Eh. Yeah sure things are hard for kids who aren't very good at figuring out basic concepts. But a lot of games from that era were actually genuinely really hard and still are. I just thought this one was supposed to be a really tough game.

Haha, yes. I was being a bit snarky, I apologize if that didn't quite come through. You are completely right; it is a very easy game. I went back and played it through about 5 or 6 years ago and was surprised by how easy it was compared to my memory. I suspect that many people who played it as ankle-biters themselves probably have a skewed memory of its difficulty.

Many of the difficult games from that era were game games ~ they were difficult be design, to be brain teasers. The Oregon Trail, by comparison, falls into the educational games specifically aimed at lower-elementary school. Similar games from my school's weekly computer lab...

- Treasure Mountain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HAxdTacsgQ

- Reader Rabbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re-3D8TSYd8

- Mixed Up Mother Goose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r28woUwTib0

- Where In The World is Carmen San Diego https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL-13NZAXuE

I played Mixed Up Mother Goose as a child and later took a job at the same company as one of the developers (not Sierra or Mattel). It was kind of disorienting.