Theme Hospital

Theme Hospital
Developer(s)	Bullfrog Productions
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Designer(s)	Peter Molyneux
Platform(s)	PC (DOS, Windows), PlayStation
Release	1997
Genre(s)	Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Theme Hospital is a simulation computer game developed by Peter Molyneux with his Bullfrog Productions development team and published by Electronic Arts in 1997, in which the player designs and operates a hospital. Like most of Bullfrog's games, Theme Hospital is permeated by an eccentric sense of humor. The game is the thematic successor to Theme Park, a game also produced by Bullfrog.

General information

The game is set onboard a hospital, and requires the player to build an environment which will attract patients with different complaints, illnesses, emergencies, and diseases. The game has an interesting sense of humour, similar to that of Theme Park in many ways. The player has no direct control over the patients that wander about, although the game is largely about influencing their actions in one way or another. However, the player can pick up any staff member in the building and move them to a different area (to speed things up). A player may want to pick up a staff member and move them to a staff room if they are feeling tired but they usually go to the staff after a certain time period.

Gameplay

File:Theme Hospital.ingame screenshot.jpg

The game revolves around buying and placing rooms (or facilities) in a hospital, and hiring doctors, nurses, janitors, and receptionists to operate it. Some rooms are basic necessities, such as offices of general practice (GP's Office), Staff Rooms, and Toilets, while others provide other services (such as General Diagnosis, Scanner Room, X-Ray, etc).

Patients will be attracted by the costs and reputation of the hospital. They arrive with a number of amusing illnesses which must be cured to increase profit and advance in the game. Diseases such as Bloaty Head, Slack Tongue, Heaped Piles, Uncommon Cold and The Squits must be researched before treating patients. Advanced levels in the game feature epidemics where several patients must be cured within a specified time period and earthquakes which damage equipment.

Diseases

Bloaty head

As the name suggests, a person with the affliction appears with a grossly oversized head. The cure is simple if not subtle; making use of a special inflation clinic the doctor pops the patient's head like a balloon, and then uses a machine to inflate the head back to its normal size. The whole process makes for an amusing spectacle. Unlike most other diseases in the game there is only one "type" of bloaty head; once the condition is discovered its treatment is assured by constructing an inflation clinic.

Slack Tongue

A patient who has been diagnosed for Slack Tongue will be sent to an available Slack Tongue Clinic. Inside the clinic, a Doctor will use the Tongue Slicer, something reminiscent of a clothes mangle, to quickly and painfully pull the extended mouth-muscle out of the body.

Rooms

Diagnosis

• GP's Office
• General Diagnosis
• Psychiatry
• Cardio
• Ward
• X-Ray
• Scanner
• Ultra Scanner
• Blood Machine

Treatment

• Psychiatry
• Pharmacy
• Operating Theatre

Clinics

• Fracture Clinic - for Fractured Bones
• Inflation - for Bloaty Head
• Tongue Slicer - for Slack Tongue
• Hair Restorer - for Baldness
• Electrolosis - for Hairyitis
• Decontamination Shower - for Serious Radiation
• DNA Restorer - for Alien DNA

Facilities

• Research
• Staff Room
• Toilets
• Training

Awards

Awards are given to the player at different invervals of the level.

External links

• Theme Hospital at MobyGames
• Theme Hospital Clinic - strategies and general information about the game.
• Cheats for the PC version, listed at CheatsCodesGuides.com
• Downloads, including the Pregnancy patch and a save-game editor

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