A strange little side quest
One reason simulation games keeps producing good game ideas around Old Macdonald Farm Adventure is that its history is full of strange turns. 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. Pong was field-tested in California bars in 1972 and helped launch the modern arcade-game era. The details change, but the appeal of learning a system and trying again is remarkably persistent.
