Two Point Hospital

In 1989 two games came out, Sim City and Populous, united by the desire to make us manage something, it doesn't matter that it is a city or an entire adoring civilization, but profoundly different in philosophy. If Will Wright's city simulator is looking for a simulation approach as possible, Populous focuses more on irony and on a playful approach, without forgetting the complexity of course, on the other hand those of Bullfrog were like that.

SimCity was the progenitor of a dense array of games with "Sim" in the name that led us to the Sims, or the game that you can name in the top places of a sales ranking without ever making mistakes, while Bullfrog instead focused on a more varied approach that one year took you into the cyberpunk full of dead killed by Syndicate and that churned out Theme Park (why Theme? Because if you pronounce it in English the sound seems almost "Sim") and then followed by Magic Carpet. Try doing something like this today and see how much you close.

Theme Hospital arrived three years after Theme Park, Peter Molyneux was not far from slamming the door after Electronic Arts' acquisition of the studio, the situation was not beautiful and the Bullfrogs tried to be on the safe side, partly replicating a formula that it had worked: big-cocked British humor, managerial depth, fluffy graphics. The game was based on managing a hospital where real diseases were replaced by funny and imaginary ailments by positioning the rooms, keeping the machines in efficiency, the rooms clean and not making too much stress on doctors and patients. The game went very well from the point of view of critics and carved out a niche for fans. Shortly thereafter Molyneux and Mark Healey, lead artist of the game, founded Lionhead Studios and Bullfrog continued on his way to Dungeon Keeper.

In 2016 Healey founded Two Point Studios together with Gary Carr, also ex Bullfrog and ex Lionhead, guess what their first project is?

Two Point Hospital is therefore the distant heir of Theme Hospital and does not try in any way to hide it. He remembers it in the graphics, in the irony, in the management of the staff and in the increasingly absurd diseases that mercilessly quote the world of pop culture. I don't want to reveal too much but know that an invasion of patients dressed as Freddy Mercury or who have strange pixels that should be treated with heavy doses of next-gen could happen.

The progression of the game is typical of any management title: we start small, with a relatively easy to manage hospital and we proceed step by step towards gigantic structures capable of absorbing a great deal of work but which need a mind accustomed to count to avoid collapsing under their own weight.

Everything starts from the reception where the patients are welcomed, then we move on to the general practitioner who gives a first diagnosis and directs the patients to the pharmacy, which provides the simplest treatments. Subsequently, it will be necessary to have advanced diagnosis facilities, outpatient clinics for prolonged stays, a psychiatrist's study and specific departments for various diseases. This without forgetting to place benches, vending machines for drinks and snacks, bathrooms, furnishings, a room to rest the staff and to keep all this perfect wellness machine efficient and clean.

To manage the situation we will have to use four different types of staff: doctors, nurses, orderlies and assistants. The former diagnose and treat people from specific diseases, the latter administer cures and manage surgeries, the thirds clean, improve and repair and the latter manage acceptance. All staff members have a higher or lower basic salary based on the characteristics that make it special, for example more accurate diagnoses, faster cleaning or ability to make patients happy, which can be increased over time to avoid meandering the mood between the lanes.

It is essential to always have a replacement ready because every worker will get tired and let patients wait outside the diagnosis room while the doctor sleeps on the sofa is not a great way to increase hospital assessments. Ah, it is essential to have an attendant able to chase away the ghosts, because patients who do not respond to treatment will become spirits capable of frightening other patrons and this is also not a great way to get the "best hospital of the year" award ( we are not kidding, the rewards are really there).

Two Point Hospital will start you with a fairly small structure in which we will have to meet some basic requirements and treat a certain number of patients before moving on to the next in which to repeat the procedure in a crescendo of difficulty where we can still pause everything with the space bar if we feel overwhelmed by emergencies. This will allow you to calmly evaluate the position of the rooms and furnishings to avoid overlapping and a too intricate plan. Obviously the more you climb the more you unlock luxury accessories that will guarantee further prestige to the structure. Successes and failures will be commented on in a very well done local radio, with the typical tone over the top of the American conductors, listen to your ears every now and then because there are goodies worthy of the GTA broadcasters.

From the management point of view, the game manages to keep the bar between fun and commitment, there are several details to check, but the interface is always clear enough to let you know where you can improve. However, the more you go up the more the unexpected, breakages and hospital drama worthy of Medical Dimension will be your travel companions, often without reason, as if the game wanted to test you for the sheer pleasure of doing it. A shared feature, it is fair to say, with many other titles of this genre.

