Strange Sickness was built by a small team who brought together a mix of distinctive skills and experience, on a truly miniscule budget for the games industry. The project was led by William, an academic historian of Scotland, in his first significant fiction & games project, with the team pitching in to support him.
William Hepburn
Creative Lead, Writer, Historian and Co-Producer
William has a PhD in history from the University of Glasgow and has been carrying out research on medieval Scotland since 2008. Since 2016 he has worked on the UNESCO-recognised council registers of medieval Aberdeen across a series of funded roles within the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project at the University of Aberdeen. One of these projects, Playing in the Archives (funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council), explored ways of making games based on Aberdeen’s medieval history. William’s book on The Household and Court of James IV of Scotland, 1488-1513, is published by Boydell Press (2023).
Katharine Neil
Game Developer
Katharine Neil has more than twenty years’ experience in the games industry, with credits on acclaimed games such as Astrologaster and Over the Alps, both of which are based in historical settings. She, along with two co-writers, won the 2020 Writers’ Guild Award for Best Writing in a Video Game for her work on Over the Alps. Katharine also directed Escape From Woomera (2004). Katharine also has a PhD in Game Design Process.
Alana Bell
Artist
Alana Bell is an illustrator and graduate of Gray’s School of Art at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Raised on ghost stories, fantasy novels and old folk tales, she loves to make worlds and people come to life within her work – be it comics, concept art, illustration or even the odd foray into writing. She is passionate about history and mythology, often looking to real world cultural influences to inspire her projects, and has a love for epic, immersive, story-driven games. Alana’s work was nominated for an RGU Art and Heritage 2020 Purchase Award and was Highly Commended in the BP Design Award competition 2020.
Jackson Armstrong
Historian and Co-Producer
Jackson Armstrong earned his PhD in history from the University of Cambridge and has been a faculty member at the University of Aberdeen since 2008. He leads the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project and is the author and editor of a number of books and articles, chiefly on Scottish and English history. He loves digital games, board games and card games.
With additional special thanks on the Mac version to Michael Boniface & Sandy MacPherson for assistance with Apple certification and to Fraser Boag with testing
Strange Sickness 