Infectious Devlog 3 – Back in the Body

Infectious Board

Why the Long Silence?

Honestly, Infectious hasn’t been at the top of our project priority list. While we never stopped working on it, Wanderlust and Fintastic Sea naturally took the front role. Since we’re developing all of this alongside our regular day jobs, our time is limited—and we had to focus our energy carefully.

That said, Infectious has never been abandoned.

In fact, the game has evolved so much that it has drifted far away from its original concept—in a good way.

What This Devlog Is About

In this devlog, we want to start by showing the prototype board, which represents what’s happening inside the body. This is one of the few elements that has stayed mostly the same throughout development.

From there, future devlogs will dive into:

• The different viruses in the game

• New mechanics we’ve added

• The immune system

• And how everything ties together

So let’s start at the core.

Core Concept

The main idea of Infectious remains the same:

There are 7 organs in the body. As a virus, your goal is to move between organs, consume cells, and add them to your mutation chain in order to evolve and grow stronger.

Game Phases

Each round is divided into three phases:

1. Virus Phase

During the Virus Phase, each virus has 3 actions and an unlimited number of free actions. This is where most of your gameplay happens.

You can:

• Consume cells

• Move between organs

• Play and acquire cards to build your tableau

• Use virus-specific and mutation abilities

2. Immune System Phase

This is an automated phase where the immune system launches counterattacks against viruses in each organ.

The immune system adds constant pressure to the game, making decisions feel tighter and more stressful, while also helping balance strong and weak viruses.

3. Upkeep Phase

Just like it sounds—this is the upkeep phase.

Each virus:

• Gains RNA

• Draws cards

• Resolves passive or upkeep-based effects

After that, a new round begins.

The Board and Enzyme System

Now let’s take a closer look at the board.

Organs

Each organ provides a specific enzyme. These enzymes are not tied to the cells you consume, but they are crucial for building your tableau.

You can only play cards into your tableau if you meet their enzyme requirements. This can be done by:

• Having your virus in an organ that provides the required enzyme, or

• Collecting and storing enzymes on your player board (more on this in a later devlog)

We really like this mechanic so far. It makes movement more meaningful and strategic, forcing players to plan ahead rather than staying in one place. That said, it requires a lot of testing to ensure card costs and requirements are properly balanced.

We’ll go deeper into the card system in a future post.

Vital Trackers and Endgame

On the right side of the board is the Vital Tracker, which monitors:

• Heart rate

• Temperature

• Oxygen level

Whenever an organ is damaged, the corresponding vital tracker is advanced.

The game ends when one of the following conditions is met:

1. All three vital trackers reach the yellow zone

2. Any two vital trackers reach the red zone

Any one vital tracker reaches the black zone

Immune System Area

In the bottom-right corner of the board is the Immune System Area. Whenever an organ is damaged, an immune system unit corresponding to that organ is automatically added to it that organ.

Each organ can be damaged up to three times before it is destroyed. We are still discussing whether destroyed organs should also act as an additional game-ending condition. Personally, I like having multiple ways to trigger the end of the game, as it creates more tension and strategic variety.

That’s everything we wanted to share about the board for now. While nothing is final and Infectious is still evolving, this should give you a solid look at the core of the game.

In the next devlog, we’ll unleash the viruses—showcasing their personalities, powers, and how wildly different they play.

Stay infected,

Pektis Studio 🦠