Strange Sickness is a game created in 2021 by Common Profyt Games. This is a game that experiments with digital storytelling and incorporating historical research into a digital medium, so as well as playing a game you are also learning about history. There is also something extremely on-the-nose about trying to prevent a plague in the middle of a pandemic.

Stange Sickness is based in Scotland in the latter half of the 15th and early 16th century and was built with support from the University of Aberdeen. This is a game that explores the idea of gamified learning, and for anyone with an interest in History, Scotland and medieval plagues it is certainly worth your time. However, for those of us looking for a fun, digital storytelling escape, can Strange Sickness deliver an enjoyable experience?

Gameplay

Strange Sickness Game Map

The game has players exploring Aberdeen in the latter half of the 15th century and into the early 16th century, trying to find strategies and evidence to prevent the outbreak of a plague. The game has a rather “Horrible Histories”, cartoon style to it that definitely helps to set the tone of the game. The gameplay itself is simplistic and easy to master, feeling very similar to other digital storytelling games. The game offers many different locations around Aberdeen to explore with more becoming available as the game progresses. In addition, the game has three times of day which are: morning, afternoon and evening. And so you are encouraged to spend multiple days exploring different areas at different times.

Council Meeting

Once you have collected enough evidence from the characters around Aberdeen, you present a strategy and the appropriate evidence in a Town Council meeting. Succeeding at this helps to advance the story. There is seemingly no timer on the evidence-gathering phase of the game and no consequences to failing a proposal to the council. This essentially means that players can spend as long as they want pointing and clicking around the map until they gather the evidence they need to persuade the council. This lack of consequence approach ensures players will always succeed, eventually. As there are no penalties to failure, the game puts more of a focus on research gathering and exploration which, as a learning tool, seems to be the core aspect of the game.

Features

A conversation with an NPC, Strange Sickness

One of the features the game possesses is the multiple dialogue options, which is a familiar feature found in gaming today. At first glance, this may seem like it encourages replayability and decision making within the game, however, as I have previously mentioned there is a lack of consequences for players and you are rarely put into a situation that encourages decision making with any meaningful outcomes. In fact, in many cases, it is possible to go back the next day and select the other option. On my playthrough, I had fun spending 50 days exploring Aberdeen whilst a plague ravages its citizens. The town council eagerly awaited my return from the local Tavern so I might present a solution only for them to reject it because I got the evidence mixed up.

A conversation with an NPC, Strange Sickness

I think it’s fair to say that as a learning tool, Strange Sickness employs gamification strategies and techniques that would make learning about this topic extremely interesting. This feels like a city on the brink of being ravaged by the plague and I was surprised to discover just how much I learned about medieval plague prevention strategies. I also had a great deal of fun exploring new areas of Aberdeen and having rhyming battles with the NPCs. The game has a helpful Glossary of terms you have discovered which makes returning to the game extremely interesting.

I wish they had included a difficulty mode as I feel a timer on the amount of time you can spend gathering information would have been interesting and would help differentiate the game in an educational setting. I also missed the inclusion of a volume button for the music, as whilst wonderful and atmospheric was blaring through my headphones. All in all, I felt that Strange Sickness was a wonderful game that achieves what it set out to do.

If you would like to play Strange Sickness for yourself then the game is available here.