{"id":1443,"date":"2017-07-12T13:45:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T17:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2017-07-12T13:45:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T17:45:40","slug":"plague-inc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/plague-inc\/","title":{"rendered":"Plague, Inc."},"content":{"rendered":"

Plague Inc.<\/a><\/em> is a fairly addictive strategy game in which you play the role of an emerging, evolving pandemic disease. It’s available for iOS, Android, and Steam, and as Plague Inc: Evolved<\/em> it’s available for Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, and PlayStation 4. There’s also a board game<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The game offers a variety of disease scenarios: Bacteria, Virus, Fungus, Neurax Worm, Parasite, Prion, Necroa Virus (a zombie virus), Shadow Plague (a vampire virus), Nano-Virus (a deadly microscopic machine), Bio-Weapon, and Simian Flu (a tie-in for the Planet of the Apes movies).<\/p>\n

With most of the disease types, the ultimate goal is to wipe out humanity, but with the Neurax Worm or the Shadow Plague, you can trigger a victory by enslaving humanity instead. If thoughtful games provide a kind of dialog, Plague Inc. provides the other half of the conversation that Pandemic<\/a> began.<\/p>\n

The grimness of the game’s subject matter is alleviated by whimsical alert dialogs, disease scenarios, and achievements. For instance, there’s the Santa’s Little Helper scenario, which the game describes like this: “The world is dark and gloomy. Boring governments worldwide have banned holidays, laughter, and celebrations. Humanity has forgotten how to have fun – people dress in gray and spend all their time working. Luckily, the Neurax Worm has teamed up with Santa and is determined to infect the whole world with joy and happiness. Can Santa’s little helper make a miracle happen?”<\/p>\n

Plague, Inc. also provides enough of a legitimate educational component that it has been used as a gamification element in college-level public health courses.<\/p>\n

What can students learn from this game? Geography is one thing. The game screen presents you with a map of the world, and you have to move your plague from country to country, each of which has a different climate and environment and therefore affects your plague in certain ways. A player is bound to memorize those basic details after enough play-throughs.<\/p>\n

And students are exposed to the basics of epidemiology and learn about potential disease vectors such as airborne or waterborne spores or sneezes or rats. When local swimming pools started experiencing a cryptosporidium outbreak, in my mind I saw a map of Ohio with little red infection dots breaking out on it: clearly, this disease was exploiting a Water II infection vector and would be harder to wipe out (which in it was). So, playing this game is bound to make students think about how local diseases spread, and if absolutely nothing else it is likely to make students wash their hands a bit more often!<\/p>\n

The downside to Plague, Inc. from a gamification standpoint is that some educators and students alike may be understandably reluctant to play a game whose goal is to horribly kill everyone on Earth, no matter how engaging it is. And if that is the case, Pandemic<\/a> would be a great alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plague Inc. is a fairly addictive strategy game in which you play the role of an emerging, evolving pandemic disease. It’s available for iOS, Android, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,37,35],"tags":[104,103],"class_list":["post-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game","category-game-review","category-horror","tag-vampires","tag-zombies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/plague.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qT6f-nh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1454,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/game-based-learning\/","url_meta":{"origin":1443,"position":0},"title":"Game-Based Learning","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"July 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Game-based learning is pretty much what it says on the tin: it's the use of a game to teach specific skills or concepts. For instance, most of us are familiar with online typing games that help people assess and improve their keyboarding skills. 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Snyder","date":"July 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Science fiction and horror share many of the same genre roots; science fictional motifs wind through horror like strands of DNA, and horror\u2019s tentacles have slithered into many works that are otherwise squarely science fiction. 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Snyder","date":"May 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, Apex Book Company released Do Not Go Quietly: An Anthology of Victory in Defiance. This anthology contains my poem \"Permian Basin Blues\" along with work by Fran Wilde, Shanna Germain, Maurice Broaddus, Nayad Monroe, Christina Sng, and many others. Here's the full Table of Contents: FICTION John Hornor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Books"","block_context":{"text":"My Books","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/my-books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DoNotGoQuietlyFrontCoversm.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DoNotGoQuietlyFrontCoversm.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DoNotGoQuietlyFrontCoversm.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DoNotGoQuietlyFrontCoversm.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6145,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/announcing-apocalypse-apocrypha\/","url_meta":{"origin":1443,"position":3},"title":"Announcing Sister, Maiden, Monster from Tor Nightfire","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"June 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"If you enjoyed my Bram Stoker Award-winning story \"Magdala Amygdala\", I have some good news: Tor Nightfire has purchased my novel based on that tale! Sister, Maiden, Monster (formerly Apocalypse Apocrypha) is scheduled for release in early 2023. \"Magdala Amygdala\" is my most frequently anthologized, podcast, and translated piece of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "horror"","block_context":{"text":"horror","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/horror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tor Nightfire logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/nightfire.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7763,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/sister-maiden-monster-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":1443,"position":4},"title":"Sister, Maiden, Monster News","author":"Lucy A. Snyder","date":"September 8, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sister, Maiden, Monster Available at NetGalley NetGalley readers can request an advance digital copy of Sister, Maiden, Monster for review. E-copies will be available until the novel is published on February 21, 2023. https:\/\/www.netgalley.com\/catalog\/book\/266015 Advance Reviews \u201cLucy A. Snyder has always been a trailblazer, and with Sister, Maiden, Monster, she\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "horror"","block_context":{"text":"horror","link":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/category\/horror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sister Maiden Monster Cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Sister-Maiden-Monster-Cover-Reveal_Twitter_Nightfire.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Sister-Maiden-Monster-Cover-Reveal_Twitter_Nightfire.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Sister-Maiden-Monster-Cover-Reveal_Twitter_Nightfire.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lucysnyder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Sister-Maiden-Monster-Cover-Reveal_Twitter_Nightfire.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":523,"url":"https:\/\/www.lucysnyder.com\/index.php\/the-creeping-horror-of-signature-sheets\/","url_meta":{"origin":1443,"position":5},"title":"The Creeping Horror of Signature Sheets","author":"Lucy A. 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