This is more or less what it is. Two Point Hospital is a game that does not shine for originality but that has the comfortable embrace of a known routine, fun and sometimes even relaxing. If you love management software and the absurd humor that would make strange even to Dr. Who then you are in the right place, if instead hospitals scare you because the hell have you read this far?

MODUS OPERANDI
I played Two Point Hospital for about six hours, arriving at the fifth hospital without risking having the NAS come home on a Lenovo Legion Y530.

The patients are piling up in front of the dehumidification clinic, our best doctor threatens to quit, a patient who has long since died is still haunting the corridors. And why is nobody actually eliminating this mono-brow plague ? The beasts crawl all around here. Just don't let the health inspector visit!

The daily routine of a hospital manager in Two Point Hospital causes our heart attack risk to shoot up to alarming heights. For management veterans, this is of course no new finding. In 1997, Bullfrog's Theme Hospital proved that business simulations didn't have to be boring or boring. A hospital simulation, of all things, caused laughing cramps and a racing heart at the same time with ludicrous ailments and catchy game design.

The developers responsible, Mark Webley and Gary Carr, had a real surprise hit at the time. Today the two have their own studio - and simply perform the same coup again. Two Point Hospital adheres strictly to the recipe for success of the 21-year-old original, but still plays refreshingly modern. How to reanimate a classic!

The hospital ABC

As a manager, it's your job to build a successful network of private clinics in Two Point County. Each place presents you with its own challenges and usually brings new clinical pictures with it. The mountaineer mecca Tumble not only attracts many climbers who come tumbling into your clinic with broken bones, earthquakes also regularly cause chaos in your house. At Mitton University you are pulling up a training hospital, but you can only hire unqualified students who are better off sending training courses quickly before accidentally killing too many patients.

Before you tackle such comparatively complex tasks, Two Point Hospital introduces you to the matter quite leisurely. In Hogsport you learn the basics of a well-functioning clinic - and theme hospital connoisseurs feel very familiar.

With just a few clicks (and optionally in pause mode), you can move doctor's offices, pharmacies, diagnosis and treatment rooms into the specified floor plan and equip them with medical equipment and decoration. Up to the furniture, many rooms correspond to the original. Only gradually do you learn about new exotic diseases and their crazy treatment methods.

A clown has to cry

Here Webley, Carr and their team show that they have lost none of their wonderful British humor . Foolishness patients in clown costumes are lured into the depressor and mourned in good health, verbal diarrhea is cured in the pharmacy and pot pain by plucking the kitchen utensils from the beet with an oversized magnet.

Diagnosing a new ailment is always a highlight. Thanks to the German translation, the witty descriptive texts lose surprisingly little of their wit and regularly make people laugh. It will be even better if we attend the treatment for the first time. The lovingly animated characters have to endure treatments that made every medieval quack's hair stand on end. Not to mention that the clinical pictures are unique.

Pixel men, colorless people and people with lightbulbs instead of skulls bustle in front of our practices. Overall, Two Point Hospital conjures up such a wonderful bustle on the screen with its coherent cartoon look that we easily overlook simple textures and a general lack of detail in the surroundings.

Let him whistle when he's only working

Because the patients do not get well on their own, we hire staff: doctors and nurses treat the sick, assistants are at the reception and janitors scrub corridors, repair special equipment and catch ghosts when someone is nipped off - they leave ectoplasm stains everywhere else ,

Of course, as a good hiring manager, we don't just look at qualifications (e.g. admission as a psychiatrist) and the salary expectations of the candidates, we also check character traits. We can perhaps ignore the fact that the new resident whistles when he is hardworking and charming at the same time. But we certainly don't put an employee at the reception desk, the sight of which triggers nausea in people alone.

The attention to detail that becomes clear here runs through the whole game. Two Point Hospital looks simple, uses catchy and you quickly learned the basics. However, if you delve deeper into the practical menus, which are only insufficiently presented, you will discover more and more adjusting screws with which work processes can be optimized . We assign employees to specific departments, regulate break times and determine the prices of each individual treatment in order to set up a hospital that is as profitable as possible.

Reaching for the stars

However, this is almost never necessary. If you are only interested in somehow creating a level, you will hardly have to master serious challenges . The account is usually well filled and the mission goals to get a star are quite simple. Once you've done that, you can go straight to the nearest hospital. So is Two Point Hospital too easy?

