So, your students are playing Forgotten Trail, which has a lot of math, Ojibwe history, a little geography and fun games. You rock as a teacher. (You can see the math standards here. They go from fourth to sixth grade. We recommend the game at the beginning of the year for sixth grade, to get a review. ) If you don’t already know how Forgotten Trail can be used in the first weeks of school, please check out this post.
Great job! Your students have made it to Level 2 and you are too busy to play the game yourself
We understand you don’t have time to play the game, even though it is really fun. Your students may have questions so here are a few answers:
What does “interact” mean?
To “act upon one another”. It usually means talking, playing or doing an activity with someone or something. In the wood chopping game, if you come up to a character and press the space bar, it will talk. When you come up to the tree and press the space bar, you will chop it.
How do you win this game? / I got killed by skunks
READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. If they did not read and follow the instructions, they can always press H to get help. Both an upper case and lower case h will work.
Even though the instructions you just saw above said to find your Uncle Don, maybe your student didn’t do that. What they SHOULD have done is read and follow the directions (but how many times in your life have you said that?). To learn how to play the game, students can talk to Uncle Don at the very beginning when they come out of their house. Walk up to him, press the space bar and a dialog box will come up. Keep pressing the space bar for more information until they get to the last screen that says “If you need any help, talk to me again.”
THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT THEY DIDN’T READ
First, they need to find an axe. While looking for the axe, watch out for skunks. To shoot the skunks, use the b key. Either an upper case or lower case b will work. Stay away from the bears. You cannot kill them.
Once you have the axe, you need to chop down the YELLOW trees. To chop a tree, go close to it and hit the space bar. You need to chop 4 times to cut down a tree. You need to cut down all six trees, then go back to your house to win.
I couldn’t chop down the tree. I hit the space bar and nothing happened
You need to get closer to the tree. Move your character closer and hit the space bar again.
I’m working on a complete Teachers Guide for Forgotten Trail, in the meantime, check out the teacher’s guides for five of our other games here – Making Camp Premium, Making Camp Dakota, Making Camp Navajo, AzTech: The Story Begins and Empiric Empire.