theme-hospital game sourced
Theme Hospital
A hospital management game where the player builds rooms, hires and trains staff, and routes patients with comic diseases through diagnosis and treatment to meet level goals.
parts
16 mechanics, as Theme Hospital does themcore · 4
Building placement
Rooms are placed as blueprints with doors and windows, then furnished with required items; many rooms must be researched first.
Diagnosis and treatment
A GP diagnoses or refers patients to specialist diagnosis rooms; treatment starts once certainty passes a player-set threshold, and diseases are fictional, such as Bloaty Head.
Service queues
Patients queue outside each room; the player can rearrange queues, and long waits push patients to leave.
Staff hiring and rosters
Doctors, nurses, handymen, and receptionists are hired with performance stats; some rooms need doctors with specialist skills.
supporting · 12
Advisors
Agent skills
Doctors can be trained to gain skills and specialisms.
Contagion
Epidemics break out and can be covered up before a health inspector visits; failure brings fines and lost reputation.
Contracts and orders
Emergencies require curing a group of patients within a time limit for a bonus.
Loans and debt
Needs decay
Staff tire and need breaks under player-set break rules; patients need drinks and toilets.
Pause and speed control
Reputation
Cures and deaths move a reputation that affects patient intake and level goals.
Scenario objectives
Each level sets goals for money, reputation, cures, and hospital value; negative funds or too many deaths lose the level.
Tech tree
Research unlocks rooms, drugs, and machine improvements.
Utility action selection
Wear and breakdown
Machines such as the Inflator need handyman servicing or they explode.
core loop
build rooms from blueprints -> hire and train staff -> patients queue for GP diagnosis and referrals -> treatment cures or kills -> fees and reputation -> research new rooms and meet level goals
design notes
Theme Hospital turns medicine into routing. The GP and specialist diagnosis rooms raise a patient's diagnosis certainty, and the player sets the threshold at which treatment starts (it can be set above 100%), trading throughput against deaths from wrong cures. Rooms are fixed blueprints that need set furniture and, for some, specialist staff, so the staff roster and the floor plan gate each other. Machines that explode without a handyman, epidemics that can be covered up before the health inspector arrives, and timed emergencies add pressure on top of the queues. Much of the code came from Theme Park; CorsixTH is an open-source reimplementation with a level editor.