Sound and look
Audio and presentation
Every sound and every note of music in StrainBorn is synthesized from code when the game launches, with no audio files. The music adapts to the fight, and each organ has its own theme.
A tiny built-in synthesizer renders every sound effect and music loop at launch.
A sound for everything that happens, from each shot to a boss falling.
Each theme is four layers that fade in and out as the action heats up.
The calm opening theme.
Plays on every screen between runs.
The first organ's theme.
The air channel behind the nose, lined with mucous membrane. It warms, humidifies and filters the air you breathe.
Fun fact: Most respiratory viruses, including influenza, begin their infection here.
Nasal Passage in the Codex
Airy and open.
The organs of breathing, where oxygen enters the blood and carbon dioxide leaves it.
Fun fact: Spread flat, the surface of the lungs' air sacs would cover roughly half a tennis court.
Lungs in the Codex
Fast and tense.
The network of vessels carrying about 5 litres of blood around the body every minute, filled with red cells, platelets and immune cells.
Fun fact: Laid end to end, your blood vessels would stretch around 100,000 km, more than twice around the Earth.
Bloodstream in the Codex
Swinging and busy.
A bean-sized checkpoint where immune cells gather. Lymph drains through it, and B and T cells meet the antigens dendritic cells bring in.
Fun fact: You have around 600 lymph nodes; swollen glands during a cold are nodes busy fighting.
Lymph Node in the Codex
The darkest theme, with the heaviest swing.
The intestines: a lining of finger-like villi covered in mucus, home to trillions of bacteria and about 70% of the body's immune cells.
Fun fact: Spread flat, the small intestine's surface would cover about half a badminton court.
Gut in the Codex
Brooding.
The body's chemical factory and filter. Blood from the gut flows through its hexagonal lobules, where resident macrophages catch anything foreign.
Fun fact: The liver can regrow from as little as a quarter of its original size.
Liver in the Codex
The fastest organ theme.
Soft tissue inside bones where every blood cell is made: hundreds of billions a day, from a small pool of stem cells.
Fun fact: Your marrow makes about 2 million new red blood cells every second.
Bone Marrow in the Codex
The brightest theme, for the final organ.
Protected by the blood-brain barrier, the brain has its own immune system run mostly by microglia and astrocytes.
Fun fact: The brain has around 86 billion neurons and roughly as many glial cells supporting them.
Brain in the Codex
A short, driving loop that takes over while CRISPR makes you invincible, then hands back to the organ's theme.
A bacterial immune system that remembers viruses and cuts their DNA with the Cas9 enzyme; scientists adapted it into a precise gene-editing tool.
Fun fact: Its discoverers, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
CRISPR-Cas9 in the Codex
Every run opens with “INFECTED” slamming in over a green pulse, with a vibration to match.
Each infected cell releases new virions that go on to infect its neighbours, so an infection can grow exponentially.
Fun fact: A single flu-infected cell can release thousands of new virions within hours.
Viral Spread in the Codex
A night-and-day world with drifting oceans, glowing coasts and infection spreading city to city.
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Pandemic Game Mode Responses in the CodexThe city's people flip red one by one, response cards flip in, and fallen cities get a FALLEN stamp.
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Pandemic Game Mode Responses in the CodexAt the start of each organ in a Pandemic run, a banner lists the city's responses in force.
How the world fights back in Pandemic Game Mode: every city, its continent and the world answer your spread with responses that change every run you play there.
Fun fact: Every response card on the world map says exactly what it changes; tap a diamond on a city's timeline to jump to that card. The breaking-news ticker lists every response in force, newest first.
Pandemic Game Mode Responses in the Codex
