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Theme Hospital is a simulation computer game developed by Bullfrog Productions 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 in a hospital, and requires the player to build an environment which will attract patients with different complaints, illnesses, emergencies, and diseases. The game has a somewhat dark sense of humor, which is similar to that of Theme Park in many ways. The player has no direct control over the patients that wander the hospital, although gameplay largely centers on influencing their actions in one way or another. The player does, however, have the ability to pick up any staff member in the building and move them to a different area (to speed up their movement from place to place) and to expel any patients from the hospital (if they are being a nuisance or causing rowdiness).

Each level consists of an empty hospital to plan and design, with set goals in the fields of financial attainment, patients cured, percent of patients cured, and hospital value. Holding negative funds or allowing sufficient patients to die will bring about losing requirements. When the goals have been met the player has the option to move on to a new, more elaborate hospital with tougher winning conditions and more diseases present. The final level in the game, 'Battenburg' consists of an enormous yet somewhat awkward hospital with all the diseases and rooms in the game present, all disasters frequent and very high winning requirements.

Gameplay

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 fundamentally required for the running of the hospital, such as GP's offices, Staff Rooms, and Toilets, while others provide optional services (such as General Diagnosis rooms, Scanner Rooms and X-Rays).

Patients are attracted to the hospital, in part, by the reputation of the hospital and the cost of treatment there. They arrive with a number of amusing fictional illnesses which must be cured to earn money and achieve targets set by the game. Rooms and equipment to treat diseases such as Bloaty Head, Slack Tongue, Heaped Piles, Uncommon Cold and The Squits must be researched before they can be placed in the hospital. Advanced levels in the game feature epidemics where the player must try to stop a disease infecting other patients by curing infected patients and vaccinating others. Emergencies also take place, where several patients must be cured within a specified time limit, and earthquakes occur which damage equipment.

Staff

The success of any hospital lies in hiring well-trained staff. Staff are separated into four categories of expertise: Doctor, Nurse, Janitor, and Receptionist. Doctors usually demand higher wages than the other three occupations, and also serve a much larger role. Staff are affected both by tiredness and warmth, which must be cared for if the staff are to remain content. Use of staff rooms allows staff to be rested, which can be furnished with a number of relaxing and entertaining devices. Placing a suitable number of radiators in rooms allows staff to be kept warm. Having the staff overworked often results in the staff threatening to quit without a raise.

Doctor

Dressed in white lab-coats and equipped with stethoscopes, doctors make up the backbone of the hospital's medical staff, as they are required for diagnosing and treating patients. Depending on the skill level (referred to as ability) of a doctor, he can be an aspiring "Junior", a developed "Doctor", or a veteran "Consultant". Doctors also have an 'attention to detail' rating, measuring the speed at which the doctor responds to calls to another room.

In addition to the standard ability to diagnose and treat general patients, some doctors hold degrees that give them a wider range of treatment abilities. These consist of the surgical degree, psychiatric degree and research degree, allowing the doctor to work in the operating theater, psychiatry room and research laboratory respectively.

Training rooms allow Consultant doctors to pass on their knowledge and skills to lower-level doctors. Gradually, doctors in training see a rise in their skill level, and possibly even gain a degree, if their instructor happens to hold a degree.

Researcher
Researchers can work in the Research Facilities, conducting research on how to cure patients with currently-incurable diseases. Researchers also contribute to the development of new treatments as well as improving existing treatments.

Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist can work in the Psychiatry room, diagnosing and treating patients exhibiting mental illnesses that cannot be cured by drugs or surgery.

Surgeon
Surgeons work in pairs in the Operating Theater, swapping their standard white doctor's outfit for scrubs, and performing operations on patients that need to go under the knife as part of their treatment.

Nurse

Dressed in a standard nurse's white outfit, complete with hat, nurses operate treatment rooms that do not require the skill or attention of doctors. Nurses are usually found in a Pharmacy, Fracture Clinic, or Ward.

Janitor

Patrolling the halls of the hospital, Janitors are vital to the upkeep of a hospital. Concealed within their long brown coats are watering cans for watering plants, mops for cleaning up messes, and even a blowtorch and welder's mask for repairing damaged machinery.

Receptionist

Though not as busy as doctors may be, receptionists are the first people that patients entering the hospital will seek out, and so a skilled receptionist will helpfully direct the patient to where the patient needs to go to be diagnosed and treated.

Hospital Items

Cast

Diseases

With a few exceptions, the diseases and disorders treated in the game are fictional and at times cartoony. Listed here are a few examples.

Clinically-Treated Diseases

Bloaty Head
As the name suggests, a person with this affliction suffers from 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 "strain" of bloaty head; once the condition is discovered its treatment is assured by constructing an inflation clinic. The disease is caused by sniffing cheese and drinking unpurified rainwater.

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. It is caused by constant overdiscussion of soap operas.

Baldness
Baldness, as the title implies, results in the patient losing their hair. They will be sent to the Hair Restoration clinic, where hair will be painfully melded on.

Fractured Bones
Patients suffering from this disease must be taken to the clinic, where a nurse will use a laser driven machine to remove the casts. It is caused by falling long distances onto concrete.

Serious Radiation
Patients suffering from this disease glow green until they undergo treatment in the decontamination shower.

Cause - Mistaking plutonium isotopes for chewing gum.

Symptoms - Patients with this condition feel very, very unwell.

Cure - The patient must be placed in a Decontamination Shower and cleansed properly.

