About
A game being built one iteration at a time
Freeze or Sneeze is an independent project. It is built in small, complete passes: one part of the game at a time, taken from rough to finished before the next one starts.
Where the project is
The game is playable start to finish. Twelve illnesses, twelve cures, eight places on the map, a clinic to raise, a Guide to fill, and Sprout growing through five stages.
What is still moving is the feel: pacing, readability, difficulty, and how much pressure is the right amount for the age this is made for. That is the work the current build exists to answer.
The current build is in development. It is not a finished game and it is not on a store.
Where it is going
- Tuning pacing and difficulty against what players actually do.
- Testing on real devices rather than an emulator.
- A proper accessibility pass with a screen reader.
- Translation, once the English text stops moving.
- A public release.
How it is made
One source of truth per thing
The symptom chart, the disease definitions, the cure mappings and the scoring live in exactly one place each. The art was rebuilt around them without changing a single rule of the game.
Decisions get written down
Every visual and design ruling is recorded, along with what it supersedes and why. Where the built game deviates from an approved drawing, the deviation is written down too, with its reason.
Readability is tested, not assumed
Contrast, minimum text size, symptom separation at small sizes, and the rule that no patient can ever be drawn with more than two arms are all enforced by automated tests.
Development · playtesting
Help shape the town
Playtesting is one part of the work, and it is where the game gets its pacing from. The aim is to learn what players do — where they hesitate, what they misread, when they stop looking — not whether they say they enjoyed it.
Current test status
Open to trusted testers. Testing is by invitation, among people the project already knows. There is no public sign-up form, and there is nothing to register for.
The current test build is the one on the download page.
What helps most
- Where a player hesitated, and what they were looking at.
- Anything misread: a symptom, a cure, a button, a number.
- Moments that felt unfair, or too easy.
- Anything that made a player want to stop.
- Device, Android version, and what was on screen when something went wrong.
How feedback is handled
- Nothing is collected by the game. The build has no network access and sends nothing anywhere.
- No recording by default. No screen capture, no audio, no video — unless a grown-up present sets that up themselves and keeps it themselves.
- No child-facing data collection. Children are never asked to type a name, an age, an email address or anything else about themselves.
- No personal information is requested, and none should be sent. Please do not send children's names, faces, voices, locations, medical information or any other personal details.
- Feedback is most useful as plain notes about the game: what happened on screen, and where it went wrong.
Who it is for
Freeze or Sneeze is made for players around nine to twelve, and for the grown-ups sitting next to them. It is cheerful on purpose. Illness in Enamel Town is a costume worn by a cheerful person, never damage done to them — no blood, no sores, no realistic rashes, no magnified germs, no anatomy.
This is a game, not medical advice. If you feel unwell, tell a grown-up.