This week we’re going back into the grade school computer lab and loading up another banger from the fine folks of the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium (MECC). The game? Odell Lake. And yes, the MECC is the same developer of the more widely popular, The Oregon Trail. And you can check out my very first throwback piece on The Oregon Trail, here!

Odell Lake is categorized as an educational life simulation game, developed in 1986 for the Apple II and Commodore 64.

I haven’t really remembered a lot about this game until recently booting it up on an emulator a few weeks ago. Booted up merely because I was trying to tell someone about it and didn’t remember much. Something about whales and plankton? Whales have baleen….

Turns out this game is not that at all. But what I do remember is becoming so excited to play it at school. And the memories coming back to me as I sat and played it again for the first time in 30 years.

So once again, we’re in the computer lab, small groups huddled around a single Apple II computer. This time making split decisions on which fish to be and on whether or not to eat other fish and lake creatures, or to run away.

And wouldn’t you know, Odell Lake is a real place up in Oregon! In the game, you have a wide variety of food to eat as a fish, like plankton, insects, and even algae. But not all fish like the smaller creatures. And some of the bigger fish eat the smaller fish. And watch out for that darn Osprey! Going into the game without knowing that an Osprey is a bird (don’t be fooled by the word ‘prey’ in its name), you’ll be sure to get eaten at least once.

The game is definitely more of a memorization of the food hierarchy more than anything else. It is completely random and based on skill. It would have been wise to bring in a sheet of paper and a pencil to make notes if you were looking to get a perfect score.

Fast-forward 30-ish years later and the game is just as exciting as it was then. But now there’s a bonus. With matured minds in the gutter, the game comes with a buttload of laughter too. So now we’re not only debating on the best strategy to survive as a fish. But also talking about chubs and going deep. It’s a brutal world out there, at least up in Odell Lake.

It’s been fun going back and playing this computer game. You too can join in on the fun by playing on an emulator found here. It’s free to play and the keyboard controls are simple. Just follow the prompts in game, and you too can learn all things exciting about the fish and surrounding wildlife up at Odell Lake.