The Plague of Mary King's Close: Introduction

This is a Development Blog for a game I am creating for my Masters Degree at SCAD. The game is tentatively titled "The Plague of Mary Kings Close".

Setting and Plot-

During the winter of 1644 the black plague was reeking havoc in Edinburgh, Scotland. One place famous for deaths was a poverty area off of the Royal Mile, on a small narrow street, or close, called Mary Kings Close. During this time in Scotland the closer you lived to the street, the poorer, or lower the class you were. The streets were covered in filth. Those who lived higher up would simply throw their waste and filth off their eves, down to the streets below. This meant that the people who lived on the lowest levels would have to traverse through filth and garbage in order to go about their daily lives. This lead to the filth washing down the narrow street to water that surrounded Edinburgh, which also caused illness and death.

The Plague was caused by fleas, and flea bites. At the time they had not known this. The Plague Doctors wore masks that had a protruding beak that was filled with herbs, as they thought the illness could be spread by being inhaled. They would also cover themselves in a thick leather cloak to protect them. This is what actually caused them from getting sick because the fleas could not bite their skin. The dead would have to be hauled away, and the people were then relocated away from the dead and filth which lead to the end of the black plague.

In this game the player’s job is to take the dead, run down to the end of the close and throw the bodies over a wall and away from the water supply. The idea is to get a body, run as fast as possible by repeatedly pressing a button, during a specific point hit a button to start the angle of flight and hitting the same button to stop and select a specific angle and get close enough to the wall that the character will have a good speed, angle of flight and distance from the wall that the body will be tossed high and far enough to clear the wall and water. There may be different levels where a player is given an allotted amount of time and so many bodies to discard of, and as you progress to higher levels the amount of time stays the same, or more time is added to the current time the player has left and more bodies. This will allow for a sense of urgency to try and get done before time runs out, but the player’s score will be based on how far the bodies are, on an average, away from the water source. If the average falls beneath a certain amount or the time runs out, the player will lose.

The Main Character-

The main character is either going to be named Dr. Rae after the famous plague doctor, or will be something made up, like Dr. Bird, Dr. Black or Dr. Crow. Below you can see some references, concept designs and a 3D character renders.