This past Tuesday saw the release of the first game developed by production company Psyop, “Nightmare: Malaria.” Susan Sarandon lent her vocal talents to the game, developed in partnership with Against Malaria Foundation, for the iOS and Android operating systems. “Nightmare: Malaria” hopes to draw attention to the malaria epidemic that claims around one million lives a year, around 70% of them children under five; and that much of this can be prevented with insecticide treated mosquito nets. But don’t think this is another public service advertisement masquerading as a gaming experience.
“This is not another advergame,” said Brian Kehrer, Technical Director of “Nightmare: Malaria. “We focused our efforts on creating a visually rich and enjoyable, if disturbing, experience.” Kehrer, co-founder of Muse Games, was brought in to help Psyop develop their penchant for visual storytelling into their first ever video game. While at Muse, he helmed the award-winning Guns of Icarus Online.
In “Nightmare: Malaria” the player is dropped “into the bloodstream of a young girl infected by malaria. Players make their way through 18 levels of fever-dream visuals, avoiding killer mosquitoes and collecting hard-to-reach teddy bear tokens along the way.” While I can’t say anything about the gameplay, not having played the game yet, the trailer hints at striking, occasionally disturbing visual design — not surprising coming from the Emmy-winning Psyop.
The game was inspired by a Susan Sarandon-narrated PSA created through Psyop’s non-profit initiative, Establishment for the Greater Good, called “Nightmare.” In fact, “Nightmare: Malaria” borrows footage from the PSA for its trailer. If you’re interested in playing the game, you can download it for iOS or Android. And if you’d like to donate to help stop malaria, you can do so here. Stick around for “Nightmare” and credits after the jump.
Credits
EGG 2013 “Nightmare”
EGG Director, Founder | Pakorn Bupphavesa
EGG Co-Creators | Ave Carrillo, Justin Cone
Executive Producer | Lucia Grillo
Nightmare Director | Marco Spier, Marie Hyon
Writer | Kelly Girth
Student Participants | Viraj Ajmeri, Michael Altman, Minsuk Choi, June Hong, Pedro Lavin, Stephanie Lin, Garrett O’Neal, Anne Yang
PSYOP Mentors | Samantha Ballardini, Chris Bach, Zed Bennett, Ben Chan, Eric Chou, Jonah Friedman, Andy Hara, Lauren Indovina, Bo Kim, Kitty Lin, Ryan Moran, Pat Porter, Parzival Rothlein
Music, Sound Design | Q Department
“Nightmare: Malaria” iOS/Android Game
Directed by PSYOP
Game Development and Design | Brian Kehrer, Jordan Harvey
Art Direction | Naomi Chen
Narration | Susan Sarandon
Executive Producer | Lucia Grillo
Executive Producer | Justin Cone
Producer | Ave Carrillo
Music, Sound Design | Q Department
Writer | Kelly Girth
Sound Recording | Color NY
Concept Art | Pedro Lavin
3D Animation | Stephanie Russell, Eric Chou
Design | Alexander Dietrich
2D Animation | Sean Martin
User Interface | Will Adams
Editing | Cass Vanini
VFX | Fabio Piparo
Modeling | Bryan Eck, Alexander Dietrich
Rigging | Zed Bennett, Sean Kealey