Your first action is to select a type of plague. Without any in-app purchases, bacteria is your only option until you win a game. After selecting a difficulty level, name your plague and choose a modification for its genetic code.
With the preliminaries out of the way, the game shifts to a world map and you’re prompted to choose a country. Countries can be rural or suburban, rich or poor; are arid or humid; and have a hot, cold, or mild climate. Note whether the country has seaport or airport icons, or both. Keep all these factors in mind when choosing where to start. They all have an impact on the choices you make while evolving your plague.
With all that settled, you’re stuck waiting for your first DNA points before you can do more than read the Global News headlines. Pop the orange and red bubbles that appear to add to your DNA point total. DNA points are the currency you spend to evolve your plague. Pop any blue research bubbles that appear as well. They won’t appear until the world starts to work on a cure. Once it does, watch for a blue jet flying between countries to see where the next bubble will appear.
World Menu
Touch World in the lower right corner of the screen to learn more about the countries of the world, the progress on a cure, and data presented in charts and graphs. When something pops up on the Global News headlines, you can often find more information on these screens. Some headlines are purely for entertainment.
The Infection Spread Summary page is a good one to reference often. If you’re struggling to spread your plague, review the Healthy Countries column. If the countries share a common trait, adjust your transmission traits (in the Disease menu) accordingly.
Disease Menu
Most of your work takes place in the Disease menu. The DNA points accumulated from the spread of your plague are spent here. Select the Transmission menu to expand the number of ways to spread your plague and how likely it is to mutate on its own.
The Symptoms menu choices start out cheap, which is fortunate considering how many there are. The pricier symptoms do double duty by being lethal to the afflicted and spreading the disease in often disgusting ways.
The Abilities menu is where you customize your plague’s strengths. Generally, you spend a few early DNA points here to help your plague spread, then return to spend more points to slow the discovery of a cure.
