- Oct 15, 2018
- 18
- 32
You are a parasite that can infect people. Your goal is to infect everyone while remaining undetected. Different forces are at play that impact whether you are detected or not. Characters have daily schedules and duties. As an infection progresses you gain more control over their actions. Infected pawn can begin to behave erratically as their libido skyrockets, increasing the risk of detection.
Setting: it makes sense to have a setting where there are a fixed set of people with regular schedules who are in constant contact with each other but not with the outside world. For example: a remote research station.
Story ideas to progress the game:
- Hiding signs of initial infection: a torn uniform/suit.
- Changing the environment to increase your ability to infect pawns: for example, increasing the ambient temperature of the base. This also has the added benefit of getting other characters to loosen up on their dress code. One character is responsible for the habitat's life systems. Perhaps at first you have to sneak past them to mess with the temperature controls, but once you've progressed far enough and infected the life systems pawn you can keep the temp high; to avoid suspicion you could claim it's a 'malfunction' that can't be repaired.
- Finding items to help your infected pawn hide their ever increasing libido. For example: breaking into another pawn's private room to steal a sex toy. This adds a nice level of adult theming.
- Pushing against adherence to protocols like dress codes and schedules to create opportunities to spread the infection.
- At first you run the risk of being requested for a physical exam by the doctor - who may detect your infection. Once you've infected the doctor you have more leeway. An active component of the game could be that for every pawn you infect you have to figure out a way to trick the doctor into failing to detect your infection, for example: avoiding the physical exam, cheating, messing with the results, messing with detection equipment, etc.
- Ultimately you have to infect the commander. If you've progressed far enough they can't prevent their infection but they can send out a warning signal to the outside, or self destruct the base or something, still resulting in a bad end. This ensures there is always a risk of detection.
- Solving puzzles (progressing without being detected) requires the player to understand pawn schedules and characteristics. This is the core 'fun' loop.
The game can be implemented in different but interesting ways:
- You are locked in to a starter pawn and there is only one obvious path forward to infecting the next pawn.
- Or, you could pick any starter pawn. Perhaps you start off with one unlocked pawn and when you complete one playthrough you unlock the next starter pawn. This might make the puzzle setting harder but does allow for more replayability and also allows for variations in story elements or puzzles. Once a character is infected it can restrict story specific interactions that might be interesting, opening up the game like this allows you to explore all combinations. It's fine if progressive starter pawns feel 'stronger' allowing for faster (and less tedious?) completion every time. You can imagine that having access to the doctor or commander pawn right from the start is going to make things simpler.
- Or, flip the script around and start with the easiest pawn and make the game more difficult with every playthrough by unlocking progressively less powerful pawns. The advantage is that this initially hides content (ie. the most difficult puzzles) driving replayability.
- You could add a time limit (x number of days) to complete the infection. Story suggestion: a relief team is on their way, you must complete the infection before then to escape the base without being detected.
Setting: it makes sense to have a setting where there are a fixed set of people with regular schedules who are in constant contact with each other but not with the outside world. For example: a remote research station.
Story ideas to progress the game:
- Hiding signs of initial infection: a torn uniform/suit.
- Changing the environment to increase your ability to infect pawns: for example, increasing the ambient temperature of the base. This also has the added benefit of getting other characters to loosen up on their dress code. One character is responsible for the habitat's life systems. Perhaps at first you have to sneak past them to mess with the temperature controls, but once you've progressed far enough and infected the life systems pawn you can keep the temp high; to avoid suspicion you could claim it's a 'malfunction' that can't be repaired.
- Finding items to help your infected pawn hide their ever increasing libido. For example: breaking into another pawn's private room to steal a sex toy. This adds a nice level of adult theming.
- Pushing against adherence to protocols like dress codes and schedules to create opportunities to spread the infection.
- At first you run the risk of being requested for a physical exam by the doctor - who may detect your infection. Once you've infected the doctor you have more leeway. An active component of the game could be that for every pawn you infect you have to figure out a way to trick the doctor into failing to detect your infection, for example: avoiding the physical exam, cheating, messing with the results, messing with detection equipment, etc.
- Ultimately you have to infect the commander. If you've progressed far enough they can't prevent their infection but they can send out a warning signal to the outside, or self destruct the base or something, still resulting in a bad end. This ensures there is always a risk of detection.
- Solving puzzles (progressing without being detected) requires the player to understand pawn schedules and characteristics. This is the core 'fun' loop.
The game can be implemented in different but interesting ways:
- You are locked in to a starter pawn and there is only one obvious path forward to infecting the next pawn.
- Or, you could pick any starter pawn. Perhaps you start off with one unlocked pawn and when you complete one playthrough you unlock the next starter pawn. This might make the puzzle setting harder but does allow for more replayability and also allows for variations in story elements or puzzles. Once a character is infected it can restrict story specific interactions that might be interesting, opening up the game like this allows you to explore all combinations. It's fine if progressive starter pawns feel 'stronger' allowing for faster (and less tedious?) completion every time. You can imagine that having access to the doctor or commander pawn right from the start is going to make things simpler.
- Or, flip the script around and start with the easiest pawn and make the game more difficult with every playthrough by unlocking progressively less powerful pawns. The advantage is that this initially hides content (ie. the most difficult puzzles) driving replayability.
- You could add a time limit (x number of days) to complete the infection. Story suggestion: a relief team is on their way, you must complete the infection before then to escape the base without being detected.
