[WIP] FPS Oregon Trail Themed Adventure [Trails to the West]

Trails to the west starts you out in Independence Missouri between 1844 and 1850. You and your family are preparing to make the great Journey to Oregon Country and claim some of the land for you and your family. The trail is rough and full of dangers. While in town you will need to buy Your Wagon, supplies, and a weapon to help you on the trail. Your greatest threat is going to be mother nature. There are not many places to purchase supplies on the trail so when you come across any traders and trading posts be sure you get what you can.

Painting of a Woman in Trails to the west. (Edited Screen shot to simulate Time and Age in game)



Main Menu (Dev-Alpha)

Simple Cover Art
A view of the plains on the trail.

Randomly generated Events while on the trail will constantly keep you focused on the trip.

• Beware of animals and Natures wrath.
• Sometimes random groups of natives will attack you for your supplies.
• There is no law in "No mans Land" Outlaws will take advantage of the lawless open plains.
  
• Cold weather, Sickness, Disease, Accidents, and sheer bad luck are you enemy.
• You will come across lost or stranded settlers, whether you decide to let them join you or leave the to fend for themselves will be up to you.
• Sometimes you may need to deliver supplies for someone to the nearest trade post, or perhaps escort another.
• More Coming Soon

What you need to do.

• Hunt for food and fur to stay warm in cold weather
• Gather Herbs and plants to make medicine if you run out of stock.
• Make sure your family stays healthy
• Treat your family if they are sick, bitten, or hungry.
• Every night you mush get some sleep and perform maintenance on your wagon.
• More Coming Soon

 

I've never played oregon trail but I heard about it.

This looks like a fun game you're working on, will the game mainly consist of waiting for events and responding to them or will there be some exploration and interaction outside of that?

The image of the plains really make me want to step in that world seriously! Is there a demo we can play or a video where we can see the game in action?

 

Make sure you buy a gun from the general store.

 

When you leave the trail, you will engage in the open world, no level changing, or scene switching. when you leave the trail or move too far from your wagon it will stop till you return to the trail. Events will be generated while on the trail and it will be randomly occurring while your heading on the trail.

Because of our custom terrain editor the world is infinite. It is not recommended that you travel too far considering you can easily get lost. Doing so means game over.

Editor Information can be found Here and will be available on the asset store soon.

A competitive feature that we are implementing is a point system. When you reach the Willamette Valley, Oregon the game ends and your total is calculated and will (hopefully) be placed on a leader board.

We have done a large amount of research into the Oregon Trail, and being that our Project Lead (Travis) is from Oregon, we have a good feel for the game.

The Terrain itself is one of the largest features of our game. You must live and survive the trail utilizing what the world has to offer just as the settlers did in 1840. Idaho Nevada, and parts of colorado belonged to Oregon Country, Montana, Wyoming and west of Missouri East of Texas was the un named territories or "No-Mans land". The only interactions between travelers were Traders and Trading Posts setup along the rivers Primarily the Platte River. All this will be in the game and you will get to experience it as you play.

Fishing is also something we are looking to add.

For the most part its just making it to the end of the trail that drives the game forward. We don't Make it easy as it wasnt easy to begin with.

 

We will have a short demo available for feedback very soon. Please keep in mind that the demo will not contain all of the details in the game but the prime features and functionality. The terrain may appear basic an unrefined simply for demonstration purposes.

 

Hey Founder - interesting idea.
Small question, did they have shaded sun glass lenses back then? Just asking about the guy with the John Lennon sunglasses, the shades make him look slightly from a different era.

 

LOL, for some reason when he got imported his glasses turned out like that. That is something we have on our list of things to fix after the fact. But im glad you noticed.

 

We have been meaning to put out a demo. But we just keep adding new stuff to the game at a rapid rate. Which is making it increasingly more difficult to put the demo together. At this rate the demo will become the alpha. The updates listed below are 2 days worth of work.

Update:

-The ability to drive your wagon off the road has been added to the game.
-You can now harvest fruit from trees
-Selling items to shopkeepers has been fixed
-You purchase items off the shelf. Approach the item and press buy. Eliminates the need to talk to the Shopkeeper. (more real)
-Event system is functioning properly. Events occur in locations and have a probability factor.
-Animals now have animations and are killable
-Fixed so you have to buy a wagon before you can buy goods. Goods are based on a weight value, Wagons can only carry so much weight. You can purchase better wagons from traders on the trail.
-An Open World feature has been established in the game. Should you decide to settle early your score will reflect it.
-Horse and starter Wagon now have animations.
-New Buildings have been introduced into the game and will replace the old ones.
-Terrain Tiler can update the game in real time making it easier to change terrain during seasons (in real life)
-New Saloon, General Store, Shops have been added.
-20 Different characters (NPC and Costume)
-Character Customization screen, you can edit your clothing hair style and facial features.
-different character traits now affect the character in the game.
More Updates:

Coming Soon
-LandMarks from the Oregon Trail.
-Buildings from the 1840s being modeled.
-Full 40km Trail
-Global Event System. The GES specifically applies to your family and the wagon. (ex: Fever, Illness, wagon damage, snake bites, etc.)

 

First Look Video has been uploaded for a preview of our early development of game mechanics.

 

Really nice mechanics, great progress so far, looks good and i will be keeping an eye out for this one. I have a question, I would like to know how you guys plan on releasing this game, is it going to be a standalone version or more of a Free to play browser based game?? Good luck to you, your team and this game, Keep up the good work guys

 

This is going to be stand alone as well as console. We plan on having a PS3/4 and Xbox versions to accompany our PC release. The game itself will be rather large simply because we are scaling down 2200 miles into a game and approx 6 months or real time scaled down into a game. Trying to measure out distance and time at the same time is rather challenging when your trying to maintain a historically accurate based game. Lots of research goes into molding the game to be as real and fun as possible. Although being a first person, several other genre attributes must be implemented in order for the game to actually work like its supposed to. A little simulation, strategy, and lots of action and adventure are included converting reality into a video game. But none the less we are excited how things are turning out. As an Indie developer we are not pressed with time so we can focus on what is needed in the game.

 

Update: Family AI
We have just recently incorporated an AI system for family members to hunt and gather to allow you the player to focus on other portions of the game. For example, Maintenance on your wagon. Durability of your wagon depends on the amount of weight and the distance traveled as well as the terrain you traveling over. Wagon repairs take time so its vital that your family helps any way they can.

 

Merry Christmas All!

 

Now that the Holidays are over we can begin work on Trails to the West. Walter our Modeler has been putting time into our new building models. Once we have the collection together we are going to release them on the asset store. The collection will contain models from the mid 1800s. These buildings would be found between Oregon and Missouri during that time. Right now we have 7 Models of various shapes and sizes. As we continue this project i will be putting up some images so you guys can get a feel for how the game is progressing.

 

After Many Many weeks of work, and vacation and personal stuff between me and the staff we have started to put things together for our demo. No dates yet. Still working some tools to help put things together properly. I will keep you posted as things keep progressing.

 

If this is anything like Oregon Trail, it should be awesome

I know it's more FPS, but will you try to give it an Oregon Trail vibe? Will axles be broken, small rabbits and squirrels hunted, and kids dying of typhoid or some such? lol.

 

Most definately! We are trying to create that oregon trail feel. putting you in the shoes of the settler. you will have to create your wagon, purchase food etc. then tend to wounds, hunt for food, meanwhile making sure you progress on the trail Oregon.

Everything that was in the original will be applied to Trails to the West in some way.

 

yo travis!! its walter- the modeler that was working on this project- dude my computer got ruined and I lost all my contact info for you- i hope you see this