Yes and no! In each mission we can collect two more stars that are much more difficult to reach. At the latest here we have to plan and optimize better. Or we just come back later. Because we are building a coherent hospital empire, treatment methods, advanced training or marketing measures, which we will only get to know in later missions, will be available in every hospital from this point in time. This is how Hogsport is transformed from a forest and meadow hospital to a special clinic. This means that goals that initially seem unreachable come within reach.

As a reward for completed challenges and cross-career achievements, Kudosh , an extra currency, will be used to unlock new items. Some are just for decoration, others have a practical use because, for example, they entertain your waiting patients. To be on the safe side, it should be said at this point: Kudosh are NOT a premium currency that you can buy for real money.

We need more copy & paste

However, these mechanisms cannot comfort a defect. Two Point Hospital is too repetitive in the long run. Above all, the start of the game is almost identical. The problem is exacerbated by the relatively short playing time of the individual sections. In Anno we spend tens of hours in a single game. At least initially, we will be pulling up three hospitals here in two hours.

And while we routinely place and equip a doctor's office, pharmacy, general diagnosis, the ward and so on, we are longing for a blueprint function that makes this hard work easier for us. The possibility to save room designs and to place the pre-made designs with one click is simply missing.

Carr and Webley missed this chance to make the old Theme Hospital a bit more rounded and modern. They use the other options brilliantly. In terms of richness of detail, humor and sense of play, Two Point Hospital is in no way inferior to the classic, but captures its spirit wonderfully. Graphically and technically, of course, you play on a completely different level. Whether sick or healthy, this hospital should pay a visit!

Each of us would like to be eternally beautiful, young and healthy. Unfortunately, how often life prose verifies these dreams! In the evening you go to sleep with so many ambitious plans for tomorrow, then you wake up the next day, look in the mirror and discover with horror that ... your head has turned into a big light bulb. Other times, you sit in the park and admire the sunset, raise your hand to slightly shield your eyes from the warm rays and with horror you see your hand, consisting of dozens of cubes. In such situations, do not count on inefficient Polish healthcare, but use the services of Two Point County hospitals as soon as possible. Only there you will find the best qualified staff who will fight for your health when other doctors long ago fled from the offices at the sight of you!

Or maybe you want to join this elite of world medicine? Two Point needs talented managers who will throw themselves into the vortex of work and direct our renowned clinics. Don't wait, just send your CV!

Similia similibus curantur

Everyone who started their adventure with games in the 90s (or earlier) sometimes feels like sentimental memories. Like the family's nestlings on Christmas Eve, these players sit by the fireplace, pop a pipe and tell stories about Atari, Amiga, Windows 3.11, Prince of Persia and other antiques from their childhood. One of the permanent elements of these flashbacks is the iconic Theme Hospital .

Personally, I also remember those times when I started this game on my friend's computer, clicked on one of the options pointed out by the mustached professor and with great enthusiasm I began the rule in a colorful hospital full of patients with strange diseases. Such nostalgia probably also hit former employees of Bullfrog Productions and at the same time the authors of this title, since two decades later they decided to set up a new studio and return to their famous and still unforgettable strategy. Two Point Hospital , despite a different name, is a direct modern successor to the 1997 economic strategy.

At Two Point Hospital , just like at Theme Hospital , we take the position of hospital director, this time in a fictitious area - County Two Point - a place where people do not get sick in the usual way. In the main game mode - the campaign, implemented on a lovely and slightly caricatured map - we have to manage subsequent healers in missions of increasing difficulty. The first stages are rather a tutorial and gradually explain all aspects of the game, while the next put us facing more and more complex challenges.

Salus aegroti suprema lex

Anyone who has had anything to do with Theme Hospital will immediately notice the fundamental similarity between this title and Two Point Hospital . The creators did not reinvent gunpowder, they decided to adopt to modern realities and improve what passed the exam 21 years ago.

And so at the beginning of the game we receive a large building (which we can later enlarge with additional pavilions) with the task of filling it with wards and offices, in which our staff will hurry with the medical help of the local community. The problems that Two Point citizens come to us are absurd and unusual - a big eyebrow, a decrease in the patient's resolution in a disease called pixelosis, or the change of the patient's skin into jeans - these are just a few examples from the crazy pathology textbook applicable to medical students at Two Point.

