From the Victory Point Games Crimson Courier, 16 January 2015 Edition Infection: Humanitys Last Gasp A Tale of the Digital Game Version by designer John Gibson Infection: Humanitys Last Gasp by Victory Point Games is my first published boardgame. I came up with the idea for this solitaire game when listening to a gaming podcast where Alan Emrich was a guest. He had said that one of the biggest challenges in game design is making a really good simple game, because the designer needs to pare down the game to its simplest concepts/components. As an amateur game designer I took this as a challenge, so as I listened to the podcast, the germ of an idea began to incubate inside my mind: How to create a simple solitaire boardgame with just 40 or so counters and 36 cards. Infection is what I came up with. That was 3 years ago and now my little solitaire game has consistently been in the top 15 bestselling games for VPG. So pretty sweet, eh? (Im Canadian). Infection Back in July of last year, Alan let me know of the selection of Infection as one of the games that Hunted Cow Studios wanted to make into an app game. I had felt that Infection was a great candidate for a phone app because of the small footprint for the board and short playtime – and Hunted Cow agreed with me. I have had the Infection app game on my iPhone 4s for a month now, and I am quite impressed! Hunted Cow has taken my analog creation and given it a terrific digital twist. Whereas the boardgame has an abstraction of the rising death toll from the virus, with the app you now see the disease spreading across the globe, country by country. The app takes care of all the housekeeping, so no more drawing tokens from a cup or shuffling the decks; and now you can play Infection: Humanitys Last Gasp while waiting in line or riding on the bus. Where my boardgame has two levels of difficulty, Infection the app game has fourteen different scenarios to master! There is even a Quick Game menu where you can customize your game options like what lab cards are available, the molecule types, funding levels, etc. I feel incredibly fortunate to have my first published board game also becoming my first app game design. The good people at Victory Point Games and their partners at Hunted Cow Studios have done a great job! And now, a word from Hunted Cow: Over the past few months, Criss Cross Games have been working with Hunted Cow Studios, HexWar, and Victory Point Games to create a digital version of the board game Infection: Humanitys Last Gasp. In the game, players must manage a cutting edge research facility as they try to manufacture a cure for a deadly virus that is sweeping across the globe. To assist them in their efforts, players will need to recruit top scientists (and rats) as well as kit out their lab with the latest scientific equipment to stand a chance at saving mankind. For our take on the game, we have created an operating system called Vir-OS through which the player can con the player can control the various functions of their lab. Infection will be coming to iOS in Feb 2015. For information on the release follow HexWar on Twitter (@HexWarGames) and Facebook (facebook/HexWar).
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:56:58 +0000
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