As an entertainment, Winter Hall should be an unusual diversion for video game fans more used to glamorised violence and action drama. Players will live as characters connected by one unpleasant feature – the black death. They will explore the suffering caused by the bubonic plague and watch as medieval society struggles to cope with the devastation triggered by one of the world’s worst disease epidemics.

Mass graves, religious fanaticism, and the dead carted off at night: it is the stuff of a zombie apocalypse. Yet this is no cheap piece of horror exploitation. Winter Hall is one of six games under development that have been shortlisted for a $500,000 competition backed by Epic Games and the Wellcome Trust.

Generally recognised as one of the world’s main backers of health research – and an employer of thousands of medical scientists – the trust is also a major supporter of the arts, particularly those that explore the human condition. It has funded a major gallery, the Wellcome Collection in London, to display such works and has also begun to back the design of video games. This interest will culminate with this week’s announcement of the six games shortlisted for its Developing Beyond competition in which entries were sought on the theme of transformations.

Apart from Winter Hall, the shortlist includes Cure Me!, by Sluggerfly, in which players can control an entity that evolves into a different disease agent – a bacterium, parasite or fungus. Another choice of the competition’s judges – who were chaired by comedian Susan Calman – is Ecce Homo, by Holy Warp, which allows players to trace and change the evolution of human beings.

Previous games supported by Wellcome have included Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, released later this year, which looks at the experience of people affected by mental illness.

“We want to promote games that stimulate a sense of inquiry,” said Iain Dodgeon, who leads Wellcome’s broadcast, film and games work.

The competition is also being supported by the manufacturer Epic Games. “There is always a shortage of good games,” said Mike Gamble, the company’s European territory manager. “Developers often have good ideas but do not have the resources to see them through to final production. This competition’s prize money will make sure several games, not just the winner, should succeed. A good scientific base is an added strength.”

The other shortlisted games include Terramars, in which players need to manage a team of six charged with turning the alien landscape of Mars into a habitat suitable for humans. In Seed , players learn how to discover, grow and genetically engineer plants, while Singularity explores how artificial intelligence can adapt to changing circumstances.