Each reporting patient first undergoes a diagnostic process, initiated by a family doctor. Depending on the complexity of the disease, a proper diagnosis may require a visit to various laboratories and scanning with strange devices. The same applies to treatment - a large proportion of diseases will be overcome by a pill from a hospital pharmacy, but others will require specialized equipment and even surgery. The more difficult the cure for the franc is, the greater the bill for therapy the patient will receive.

The efficient operation of the hospital is ensured by four categories of staff - doctors, nurses, assistants and conservators. Each employee has their strengths and weaknesses, may have various specializations, and of course they have specific pay and training expectations. While working in our center, the staff develops, advancing on a five-step professional ladder, but if we want our subordinates to gain specific skills, we must organize a course for him, led by an experienced instructor (it can be one of our employees).

Managing a growing hospital is gradually becoming more and more difficult - later in the game there are mass accidents, VIP visits or infectious diseases , spreading to subsequent patients. So we have to take numerous interventions and rearrange the hospital on an ongoing basis to meet these challenges. Sometimes you need to act quickly and manually eradicate the spreading plague.

All this is much easier if we plan the layout of the rooms from the beginning. When building rooms and offices, we must remember about the proper capacity of the corridors or a reasonable flow of patients between related departments, as well as about the aesthetics of the hospital, heating and fire safety. It is a pity, however, that no floors have been introduced, and the shape and size of the pavilions have been agreed in advance and are not subject to reconstruction. This strongly limits us in creating the hospital of our dreams and forces us to combine in bizarre predefined systems.

Anceps remedy melius quam nullum

Generally speaking, all mechanics with a lot of fidelity to Theme Hospital underwent a lot of positive smaller and larger corrections at TPH . The interface has become more functional, half of the click, which in Theme Hospital had to be performed even with the simplest activities (including tiring ordering elements before placing them in the hospital) , has dropped out . Comfortable overlays help in arranging our clinic - showing which places should be embellished and which are better to warm up. Charts and statistics are now easily accessible and transparent, and facility development is sensibly measured by successive levels and stars.

Unfortunately, I got the impression that the developers stopped halfway through the implementation of these amendments. The most troublesome is the inability to save the rooms created by us - when each time at the beginning of the scenario you need to put four internal medicine rooms and you need to prepare from scratch until you get to the moon for such an option. As if that wasn't enough, we have to arrange all the elements in our clinic manually - installing radiators and air conditioners, placing plants or benches at the beginning of entertainment, but later turns into an annoying click marathon.

Personnel is not easy to manage - the panel intended for this panel clearly lacks more unequivocal identification of employees with the place of work, the option of planning further training, assigning sectors to caretakers or easier (i.e. requiring less click) assignment to specific tasks. A functional minimalist map could also be used, from which we could issue some commands.

In order not to give our fingers a complete rest from constantly pressing the left mouse button, the game sends the same messages to the e-mail inbox, requiring us to respond to the question of employee promotions or treatment requiring equipment not yet purchased. We are asking you to introduce the option of establishing hospital policy in these cases in each of the similar cases.

With contemporary variations on old hits, the question always has to be asked - how much to change so as not to reheat the cutlet, and how much to keep so as not to lose the unique atmosphere and advantages of the original. A classic example of recombination are even new (starting from now relatively old "five") parts of The Settlers . When playing them, you don't feel connected to the cult prototype at all. In the case of Two Point Hospital, on the contrary - there is no fear of lack of faithfulness to ideals , I even got the impression that you could easily introduce a bit more freshness to the game, especially when it comes to the very core of gameplay mechanics.

The creators stick very rigidly to the archaic modus operandi Theme Hospital , which can be described by the formula: one activity = one room = one employee (there are very few exceptions to this rule). Playing this pattern without any corrections made the gameplay quite crude for modern tycoon standards. For example, to increase the efficiency of the ward, I tried to hire a second nurse, unfortunately - it always ended up leaving the room of the first . Another time I noticed that when the caretaker came up to water the flowers, after each irrigated plant he left the room, stood in the corridor for a moment and entered again to water the next one.

There is also a lack of options to create more extensive departments, with many employees and devices. Even the operating room is a single room that you enter directly from the corridor - and where the locks, the crazy postoperative ward and the anesthesiologist using helium from balloons, I ask! The paradigm of the cabinet did not bypass such issues as marketing - here we also need to put a PR room and hire an assistant. Really some of the hospital's tasks could be implemented according to a different scheme.

