Two Point Hospital (2018)

Played several hours during Steam free weekend. Beat the first 3 levels and almost the 4th. Got a pretty good handle on the game mechanics and was overall very impressed with how well made and user friendly this game is. The Grand Theft Auto style in game radio gave me a few laughs as well as the silly diseases, that time I put a clock in the corner partially hidden by vending machines, putting a candy machine outside the toilet (inside would be even more hilarious) without hand sanitizer nearby and making a large video arcade.

I will not be buying it because it is not among my preferred genres of games and I have too much of a backlog. I could possibly see spending a couple of $ on it 10 years down the road.

Update Sept 2019

Another free trial and I played another dozen or so hours. I beat a few more levels and left off at Smogley. The difficulty is starting to ramp up a bit with fewer patients coming in making the early game finances tight. Had some more hilarious situations; lack of janitors leading to toilets out of order for too long, leading to people going on the floor, leading to people vomiting all over the place, leading to even more vomit and people slipping and falling all the time. Took a while to recover from that, but profits were still rolling in. There was also a time where the main building was clean, but the second building was decidedly not, and I still got praised by the health inspector. Guess he did not go to the second building. I like to make efficient use of space by putting something in every possible space, which leads to very tight corridors. Game does not seem to simulate the flow of people obstructing each other, so it works.

I have a better handle on the game mechanics and started to play with staff costumes for specialists. Most of my doctors are general practitioners and get trained with focus on that; I leave them in the default white coat. Treatment doctors get green and I have them float around the treatment rooms as needed and keep them out of the GP offices unless they really need to fill in while a GP trains. Researchers get blue (like in Star Trek!) and again I have them mostly stay researching unless they really need to fill in elsewhere. Diagnostic doctors get grey and mostly work in the X ray and Mega scanners and I have them trained in radiology and diagnosis. Psychiatrists get orange and I want them to max out on psychiatry.

The standard nurse is focused on treatment and sometimes I will let them have boosts for specific rooms (like pharmacy). I let them work everywhere. Ward nurses get purple outfit, only get trained in operation of wards and are only allowed to work in the 2 types of wards. Diagnosis nurses get the reverse outfit (which is white), max out on diagnosis training and are only allowed to work in diagnosis rooms.

I did not change the outfits of janitors and assistants. I focus assistants on customer service training but do not care about janitors; they have the lowest priority for training and I do not really care what abilities they have, long as someone can get rid of ghosts and upgrade machines. I like to have training going at all times, mostly 1 person at a time. I will often pay an outside trainer to have someone learn a new skill, and then have that person teach it to others for free. I tend not to hire enough staff to cover for people not working while training, so that is why usually one person gets trained at a time.