What better way to finish off 2020 than with a review of Plague Inc! Released in 2012 by indie game developer Ndemic Creations, Plague Inc is an old casual type game that I remember first playing on the Android platform. However, in 2020, the developer released a few new updates... obviously inspired by recent real world developments. I was intrigued and dipped my toes back in, also to see if it would be a good game to introduce to my kids in the coming year!
The PC version of the game is the "Evolved" version, with extra play modes and expansions... and some tweaks to deal with the modified I/O of a real computer... without a touch screen.
There are countless digital conversions of board games, but Plague Inc has the interesting distinction of being one of the games that do it in reverse, with a physical board game Plague Inc being released in 2017.
You start the game as a sort of sentience behind a virus outbreak. You start in a random position in the map, and as you spread throughout the world, you direct the evolution of the virus to try and defeat the countermeasures that the world's population tries to deploy against your spread.
Apart from that, there is no storyline or anything like that. It really was a game that was developed for casual mobile device gaming.
The pretty gruesome aim is to infect and kill as many of the world's population as possible. The PC version of the game includes the original sandbox game in addition to some more specific scenarios.
Initially, you only have a basic virus unlocked to play around with... however, with each completed run, you will unlock different types of viruses for the simulator. My favourite is the zombie/vampire virus strain! The one that triggers a "powerful thirst for BLOOD"! Thank goodness that Coronavirus wasn't like that!
Then you are able to set the difficulty of the global sandbox that you plan on infecting. Basic factors like how dedicated the health and scientific workforce is, how strong the social measures that the governments deploy, down to the personal hygiene measures that people will employ are all factors that you can tweak to your own delight!
The initial outbreak is going to be pretty small. In this particular run through, there are only 13 people infected in the first wave. Your virus will be pretty non-infectious and non-lethal... however, that will quickly change. That said, the idea is to try and stay under the radar a little bit so that you can spread to other countries without being detected. As soon as you are detected, the world's health and scientific organisations will start to mobilise against you.
... however, if you aren't lethal enough, then you will have people getting better and having immunity! It's a critical balance between lethality and transmission whilst trying to stay in stealth mode!
The main part of the gameplay takes place on a map projection of the world. On it, you can see the various simulated flights and boat voyages that connect the globe... and hopefully serve as transmission vectors for your virus. Your goal is to turn this map RED!
There are various news events that range from the mundane (no real game effect) to the more interesting (that can help or hinder your virus spread).
As your virus takes hold in a country (I started in India), you will start needing to utilise transport hubs and vectors to try and take hold in various continents. These sea and air borne vectors are critical, as they will quickly be shutdown when countries realise the scale of the pandemic and start shutting them down in preparation for quarantining.
Notable, first world countries are harder to get a foothold in... due to the stronger health systems that are in place for first response and then later vaccine development. It's hard to get hold there, but if you can then you can severely dent the global medical response.
The key part to spreading from a relatively harmless flu-like virus into something that can kill a significant chunk of the world population is the evolution via mutation points. Thankfully, a real-world virus doesn't mutate this fast and in a sentient manner... or we would all be dead in short order.
Mutations start off cheap, but start to cost more in mutation points the more mutations that you have undergone. This adds more to the risk-reward mechanic, a balance between breaking out of stealth and starting to kill more of the infected.
The first of the key mutation areas is in Transmission. Transmission mutations affect how easily and by what vectors you can start to infect people. Different vectors have different effectiveness in the variety of climates, social conditions and infrastructure that the different countries have. Something that works in a third-world type of country is going to be less effective in a first world country, and vice versa.
Symptom mutations serve a double purpose. This is a way for infecting more people, causing inefficiencies in response and for staying under the radar. If people are asymptomatic, you spread easier without detection... however, by adding symptoms, you can hamper the economic and scientific response by deteriorating the abilities of infected humans.
The symptoms range from the sniffles and coughs... through to exploding blood vessels and projectile vomiting!
It is also the way that you can start to make your virus more lethal towards certain sectors of the population, racking up that kill count for the end of game score!
Ability mutations affect the survivability of your virus. Is it a cold or dry weather virus, this affects how long it can last and transmit in certain climates. You can start to develop countermeasures against common health responses and vaccines here, to prolong the lifetime of the pandemic.
So, in the middle of the run, you will have infected a good chunk of the world population but be generally concentrated in a few countries. The global health response will have started, and from now... you are completely out of stealth and it is time to get lethal and develop countermeasures... in addition to trying to spread to uninfected countries before they lockdown transport routes.
No need for stealth means that you can develop some of the more obvious symptoms in order get as much spread as possible!
As a hold over from the game's original design as a mobile casual game, there are little pop-up balloons which allow you destroy scientific research or to collect additional mutation points if you are quick enough to "tap" them before they disappear.
Eventually, you are likely to be defeated before you can kill off humanity completely. Well... at least in the early runs! With each run, you will unlock some more virus features that will allow you to better rid the world of humans!
Despite being available on a PC platform, Plague Inc is still developed originally for a 2012-era mobile platform. Mobile platforms from that time had much less horsepower than that available for a PC, so pretty much every computer from the last two decades should be able to run this game with ease. If you can open a web browser, you can probably play this game!
Visuals and Sound design is pretty static and unexciting... remember, that this was a casual mobile game from 8 years ago. The space for any additional art and sound assets was pretty limited at the time, so this is no surprise. However, despite the lack of huge amounts of art/sound assets, it is still a pretty engrossing game for short bursts of gaming!
There is something quite fitting about revisiting a pandemic game in this year. Plague Inc does introduce a nice twist with the idea that you are playing as the virus that is trying to kill off humanity. As a casual game, it scratches that itch of being engaging... but not too much detail and depth to turn off the target audience.
I did enjoy the game, but I don't think that it really has that much of a replay value for me. I would relish the idea of a fully-fledged and more fine-grained slower moving simulator that took advantage of the modern hardware that we have in our PCs. Now, that would be a game that would be pretty interesting for me!
However, if you consider yourself a casual gamer... well, this is the sort of game that might appeal to you. Especially if you have a sort of dark humour to your character!
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