A strange little side quest
Put Bustin' Who You Gonna Call? next to the history of simulation games and a few unexpected connections appear. The Oregon Trail mixed travel, supplies, risk and survival decisions decades before resource-management systems became common in mainstream games. That is only half the story. Doom changed game design and distribution in 1993 by separating its engine from content and spreading widely through shareware. The details change, but the appeal of learning a system and trying again is remarkably persistent.
