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Dev blog #1

Welcome to Hospital Architect. What the game is about, what the goals are and what we’ve been working on recently.

A large pixel-art hospital seen from above, with a wing of offices along the bottom left, a gym in the corner, diagnosis and X-ray rooms in the middle, an operating theatre, gift shop and canteen along the top, the lobby and reception desk by the front door, and a ward with seven beds down the right-hand side.

Hey guys, welcome to Hospital Architect. This is our first blog post, so we’ll start with what the game is about, what you can do in it and what the goals are. After that we’ll go through what we’ve been working on recently. The game is still in pre-alpha, so all of this may change.

What is Hospital Architect?

Hospital Architect is a pixel-art hospital building game. You run a privately owned hospital on a budget. You design and build it, hire and manage the staff, look after the patients and keep the books balanced.

You build the hospital yourself. You lay down foundations, walls, doors and windows, then mark out rooms like GP offices, a pharmacy, a ward or an X-ray room and fill them with the equipment they need. Then you hire the people to run it, like doctors, nurses, receptionists, janitors and maintenance staff.

Patients come in off the road, check in at reception and wait to be seen. Doctors and nurses diagnose and treat them, and if everything goes well they go home cured. Everything costs money though. Patients pay for their treatment, staff get paid every day and equipment wears out. If you stay overdrawn for too long, the bank closes the hospital.

The goals

There are two ways to play.

Story mode has 15 levels, starting with a small GP surgery and working up to the Royal Infirmary. Each level gives you a building, a budget and a goal, like curing a certain number of patients, reaching a rating or having a set amount in the bank. Too many deaths, a low rating for too long or running out of money and you fail the level.

Free play is more open. You start small, buy more land as you grow and research new rooms and treatments as new illnesses start going round. There are objectives to work towards, and you can change the rules with modifiers like unlimited money or difficulty.

In both modes your hospital has a rating out of 100. It’s based on things like your reputation, how many patients you cure, how long people wait, how many die or walk out, and how clean and comfortable the hospital is. A higher rating brings in more patients, so the better you do, the busier it gets.

What we’ve been working on

All of the screenshots and clips below are from a free play game I’ve been playing to test the latest build. The hospital is on day 34 and has 26 rooms and 56 staff.

Reception

The reception desk can now be dragged out to any length, like a wall, and it can turn a corner to make an L shape. Patients come in, queue at the desk to check in and then find a seat. While they’re waiting they’ll use the vending machine, get a drink from the water cooler or go to the toilet, and they keep their place in the queue.

Animated clip of the hospital lobby. Patients come in through the front doors and queue at a long reception desk, with waiting chairs, a snack machine and a research room nearby.
The lobby and reception

Queueing for rooms

Patients knock on the door of the room they need and then wait nearby until it’s their turn. If there’s no free seat close enough, they’ll stand.

Animated clip of a hospital corridor with waiting chairs along one wall, psychiatry and two GP offices below it, and patients and staff walking between them.
The main corridor, with psychiatry and the GP offices
A wider view of the same part of the hospital with the staff menu open, showing offices and a staff room at the top, the corridor and its waiting chairs, psychiatry and GP offices below, and the reception desk on the right.
The same area with the staff menu open

Diagnosis and treatment

We now have general diagnosis, X-ray, treatment, A&E, an operating theatre and a ward. Patients with a broken arm or leg go to X-ray first and then get a plaster cast in the treatment room. When they leave they’re in a sling or on crutches.

Animated clip of the middle of the hospital, with a patient on the X-ray table, a doctor examining someone in general diagnosis and staff in a busy staff room.
X-ray, general diagnosis and the staff room
A close-up of an X-ray room with a patient on the table, the toilets, a staff room, a general diagnosis room with a patient on the couch and an office, each with a thermostat on the wall.
X-ray, the toilets, general diagnosis and an office
The east side of the hospital, with a ward of seven beds and nurses’ desks, the reception desk with patients waiting, a research room and a GP office.
The ward, reception and the research room

Heating and cooling

Every room has its own thermostat, which you can see on the wall, and you can turn each room up or down. Depending on the biome you’ll be using either radiators or air conditioning.

Offices and the bureaucracy tree

We’ve added offices and a bureaucracy tree. You hire a hospital manager and heads of department for HR, physio, research, finance, facilities and clinical governance, and each of them needs their own office. The tree is where you pay to unlock things like the training room, the gym and hydrotherapy pool, the research room, the canteen and the gift shop.

Events

There are now hospital events, which include outbreaks, health inspections, VIP visits and rush hours. A VIP walks round the hospital and scores it on cleanliness, decor, queues and how many patients are cured. If the score is good enough they leave a donation.

A close-up of a corridor near reception with patients on waiting chairs, a snack machine and a maintenance worker carrying a hammer, and a notice at the top saying a VIP arrives in an hour and thirteen minutes.
A VIP visit coming up
A close-up of psychiatry, a pharmacy and a GP office, with a notice at the top saying the VIP is on their way to reception, stop 1 of 5, and a reminder that two people need offices of their own.
The VIP on their way to reception

Staff

Staff work to a rota and take breaks. Objects wear out and break over time, so you’ll need maintenance staff to repair and service them. Janitors clean up and water the plants.

Everything else

  • World seeds for free play, plus five biomes, seasons and weather
  • Physio, with a gym and a hydrotherapy pool you build tile by tile
  • A training room so staff can be trained in-house
  • New illnesses like Doomscroller, Hangry and Reply-All Panic, as well as broken arms and legs
  • Original music and sound effects
The same hospital at night seen from above, with the lights on in every room and patients still in the corridors.
The same hospital at night

What’s next

The game is still in pre-alpha and there’s no release date yet. It will be coming to Steam. We’ll keep posting updates here as things come together, and if you want to hear about them you can sign up to the newsletter below.

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