Comments on: Disease as Game Mechanic

By: Craig Alexander

Craig Alexander — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:05:14 +0000

Make sure it does?! Make sure it mutates into a child’s disease?!

You’re talking Grim Reaper simulator now! I like the idea.

(And yes, before anyone points out - I’ve played Grim Fandango, thank you.)

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 16:30:31 +0000

What I envision, as far as a commercial game is concerned, is something of a situational sim, i.e. you’re given tasks to complete in different scenarios (make sure plague doesn’t spread, make sure it does, make sure only this many people are killed, make sure it mutates into a child’s disease, etc.).

By: scott

scott — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:47:10 +0000

A game designer friend of mine goes on and on about Agent USA which has contamination, infection, and inoculation as a central mechanism of gameplay. He’s been quite close a few times now to getting something similar into an approved design but management or the customers haven’t bitten quite yet.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:51:34 +0000

For the record, I’m always nice to my Sims. If I’m in a mood for sadism, I’ve got GTA.

By: Cybersexy

Cybersexy — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 11:16:04 +0000

The only use I can see for disease as a game mechanic is as a random quest/mission. In other words, when you get it, you have to go obtain the cure before it kills/disables you.

If the game has a built-in “heiring” system, like Sociolotron, where your character can be perma-killed, but you can have an heir “alt” whereby you don’t necessarily lose everything when you die (it just transfers to your heir), the developers could create a vicious plague that kills off all the pc’s.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:54:20 +0000

I'm not sure if using an online virtual world would be very useful as a simulation for real life.
Hi, James. Well, I envision more a whole new system you could program with the right variables. But I told you that already on the way to the Indian buffet. And you told me you don’t normally read my blog. So I am officially talking to myself ;).

By: MDÂ²

MDÂ² — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:14:45 +0000

Damn, why is it all I can think about when confronted with the idea of a ludic use of epidemics is accursed Unit 731 ?

Still trying to think of a situation in which the spreading of the illness would be the game mechanic itself, and not a contextual rule of the game mechanics (I’m slow).

By: John H.

John H. — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:42:47 +0000

Why hasn’t that been turned into a game mechanic?

Because it hasn’t been done before hundreds of times so most publishers would be standoffish about doing anything that even looked like this.

By: james

james — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:13:43 +0000

Well, I’m not sure if using an online virtual world would be very useful as a simulation for real life. Especially something like WOW, where most people’s job is to kill things.

However, people do this sort of research all the time. My brother who is currently at Dartmouth is doing his master’s thesis in simulating disease spread in urban settings. Their data is essentially based on surveys taken in Portland, Maine. They are using graph theory as a model for interaction.

P.S. Nice use of the term “noise function” by the way ;-)

By: Scott Jon Siegel

Scott Jon Siegel — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:48:09 +0000

More info on Corrupted Blood can be found here, including a link to an interesting NPR piece.