The Simpsons, Aardman Animations, Twin Peaks, Prison Architect and, fairly naturally, Theme Hospital – these are the most important inspirations behind Two Point Hospital, an upcoming sim/administration sport from a number of the people liable for Bullfrog’s Theme glory years. Two Point Hospital, a mix of administration and comedy in a fantasy healthcare centre, is due for launch – through publishers Sega – later this yr, and the primary trailer is under. I additionally had a giant chat with lead devs and Bullfrog/Lionhead veterans Gary Carr and Mark Webley in regards to the sport over here.
Here’s your first take a look at Two Point Hospital, which goals primarily to set out its comedy credentials, and a return to Theme Hospital’s made-up ailments and cures – on this case, the wordplay/visible gag double-punch of ‘Lightheadedness’:
“We didn’t want to throw away the charm of the original,” explains co-founder Gary Carr, ex of Bullfrog, Mucky Foot and Lionhead, “but this its own entity. Whenever you read back about the game, it’s always nostalgic and people remember things slightly through rose-tinted spectacles, but people did talk about the humour a lot and I think we’ve managed to do that again.” However, “Even though thematically it shares a relationship with something we made back in the day, it’s a very different experience.”
The final 10 seconds of that trailer is in-game footage, the devs guarantee me, and constructed within the Unity engine. The present state of the sport is that they’re feature-complete however nonetheless pre-alpha. They received’t be drawn on a launch date exterior of ‘later this year’, however inform me that they don’t plan to go down the early entry route for Two Point Hospital – full launch is the plan, presumably with a closed beta forward of that.
Though Two Point Hospital would appear to have a lot in widespread with its 1997 predecessor, the plan is for extra fashionable humour and interface sensibilities, plus a extra sandboxy reasonably than strictly level-based strategy. “It feels like you can play it in a number of different ways and get different results,” says Carr, “which was my damaging in regards to the unique – I felt I needed to play it a sure means. So I feel we received that proper.
Two Point Hospital is however stage one in every of bigger plan to deliver Theme Park/Hospital video games within the Bullfrogian picture again, nevertheless. “We want to build out a world of sim games, and this seemed like a good starting point because of our history,” says Carr.
The two inspirations there are The Simpsons’ Springfield, with its self-contained areas similar to the ability plant and Moe’s Tavern, and Twin Peaks’ sense of visible landmarks and traditions. “We knew with Two Point County we would at some point build a hospital facility in our linked-up world, we just thought it was sensible to do that first, because it was one of the things we were known for in our past. Our bigger picture is to be multiple themed sims within Two Point County.”
Two Point Hospital is due out on Steam in “late 2018.” The sport’s website is over here.
For way more on Two Point Hospital, together with the Prison Architect affect, why Carr and Webley are returning to sim video games now, how they imagine sport humour has modified for the reason that 90s and why they assume the style has typically lain fallow within the intervening years, please request a relocation to our interview ward here.
