Helllllooooo and welcome to Lucky Gnome Empire. My name is MJ and I’ll be your guide today. I am one of the three founders of this little entertainment business. Our first product will be this blog which will specifically be focused on games.
One of my inspirations is the games that I played as a child. One that stands out, in particular, is a computer game called The Oregon Trail. Anyone who has played this game can attest that it’s truly a game of life and death when it comes to choices. It was always a shock when you pack your wagon full of supplies and then decide to try and cross a river on your own just to lose it all. It was always a fun time trying to figure out different ways to make it to the end, what to put in your wagon, and what career was the most likely to help make it to the end. While the goal is to cross the plains in a covered wagon, the real goal was to not randomly die of dysentery.
Honestly, I feel like it was a weird game to play as a kid. The game taught me to only hunt as much as I can carry and to watch out for rattlesnakes. It’s always interesting to look back at things surrounding childhood with an adult lens. America’s westward expansion was always taught as destiny and in a positive light. Looking back at it through an adult lens shows how it was land theft and many other problematic things. There’s a bit of cognitive dissonance when I look at this fun little game in that context.
It still gives me a strong sense of nostalgia when I think back on the pixilated graphics of the game though. There was also a version of it that had better graphics that I also played, but it is the black and green pixels are imprinted on my brain when it comes to The Oregon Trail game. The old graphics mixed with a game of choice is part of the inspiration for an upcoming secret project of mine that will be available here at Lucky Gnome Empire in due time. So keep a look out for that in the future!
