Two Point Hospital
Just what the doctor ordered!
$34.99 From Two Point Studios, twopointhospital.com Needs macOS 10.13, 2.3GHz processor, Nvidia GTX 775M, Radeon 555 or Intel Iris Plus 655 Tycoon games — or ‘business management simulations’ as they’re sometimes called — have always been popular. And the complexities that come with medical research and patient management make a doctor’s workplace an ideal setting for a new entry in the genre. In fact, some of the team behind Two Point Hospital worked on the old Theme Hospital way back in 1997, so their aim with this new game was to give that original concept a modern make–over, including slick 3D graphics that feel heavily inspired by Aardman’s Wallace And Gromit style of stop–motion animation.
The game begins with a single hospital in the town of Hogsport, which acts as the introductory tutorial before you start to expand and develop your business with additional hospitals. Your first begins as simply an empty building, and you start with $200,000 that you can spend on building the hospital facilities and hiring staff. Your eventual aim is to achieve three–star status for all the hospitals in your medical empire.
You’ll need to start with the basics: setting up a reception, installing the ideal number of seating areas (very important!), before recruiting your first doctor who can then start to receive patients. That’s simple enough, but the pace quickly picks up as each new patient is diagnosed, and you’ll quickly find yourself rushing to add pharmacies, surgeries, and other medical equipment, while also recruiting staff and trying to keep your patients happy. The loop is addictive, if a little repetitive at times. You can train staff with a variety of skills, including surgery and psychiatry (and even ‘ghost capture’ in case anything goes wrong). You also have to keep an eye on basics, such as providing food and drink for your patients — not to mention toilets, as things can get seriously messy if you slip up there and forget to install them.
It’s that balancing act that provides the game’s real challenge, as you juggle the development of high–tech medical facilities with the more mundane needs of the flesh– and–blood patients. And while there’s nothing really groundbreaking in Two Point Hospital, it’s a welcome addition to a genre that doesn’t often cater for Mac gamers.
the bottom line. Two Point Hospital’s slick presentation helps to breathe new life into the ‘tycoon’ genre.