Facebook Catches Crooks and Dysentery At the Same Time

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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Facebook Catches Crooks and Dysentery At the Same Time


No matter your walk in life, if you can't get into Facebook gaming through Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego, you must have no soul.

Two classic educational games that just about everybody was forced to play growing up in the 1980s and 1990s were Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego. Luckily, they were the kinds of learning games that you actually liked playing. Thanks to developer Blue Fang Games and publisher The Learning Company, those games will now live on in modern eternity through Facebook.

Oregon Trail originally put players in the shoes of a settler leading his group down the 2000 mile Oregon Trail in a covered wagon. It required you to manage supplies while crossing dangerous rivers and hunting for food. Fail, and you might die of dysentery.

The Carmen Sandiego series became a much larger franchise that eventually encompassed multiple television shows. It began as a game called Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego that tasked players to chase Dick Tracy-style villains around the world. When traveling to real-life cities (or even through time and space in later versions), players would find clues that hinted where to go next. The ultimate goal was to catch all of the crooks and eventually the floppy-hat wearing Carmen Sandiego once and for all.


Judging by the trailers for the Facebook games, they follow the basic premises of the original titles. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego players still have to get the proper warrant by narrowing down suspects, but can ask for help from other Facebook members. Blue Fang's Oregon Trail has players assembling a wagon party of old prospectors, lumberjacks, and children that will probably die off quickly. River crossing looks like it becomes a bit more hectic, while hunting now puts your avatar on the field. It also looks like Blue Fang is adding puzzle elements, and Oregon Trail has a mechanic where inviting friends, FarmVille-style, will help out.

Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego will be released on Facebook in February 2011.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32647/Blue_Fang_Releasing_Oregon_Trail_Carmen_Sandiego_On_Facebook.php]

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John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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I will never enjoy Carmen Sandiego as much without the comforting a capella theme song.

Do it, Rockapella!

 

Yomandude

New member
Dec 9, 2010
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If I didn't have to give my Social Security number and first-born child to whoever published these games before I could play 'em, I'd be happy with this.
Still, good for other people. I always did love the Carmen games in my youth, but I don't remember Oregon Trail too well. If Facebook really wants to get my attention (which I'm sure they do, to an unhealthy degree), they need to put up I.M.MEEN. Anybody remember that game?
 

The Random One

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May 29, 2008
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It's weird how Oregon Trail looks cartoony and pretty like Farmville even though it seems it will still have things like dysentery and starvation.

As for Carmen Sandiego, a game with a jetpack grandma can't fail.

Too bad I don't give two shits about Facebook, though.
 

Sniper Team 4

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Apr 28, 2010
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I remember playing Carmen Sandiego in grade school. We played in pairs, and once a week our class went to the computer lab. My friend at I had finally managed to track down THE Carmen Sandiego, but then the class was over. We just figured we'd get her next week and finally get to see the end of the game, something no one in our class had ever done. Sadly, that was the last time we went to the lab. It still haunts me to this day.
 

SaintWaldo

Interzone Vagabond
Jun 10, 2008
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Wait...Oregon Trail is a GAME?

You mean, I wasn't ACTUALLY supposed to move to Oregon?

Dammit, I knew I should have read that manual...
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

books, Books, BOOKS
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Jan 19, 2011
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I love Carmen Sandiego! The show was awesome, and I think I played that game to death growing up.
 

bojac6

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Oct 15, 2009
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John Funk said:
I will never enjoy Carmen Sandiego as much without the comforting a capella theme song.

Do it, Rockapella!

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a contestant on that show. I turned ten, the minimum age to compete, after they had already picked contestants for the final season. Damn you PBS!
 

Nightfalke

Just this guy, you know?
Sep 10, 2008
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John Funk said:
I will never enjoy Carmen Sandiego as much without the comforting a capella theme song.

Do it, Rockapella!

Edit: Vid snipped.
Thank you Mr. Funk! I was just coming in here to post that.

Dooo Wah. Do ba doo be doo wah.

Also, I always felt really sorry for the poor kids who got stuck with Africa in the final round.
 
Aug 25, 2009
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And Facebook credits might soon kill these games dead anyway.

Also, I'm British, I never played these. Didn't even know about them until I got onto the internet and started hearing them as buzz words for either really hard game or ridiculously hot villainess.

Not that that would be a problem, despite how many people there are that haven't heard of the two games and don't have fond childhood nostalgia to bring them in, there'll be more than enough American consumers.

Maybe you'll even get lucky with some foreign kids as well, as long as the depictions of the cities in WitWiCS aren't so grossly inaccurate as to make people who live in the cities cry. I don't know what the original was like but the general depiction of at least British cities in American media fills me with unintentional hilarity every time I see them.

One day I will watch an American tourist trying to get a Buckingham Palace guard to crack, then I will watch as that tourist is butted in the face and arrested.
 

Skreeee

New member
Jun 5, 2009
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John Funk said:
I will never enjoy Carmen Sandiego as much without the comforting a capella theme song.

Do it, Rockapella!

I had to work to get the Inspector Gadget theme out of my head already today, and now you do this to me? Gah!
 

GamingAwesome1

New member
May 22, 2009
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Finally!

A decent oppurtunity to see what all the fuss was about with Oregon Trail without having to hunt down old computers and floppy disks and shit.