road. By that stage, the wagon was less a vehicle and more a collection of broken pieces travelling in roughly the same direction.

Even the final shortcut demanded something from us. There was a toll, and naturally we had almost no money left. Once again, we admitted that we could not pay. After everything else that had happened, the game took pity on us and let Sam through anyway.

The closer we got, the more chat began treating the journey like a sporting event. Sam suggested that perhaps she should abandon the wagon entirely and just ride the oxen to Oregon. When she did not have the energy required to haggle, that became another reminder of just how exhausted the character was. Everyone was cheering her onwards as the remaining distance slowly disappeared.

And naturally, with roughly thirty miles remaining and victory finally beginning to look possible, Samwise contracted dysentery again.

At that point it almost felt appropriate. The harmonica had survived. The wagon had survived in a technical sense. Sam had already survived typhoid, cholera, broken legs, snakebites, wagon accidents and virtually every other indignity available. Of course dysentery wanted one final appearance.

We checked the remaining medicine, decided she was somehow still healthy enough to continue, and pressed on. The mileage kept falling until suddenly the counter disappeared altogether. After everything that had happened, I did not entirely trust it. Then a rainbow appeared and it slowly became clear that we had actually done it.

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After 176 days, Samwise reached the Willamette Valley and Oregon City as the sole survivor.

For the first time, we had completed the journey. The stream I had repeatedly predicted would end after twenty minutes had somehow continued for roughly two and a half hours. Every time I announced that we were about to die and would be playing Marbles in another couple of minutes, Sam found another way to survive.

There was only one final concern: after dragging herself across the country, wouldn’t it be typical if Sam arrived in Oregon and they turned her away because they had run out of chairs?

Fortunately, there was room.

Samwise had survived. The wagon, against any reasonable definition of structural integrity, had survived. One Mile still had not been allowed back into the party, and for once dysentery did not get the final word.

We finished the night with a successful journey behind us and raided into Ashens, carrying what remained of the Oregon Trail crew onwards to the next stream.

🎥 Watch the Episode

If you want to see Gary’s unfortunate encounter with marriage, Samwise collecting illnesses and the wagon repeatedly trying to prevent us reaching Oregon, you can watch the full episode here:

Watch The Oregon Trail Episode 6 on YouTube

You can also continue through the series with The Oregon Trail Playlist and find more videos on Dr Ravenholm on YouTube.

If you enjoy the episode, leave a like, let me know in the comments which moment should have finally killed Sam, and subscribe so you do not miss the next stream.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

A large part of this run became Sam and the rest of chat watching the character somehow survive things that should really have ended the journey several times over.

Come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube and become part of whatever goes wrong next. We finished this particular night by raiding into Ashens after finally reaching Oregon.

🧭 Community & Links

The wagon has stopped for now, but there are plenty of other places to keep up with the streams, videos, music and everything else happening around the channel.

Live — Come along for the next stream and see what survives:
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Community — Join the rest of us between streams:
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Socials — Keep up with videos, clips and everything happening elsewhere:
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Music — The harmonica may be questionable, but there is other music available:
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Support — If you would like to help keep the streams and videos going:
Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs

More — There is plenty more beyond the gaming side of things:
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🌈 176 Days Later, We Made It

I still cannot quite believe this was the session where we finally reached Oregon. We started with two survivors, lost Gary almost immediately, spent most of the evening expecting Sam to die, and somehow ended with our first completed journey.

The next journey can wait. Samwise has earned the right to stay in Oregon for a while, preferably somewhere with no bushes, broken wagons or dysentery.

— Dr Ravenholm