The Amazon Trail

At the start of the game, the player has been transported to Belém, Brazil, and is given the option of choosing one of two native guides (Isabel or Antonio), who offer advice over the course of the game pertinent to navigating the river and maintaining ample supplies and good health. Each guide comes equipped with a slightly different spread of supplies (Antonio has more tents, while Isabel has more food). Players may come across various people along the river, taking photographs of the flora and fauna of the area, fishing, and canoeing.

Players must navigate the treacherous waters of the Amazon to avoid hitting other boats, logs, and whirlpools or paddling up the wrong tributary, travel through the forest in search of exotic plants and animals to photograph and identify, use harpoons to fish in the river and then identify whether the catch is edible, and trade with the individuals encountered at the various stops along the river. In order to aid in identification, each time a picture is taken or fish caught, the player has the option of checking the guide, which lists all of the species in the game except for the "new species".

During the opening sequence, a short animation displays a person asleep in bed, coincidentally, in Peru, Indiana. They are visited during a dream by a jaguar who calls himself the jaguar of the Inca King. The jaguar explains that the Inca people are endangered by malaria and European explorers, and the player will be taken back in time in order to search for cinchona and deliver it to the king. The jaguar from the dream appears throughout the game as a hazy vision, running off a checklist of items desired by the Inca King, and offering various gloomy sentiments about the rainforest in general.

Computer Gaming World in 1993 warned of The Amazon Trail's "severe" hardware requirements, but approved of the "entertaining adventure's ... splendid animation and authentic native music", and its teaching of planning, research skills, and history.

The game sold more than one million units.