The Plague With No Name

January 25, 2015. Irvine, CA. Trumnessland, America's largest theme park, was put into quarantine today by the CDC. Officials on site issued the following statement: "We are keeping Trumnessland under quarantine for the protection of its guests and the community at large. We will provide updates as we discover more about the situation." Anonymous sources, have suggested that guests' symptoms are similar to a short lived outbreak in the four corners area called, the "Sin Nombre" virus. This new outbreak is being called, "The Plague With No Name."

Overview

The Plague With No Name is a small strategy/2D arcade shooter, where players control a CDC agent with experimental technology working to control a virus outbreak in a theme park's population by detected for infection and controlling nanobots inside their bodies

 

My Role

I was one of two designers, and ended up also taking a production/leadership role on the team. The other designer and I were responsible for discussing the game design with the team as well as documentation. We were responsible for final design decisions. We worked with the programmers fine tune controls and disease spread rates. Worked with artists to concept the look and setting of the game.

 

What I Learned

We set out to make a game that had two different primary systems that fed into each other. I learned that the size of that task is much larger than the sum of the two parts. In order to keep the game manageable and playable, we kept paring down system after system. It is a little sparse now, and the two systems aren't as integrated as I'd like. Overall I still feel like it is a worthy design goal.

 

The Plague With No Name - Overview

Trumnessland

Trumnessland

The theme park where guests have been quarentined. 

The player prepares a "susceptibility sweep," where they can expend precious resources on the ability to get a count of people susceptible to the Sin Nombre  virus within a given radius.

The player prepares a "susceptibility sweep," where they can expend precious resources on the ability to get a count of people susceptible to the Sin Nombre virus within a given radius.

The sweep succeeded, and those swept are highlighted. Now the player must rush to mark the guests that they can.

The sweep succeeded, and those swept are highlighted. Now the player must rush to mark the guests that they can.

The player can choose invade a human body with pretty fantastical nanotechnology to immunize a person against the Sin Nombre  virus, collected genetic material on the way.

The player can choose invade a human body with pretty fantastical nanotechnology to immunize a person against the Sin Nombre virus, collected genetic material on the way.

The player can use the genetic material from inside the body on upgrades for the nanotechology, or have more opprtunity to perfrom susceptibility sweeps.

The player can use the genetic material from inside the body on upgrades for the nanotechology, or have more opprtunity to perfrom susceptibility sweeps.