The Oregon Trail/YMMV

• Accidental Innuendo: You're fording the river and the water's going too fast. If you don't tie your wagon down, you might lose all of your supplies! Would you like to use rope and chains?
• Fridge Logic: In the fifth version, it's possible that you can die of an accidental gunshot wound CAUSED BY YOU. Huh?
  • You shot yourself in the foot. And died.
  • Probably backfiring. IIRC, besides a TPK, this was the only way for the wagon leader to die before everyone else.
    • Not necessarily. In Oregon Trail II, this troper once died by getting mauled by a bear while hunting.
  • Or here's a better one: If you give someone food poisoning in the 5th edition by picking poisonous plants, you make them better by increasing rations. Huh?
    • It was probably meant to be a "keep them from dying of malnutrition while they flush their system" mechanism. It would have been more clear had they cut available rations by the amount that was the poisonous plants, and had several (overlapping region-specific for good measure) types of poisonous plants that would each never be picked up again once you had identified them, but hey, this was a game where a single person could depopulate the entire large-game population of the west within twenty miles of crossing the Missouri River and dysentery always resulted in huge pockmarks appeared on the affected's face. Either give them a break on the food poisoning thing, or start riffing.
• Fridge Horror: In the Gamesoft mobile phone port, you get to save children from rivers. You don't end up with new party members... but you do end up with a boost to your food supply. And the encounter appears on your map with the same star as hunting and fishing opportunities...
• Hell Is That Noise: DUN DUN!
• Memetic Mutation: You have died of dysentery.
  • However, you were only able to carry 100 pounds back to the wagon.
  • Here lies peperony and chease.
  • Sorry, but no one's got (insert trade item here) to spare.
  • From Something Awful's Let's Plays:
    • Fording every stream river, including the Mississippi.
    • Needs more bacon!
  • From 4chan threads:
    • YOU WILL FORD THAT SHIT!!! Essentially, any river you come across no matter what size or depth you must be a man and ford it.
• Nightmare Fuel/Scare Chord: Oregon Trail II's DUN DUN! of death.
  • In the 2001 version, it will play even during events that don't hamper you, like finding an abandoned storage with helpful items left over. This troper would jump at the sound just to see that nothing was wrong. It's pretty awful.
  • Also the weird illness/injury noise. "Peggy Sue has cholera."
  • Is this troper the only one who finds the illness image in 2 and 5 unsettling?
    • The lying on the ground next to the wagon image? If so, NOT AT ALL. NOT. AT. ALL.
      • This troper would always turn the volume off during the parts of the game when the wagon train crossed deserts, because of the eerie, gloom-and-doom-sounding music that played during those bits.
  • The hill music in II (and presumably 5) can be rather startling when you abruptly switch from cheerful trail music to dramatic, ominous, loud music.
  • Randal Morgan in the third edition. If you talk to him when the wagons are circled, there's a chance he'll start talking about how the "dark ain't natural." He goes on to vaugely, but with obvious terror, describe the "things" living in the dark that are trying to find him, and how he'll fight them with his fists if they ever do. It's more tragic than anything in hindsight, as it's pretty clear he has schizophrenia...when you're young, it sounds as though Eldritch abominations are stalking the caravan.
• That One Level: The river-riding segment at the end.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: A common complaint over a new add-on for the iPhone edition, if you pay real money you can buy in-game money and therefore get a higher score... or not paying more money simply means you get a lower score. Fans weren't amused.
• Uncanny Valley: The cheaply animated cartoon children in the fifth edition. They're just... unsettling.
• Porting Disaster: Did I ever tell you how unstable the iPad version of the game is?
  • When you trade or buy an ox, buffalo or cow and try to equip them, the game crashes.
  • When you try to post your feat to Facebook using the game, the game crashes
  • The game has a memory leak problem and the entire game can sometimes slow to a crawl.
  • The music can just randomly stop playing.
  • And oh, compared to the iPhone version of the game, there has been exactly zero updates. And the iPhone version isn't Universal (read: it doesn't run at native resolution on an iPad). And to rub salt on the wound, the game's a whopping 330MB download and expands to an awesome 1.2GB upon decompression.