Plague Inc. · game · simgrammar

core loop

infect patient zero -> infections spread within and between countries -> earn DNA points -> buy transmission, symptom, and ability evolutions -> severity raises awareness and cure funding -> race to kill everyone before the cure completes

design notes

James Vaughan's game inverts the epidemic model: the player owns the pathogen's parameters, and humanity's response (awareness, closures, cure research) is the opponent. The tension is between infectivity and severity, because visible symptoms and deaths accelerate the cure, so successful plans spread quietly and then turn lethal. Countries differ by climate and conditions the pathogen must adapt to, and the CDC invited Vaughan to discuss its infection model in 2013, though Ndemic has said it is not on par with scientific models. Evolved adds 10 disease types, 23 scenarios, versus and co-op modes, and a scenario creator with Workshop sharing.

relations

9 stored edges

uses

Contagion

Infection spreads within countries and between them along travel links, at rates set by the pathogen's transmission traits and each country's conditions, until countries are fully infected and then depopulated.

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Crisis countdown

Once the disease is noticed, countries fund cure research shown as a global progress bar; finishing it ends the run, so the player races to kill before it fills.

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Tech tree

DNA points buy nodes in three trees (transmission, symptoms, abilities); symptoms raise severity and lethality, and abilities resist climate and drugs.

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