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Rob Zacny

Episode 450: Two Point Hospital

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Three Moves Ahead 450:

Three Moves Ahead 450


Two Point Hospital
Are you down with PPO and dyslexia treatment? If so, this week's show may be for you. Rob, Jon Bolding, and T.J. Hafer dive into Two Point Hospital, a spiritual successor to the U.K.'s favorite sim, Theme Hospital. Two Point Hospital endeavors to lighten up the otherwise serious business of health care, illess, and piles of corpses with a light sense of humor and a clean (an)aesthetic.

Two Point Hospital, Theme Hospital

 

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Yesterday's commute to a game evening on the other side of the Netherlands proved a great opportunity to listen to some 3MA (always a good companion on the road, by the way, especially late at night).

 

So, the immediate thing that struck me was the remark at the beginning that at least the American contingent of strategy connoisseurs on the cast didn't seem to know Theme Hospital all that well. So, yeah, it might've been a European / British thing rather than a worldwide phenomenon? I don't know how true this is across the board, but I had always assumed Bullfrog games were top of their class globally. This is the first time I heard about Hospital being a relative unknown.

 

The thing I loved about the game, back then, was the construction of the hospital and seeing all the weird and humorous ailments and diseases flocking in. Good to see that aspect wholly preserved. One thing that would always happen, though, is me rather quickly growing tired with the game, usually after building a hospital or two, three. I'd invariably lose my appetite having to start from scratch. I wonder if that's still the case with Two Point Hospital, or if I'm now old enough to perceive and appreciate the more strategic layer apparent in the game, such as the hallway flow you mentioned in the show. Might keep it fresh.

 

Looking into the future: the Two Point developer is apparently poised to make more 'Two Point' games, obviously looking back at the old Molyneux catalogue of sims. I doubt they'll be going for Dungeon Keeper though, since it already has a rather good successor in the Dungeon series. Theme Park, too, barely needs an update with all the rollercoaster tycoons and sims available. So, what's next? Two Point Populous? Two Point Magic Carpet? Two Point, GULP, Black & White?

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Purchased it yesterday and played the first two levels. It hasn't grabbed me as I had hoped [after listening to the podcast], but perhaps that's due to these being tutorial levels, effectively. One thing that strikes me so far is that I don't want for space. I make nearly every room as small as I possibly can, so the whopping three additional plots of land I purchased in level 2 were quite nearly useless.

 

What's the benefit of making a really nicely large and well-decorated GP's office, or any other room? Is it just to add prestige and probably increase the happiness of staff and patients? I don't know if that'll outweigh the (presumably) more dramatic scarcity of space surely to come in later levels. Wards, sure, those can house more beds. But I'd say it's better to have four small GP's offices rather than a singly huge one.

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So, I'm a little while into this game, sixth level or so. There are small quality of life improvements that make this a nice experience: the ability to copy rooms for instance, or the pause. Was pausing already a thing in Theme Hospital?

 

Then again, it sure is Theme Hospital again. There's something weird happening in the arc of any given level. The opening bids are usually fun, where you get to design the entrance, reception area and what I'll call the diagnosis area. Just building up your hospital the best you can, hiring staff (Rob's tip in the podcast to just hire the most competent doctors and nurses, money be damned, is a good one)... it's fun and at this point I still have the energy to care about the little details of where to place my seats and plants and drink machines for optimal aesthetics.

 

The first hurdle is when you need to up the scale. I tend to balk whenever I need to build my fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth GP's Office. That's when I just dedicate a whole new wing to diagnosis and intake, dammit, but I dislike it because it creates a second entrance to the hospital and feels les flow-y. This is also the moment where I'll need to hire so many new staff that I stop caring about their individual needs, and I tend to lose interest in optimizing where they are. I'll just dump 'em randomly in whatever room needs them, and hope the game figures out where to place them for maximum utility.

 

Then, once I've got this pretty much automated, the game seems to peter out. There's not much more to do than look at your self-sustaining hospital, sometimes nudge and prod and pull a lever here and there, and wait for the challenge bars to fill. Train 20 staff. Cure 300 patients. On to the next site.

 

I'm comparing this to Dungeon Keeper now, which I feel is fair since the ideas powering the two games are roughly the same: build rooms, attract certain patients or creatures, optimize and manage. But Dungeon Keeper has this wonderful point to it: the end game of every level where you'll get a group of adventurers invading and trying to smash your palace. It's exciting every time and creates a natural climax to the arc. Two Point Hospital, like Theme Hospital before it, lacks this build-up towards, well, something, anything! It's not that satisfying to see a bar fill and then get a static level processing you into the next hospital to manage.

 

So, what I'm basically saying is, get a band of heroes to bust into the diagnosis area and start wreaking havoc. That too much to ask?

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