Hospital themes offer a lot of other options to diversify the gameplay - from dividing patients into those who are brought with serious conditions by the ambulance to the emergency department and visiting hospital clinics, by introducing more professions in the clinic (janitors at the same time cleaning and gouging with very expensive medical equipment), on complex in real life, and here a much simplified aspect of the administrative and technical base. Sam, being a hospital employee, would love to see a satirical pin stuck by Two Point Studio in the too many management departments and human resources of this type of institution.

Two Point Hospital has another problem - the beginnings of each game are cruelly repetitive . It always starts with a permanent set of rooms. Due to the lack of the option to save your projects, this stage lasts for a good 15-20 minutes of the mission, before the flood of patients overflows us and the initial funds run out, forcing more combining and flexibility.

Although the Two Point Hospital's list of vices seems long, it is important to remember that these aspects are not completely dug up. They only lack the right cut. Meanwhile, an equally substantial set of advantages makes the game really enjoyable . The level of difficulty in hospital management has been well balanced and the game is being played at the right pace. The general patent for diagnosis and treatment also seems very successful - the effectiveness of therapy depends on the certainty of diagnosis, which we can raise, giving internists more diagnostic tools, as well as the skill level of staff with which the patient comes into contact at every stage of his hospital wand. Optimizing this route and improving its links is a considerable and satisfying challenge. The number of insurmountable crazy diseases and unusual methods of treatment are also impressive. It's fair to say that Two Point Hospital has no shortage of the benefits that Theme Hospital had .

Pecunia non olet

The economic aspect of the game is not particularly complicated. A well-managed hospital will gather funds for new investments and manage current expenses rather easily. Although racial tycoon amateurs economics at this low level of complexity may disappoint, it is not that financial issues are completely banal. The creators have made sure that our decisions have a real impact on the hospital's portfolio - and it depends especially on whether we efficiently treat complex, highly priced ailments. I would love to see slightly more complications, however, resulting from the structure of the game rather than from artificial scenario difficulties - restrictions on the employment of staff, a strange layout of buildings or quite pathetic natural disasters.

It is also worth mentioning the residual multiplayer, which involves challenging Steam players. This option allows you to fight against others for the palm of priority in several categories, such as, for example, the number of patients cured or the amount of money earned. In my opinion, this is not a special attraction, but only time will show how it works.

Ars auro gemmisque prior

The graphics of Two Point Hospital fit perfectly with the comedy formula of the title. The first thing that appears to our eyes is a very nice map of the campaign, referring somewhat to the geometric style of the Game of Thrones leader, although of course in a completely different color palette. Schematic elements emphasize the differences in the specifics of hospitals scattered around the county of Two Point - for example, choosing a clinic in a cold climate, we can easily guess that the majority of our patients will arrive with orthopedic problems.

Both the hospital environment and the interior look decent. Although in this type of game the climate and transparency are the most important things, and both of these features are provided by the Two Point Hospital graphics, nowadays the luminaire should present a slightly higher technical level. Sometimes, approximation shows textures of not very high quality, and models, especially people, turn out to be little varied. I also have some reservations about the animation - I would expect a bit more spectacular visualizations of crazy diagnostics and treatment , perhaps also presented in the cinema interludes on the game engine. However, thanks to the great climate, graphics remain TPH's strong point.

In addition, we are accompanied by calm, pleasant music, also absolutely adequate to the context.

Two Point Hospital also received the Polish language version in the form of subtitles. The translation is quite good and adapted to Polish realities, although internists may probably blame them for being mistaken for primary care physicians (POZ). To appreciate the effort of the locating team, I will give an example of mischievous clowns coming to our facility and poisoning everyone around with pathetic jokes - in the Polish version the name of this disease is "sucharoza". Traditionally, I point out not very funny, though fortunately very rare political caps.

Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur

The final verdict in the Two Point Hospital case is extremely difficult. This is due to the fact that this position will be reached by at least two groups of players with completely different expectations. The first of these are dedicated fans of the original Theme Hospital . You will find in the game a worthy successor to the iconic strategy , nicely presented in modern graphics and correcting a lot of obvious awkwardness of the original, without changing the main assumptions of the game. And this is where very high marks will appear, in the order of 9 or 10 points.

The second group will be made up of people less attached to the legendary protoplast (or not playing it at all), and simply looking for a good tycoon. I'm afraid that with a generally positive reception of pleasant gameplay, the rating in the eyes of these players will be reduced by coarse mechanics, control and interface deficiencies, and a multitude of click-forming micro-management. Personally, I stand astride the two approaches and I have to conclude that it is good, but it could be much better.