Jellyitis
Cause - Gelatin-rich diet and too much exercise.

Symptoms - Excessive wobbliness and falling down a lot.

Cure - The patient is immersed in the Jelly Vat in a special room for a bit.

Hairyitis
Cause - Prolonged exposure to the moon.

Symptoms - Sufferers experience enhanced sense of smell.

Cure - An electrolysis machine removes the hair and seals up the pores.

Alien DNA
Patients suffering from this disease are green, awkward and have giant googly eyes.

Cause - Face huggers equipped with intelligent alien blood.

Symptoms - Gradual alien metamorphosis and desire to destroy our cities.

Cure - The DNA is mechanically removed, cleaned of alien elements and replaced quickly.

Pharmaceutically-treated diseases

Invisibility
Chronic invisibility is one of the stranger diseases in the game. Victims appear as a floating set of clothes with accompanying hat. It is caused by being bitten by an invisible radioactive ant, and can prove lethal. Often, the precise strain of Invisibility cannot be fully diagnosed without extensive use of many diagnosis machines, and the cure must be guessed at.

Corrugated Ankles

Cause - Driving over traffic calming measures on roads.

Symptoms - Footwear does not fit snugly.

Cure - A slightly toxic blend of herbs and spices is drunk to straighten out the ankles.

Discrete Itching

Cause - Tiny insects with sharp teeth.

Symptoms - Scratching, leading to body-part inflammation.

Cure - Patient drinks a pharmaceutical gluey syrup to prevent the skin from itching.

Gut Rot

Cause - Mrs. O'Malley's Good Time Whisky Cough Mixture.

Symptoms - No cough, but no stomach-wall lining either.

Cure - A Nurse can administer a selection of dissolved chemicals to coat the tum.

Sleeping Illness

An overactive sleep gland in the roof of the patient's mouth makes them tire very easily. To cure this, a powerful stimulant can be administered by a Nurse in the Pharmacy.

Transparency

Caused by licking the top of yogurt pots, this renders the patient's flesh see-through. A drug can be administered in the Pharmacy to cure this.

Surgically-treated diseases

Kidney Beans

Caused by crunching up ice cubes in drinks, symptoms of Kidney Beans include pain and frequent trips to the toilet. The surgery involves two Surgeons removing the beans without touching the sides of the kidney.

Iron Lungs

Cause - Inner-city smog mixed with kebab remains.

Symptoms - Ability to breathe fire and shout loudly underwater.

Cure - Two Surgeons operate to remove the cast solid lungs in the Theatre.

Pregnancy (available in a separate add-on only)

Cause - Power cuts in urban areas.

Symptoms - Faddish eating with consequent beer gut.

Cure - Baby is removed in Operating Theatre, washed and presented to patient.

Psychiatrically-treated diseases

3rd Degree Sideburns

Cause - Wistful longing for the 1970s.

Symptoms - Big hair, flares, platforms and glitter make-up.

Cure - The Psychiatry staff must, using up-to-date techniques, convince the patient that these hairy accoutrements are rubbish.

Fake Blood

Cause - Patient usually subject of practical joke.

Symptoms - Red fluid in veins which evaporates on contact with clothing.

Cure - Psychiatric calming is the only way to deal with this problem.

Awards

Awards are presented to the player at the end of every year. Examples of awards include: selling more soft drinks than your competitors, shooting lots of rats, and more difficult tasks such as not killing any patients, or scoring consistently highly in health inspections. Awards provide a financial reward, which varies depending on difficulty, and can improve the reputation of a hospital.

Extras

If at least 20 rats are shot then there is a bonus level where you can kill as many rats as you can in a certain time limit.

There are many cheats for the game, and when these are applied the receptionist states "The hospital administrator is cheating!"

The opposing hospitals in the game - including Deep Thought, HAL 9000 and Multivac - are all names of well-known computers from fiction. Deep Thought comes from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Multivac is from a number of Isaac Asimov's works and HAL 9000 is from Arthur C. Clarke's A Space Odyssey.

Glitches

While the latest patch does fix numerous issues, a few still remain. Since Bullfrog no longer exists, there is little hope for these to be fixed.

Door missing off GP's Office
Sometimes the door disappears from the GP's office, and the room becomes unusable. This doesn't stop people from trying to get in, though. The way to avoid this is to never send a patient somewhere while he or she is still in the GP's office (this includes clicking the green question mark). If it's too late for that, you should set the queue-size to zero (click a patient in queue and then view queue) so that patients don't try to queue there. You may also have to pick up your staff members from the doorway now and then.

Phantom Surgeon in Operating Theatre
At times, a surgeon that is elsewhere in the hospital might also be displayed in the Operating Theatre. The way to avoid this is to never pick up a surgeon while he's in the operating theatre. As of yet, there is no known fix for this.

Choppy Mouse Issue
Owing to the fact that Theme Hospital is about a decade old, compatibility issues are present. Most notably the choppy mouse problem that NVIDIA users experience, the only known remedy for this issue is to use an ATI card. The reason this occurs is unknown and unlikely to be corrected since Bullfrog has long closed its doors. The issue has been reported to occur on systems running on Windows XP. The issue does not occur on Windows 95/98 systems.

External links

1997 computer and video games | DOS games | Windows games | PlayStation games | Bullfrog Productions games

Theme Hospital | Theme Hospital | Theme Hospital | Theme Hospital | Theme Hospital

Hospital Items

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Theme Hospital".

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