Welcome to the second Pandemic: American Swine journal. Unlike the last journal, this one will be focusing primarily upon game design and will discuss some of the obstacles I ran into while developing the game. The third and final Pandemic: AS journal will be written and released approximately two weeks after the game's release. Speaking of release dates...

Pandemic: American Swine will be released (this) Friday the 24th, on Kongregate! Recently a lucky member of our forums got the chance to play the game and had this to say about his experience: "In conclusion, I think this game is the best of the series... ...at least on par with Pandemic II." And soon you'll be able to judge the game for yourself, but until then this journal will have to do.

Before any in-depth design could take place, I first needed to create the game map and populate it with interesting objects. The previous Pandemic games influenced this portion of the games development more so than any other. It also happened to be one of the most tedious aspects of the games development as well. While building the United States and populating it with airports, seaports, cities and hospitals was not difficult work, it was definitely very time intensive. Maps of the U.S. and it's interstates had to be merged and then aligned with maps of Canada and Mexico in order to allow me to render a realistically scaled game world. The largest cities, busiest airports and seaports and best hospitals were researched and then had virtual versions of themselves inserted into the game in their real-life locations. City and state population information was used to accurately populate the map. All-in-all, the first step of the game's design required very little thinking in comparison to the later work.

The first real step in designing the gameplay required acknowledging that most of the game mechanics found within the previous games had to be discarded. The player needed a more direct, more reliable method of input than any of the previous games provided. Otherwise there would be little need to form strategies or make decisions and the game could become extremely frustrating for the player. This line of thought lead to the general idea of having the player interact with the game through "operations". The idea of player launched "operations" was later refined into two different categories: "recurring operations" (operations that never stop but require daily payments to keep active) and "one-time operations" (operations that require just one payment but only last for a short period of time). With the concept behind operations established, it was time to give them a purpose. The most logical place to start was with the design of the disease game mechanics.

With the map already completed, designing the disease gameplay was fairly straight forward. The disease would obviously be able to spread across the map via interstates, airports or seaports. Neighboring countries would create a possible risk as well. As the disease was nearing completion it was becoming very clear that in order to make the game challenging and entertaining realism was going to have to be suspended when it came to infection and mortality rates. The main reason for this was due to the fact that the game map's population was based on real-life figures. If the disease was simulated completely realistically, the game would take hours upon hours to play. Knowing that I wanted each operation within the game to have a very clear purpose, I could only think of six to eight well defined operations that could allow the player to combat the disease. Since the game would quickly become repetitive with so few operations I was required to design and additional game mechanic that would require player intervention.

I knew a "news system" was required just as it had been in all of the previous games, but I was curious as to what occur if it played a more prominent role in Pandemic: AS than it had done in any of the past games. Out of this thought the panic gameplay mechanic was born. Inspired by certain real-world "journalism", every news event found in the game would have an effect on public panic. The higher public panic got, the more difficult it would become to play the game. If panic got extremely high the government would lose control of the country and the game would end. This relationship between news and panic definitely made the game more challenging and also happened to present an opportunity to create a number of new operations for the player to exploit. With the majority of the gameplay nearing completion it was time to implement the final element of the game.

The need to include an economy was evident as soon as my preliminary work on the player managed operations was completed. An economy would provide the player the means to launch new operations and maintain existing recurring operations. It would also add an interesting new element to the game's core gameplay. By implementing an economy I was also able to provide a clear purpose for seaports, airports and neighboring countries. Seaports, airports and other countries now became risky objects of opportunity the player could take advantage of. Now instead of being closed immediately, the player would be forced weigh the pros and cons.

With all of the game essentially completed there was just one last major step in the development process: tweaking and game balance. Unfortunately balancing and tweaking the game can only be done one way: by making small changes, then re-compiling the game and then playing the game. Hours upon hours upon hours were spent solely devoted to balancing the difficulty of the game. Panic, news reports, looting and riots all had to be brought together to create a challenging but manageable game. A large amount of time was also spent balancing the three different available government transparencies (players can choose between open, average and closed when starting a new game) to ensure that each were balanced and fair. I'm confident that although you may find the game challenging at first, you will have no trouble mastering given enough time.

That's the end of my second journal for Pandemic: American Swine. Hopefully it has given you some insight into the basic development process that went to making Pandemic: AS a reality. I look forward to seeing your response on Kongregate as well as on our forums to the game.