Big Pharma

Running a pharmaceutical concern is a really difficult task on a daily basis, especially if you have to deal with constant legal restrictions, constantly mutating viruses or epidemics that cause an increased demand for a given drug. The mission to help people is of course unique, but the sacrifice associated with it turns out to be really huge. This is best shown to us by Big Pharma - seemingly a very simple, and in practice extremely complicated strategy that poses a considerable challenge for us.

The work of Twice Circled studio is in fact a combination of a puzzle game and economic strategy. Our task is, of course, to create drugs that will meet with a favorable response from customers and will allow us to obtain the appropriate income allowing us to continue our pharmaceutical activities . We do this by setting up production lines, for the appearance and efficiency of which we take responsibility only - because it is the player's responsibility to design it and carry out selected ingredients until the very end of the production process, or actually until our drug appears on the tape in the form of a capsule .

On the surface, this is not a very difficult task - the entire production cycle is based on selecting an ingredient, placing several devices and connecting them with a production line. In practice, however, drug development turns out to be extremely complicated, especially when it becomes necessary to use mixtures of individual products. How the created agent will work on the patient depends on the degree of concentration of the drug - each of the ingredients has both a therapeutic function and a side effect, and we must find a golden mean between these two factors so that the number of negative opinions does not outweigh confirmed cases of recovery. Therefore, it becomes necessary to include in the production cycle devices that will lower or increase the concentration in such a way that the effect of the action is as strong as possible, and the production - as profitable as possible .

In this way, however, we will only create basic medications, such as weak antidepressants or stomach pain pills. The creation of more specialized, more expensive and thus - also more profitable - specifics often requires considerable investments in new machines. These, however, must first be unlocked, which we do through the scientists conducting the research. A similar model has also been adopted when it comes to discovering new ingredients, obtained from insects and insects or rare plants - moreover, some of them will require us to participate in the costs of very expensive escapades to the other side of the world, but the profit and loss account repeatedly shows that this is a game worth the effort.

And this is how a simple production line becomes unmercifully complicated, because over time we add new segments, which involves a solid redesign of what we have already done. This part of the game looks just like arranging a puzzle - we just have to use subsequent devices, counting the next levels of concentration and paying attention to the conditions that we must meet for a given specificity to develop properties that allow to fight a given type of disease . To create the perfect drug, we will use a dozen or so different machines that not only combine or break down substances introduced into the production cycle, but also mix substances or analyze them in order to obtain a higher therapeutic effectiveness of a given pharmaceutical.

However, as it happens in life, bacteria and viruses like to mutate very often, which obviously affects the fact that pharmaceutical companies have to invest a lot of money in order to keep up with the developing threat. There are many random situations in the game, in which quick reaction can bring measurable financial benefits. Then the patients do not even pay much attention to the potential side effects - the ground for the drug to work. In total, during our medical career, we will have to create at least a hundred different specifics, which will often cost us a lot of time and money to reach them.

Although Big Pharma is dominated mainly by the aspect of constructing appropriate technologies, without a solid dose of funds, of course, we will not develop anything interesting here. Our task is to take care of a good reputation and an appropriate balance of the account, and we do this, of course, by satisfying the needs of customers and searching for market niches that allow for maximum profit. In the game, we do not set the price of manufactured goods ourselves - it is calculated on the basis of production costs and the minimum profit that we receive at the beginning of introducing a given product to the market. The price of a drug is determined primarily by its effectiveness - subsequent confirmed cases of cure increase trust in a given drug, which at the same time stimulates the demand and increases the price, while maintaining the same production costs. It is therefore worth investing a bit more in the equipment used in the production process to earn a lot of money in the long-term perspective.

During the game, the competition is driven by artificial intelligence, which becomes more and more aggressive with each new mission . Very often - especially in the case of the simplest to produce products - the priority effect is active on the virtual market, which we can clearly see after only a few dozen seconds. Opponents very efficiently launch new production lines and skillfully search for market segments that can currently provide a very good sales volume for individual medicines. They are a bit worse at developing new technologies or finding ingredients, but it must be admitted that computer rivals can make our business really difficult.