Currently, there are over 3,600 Northeastern University groups on TheFacebook.com, ranging from the education-oriented to the truly bizarre. Follow as the News takes a bi-weekly look at some of the most creative.
The year 1848 was a simpler time; a time of covered wagons, bandana wearing bandits and Manifest Destiny. Though Jet Blue wasn’t flying nonstop cross-country, a few brave frontiersmen and women packed up their axles, wagon wheels and plenty of ammo for a perilous journey across the Oregon Trail.
Many students can still recall the early computer game of the same name. “The Oregon Trail” was one of the early forms of edu-tainment to grace PC and Mac labs throughout elementary schools nationwide; joining the ranks of other classic titles like “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” and “MathBlasters.”
“Just about every college student our age played ‘Oregon Trail’ in elementary school to look like they were doing something in the library or computer lab,” said Adam Gunkel, a former Northeastern student and creator of the “I Just Tried to Ford the River and My [Expletive] Oxen Died” group on the TheFacebook.com, an homage to the game.
The premise of the game was simple enough: choose your characters and supplies wisely, navigate your party along the trail and make difficult survival decisions, such as whether to ford (attempt to wade through), float or take a ferry across rivers when necessary. Those who played the game well enough earned the chance to steer their floating wagon through river rapids in the final stage before making it to the promised land, though the trail is littered with the tombstones of those who were not as lucky.
Despite a lack of modern application and a waning interest in Westward Expansion, the game still sparked interest in students.
The message board for the group on TheFacebook.com, which now boasts 186 members, covers a variety of topics from where to download the game to hunting and budgeting strategies.
While technology has since surpassed the pixelated images and simple sounds of the original game, it has it’s staying power by still appearing on today’s students’ computers.
Gunkel said he was inspired to create the group after witnessing a friend at home playing the game and established the group in the spring.
Since withdrawing from Northeastern, Gunkel said he has unofficially left control of the group to junior biochemistry major Benjamin Liu, who Gunkel said “loved” the game.
After being “randomly” invited to the group, Liu said he thought it was “bad ass,” and now plans to expand the group by inviting even more new members to join.
New recruits may be wary, however, if Liu asks them to accompany him on a transcontinental journey, because when faced with a river, he said he would always get try to float across.
“You got to have some adventure,” he said.
