The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Before I get started, I decided to add an iOS category today, which I should have done a long time ago, as I know some of you probably don’t give a shit about the iOS games I talk about. This took forever because I had to go and label all my old blogs, and I don’t know if you know this, but I have written a ton of stupid blogs! Anyway, I hope that’s useful. Then again, I doubt anyone uses the categories, but eh, whatever. It’s sorted and shit, right?

Anyway, today I want to talk about Hospital Story. No, this isn’t a game by Kairosoft, the people who brought you hits like Game Dev Story and Hot Springs Story. They really want you to think it is, though, with the icon looking pretty well exactly like those Kairosoft games. No, this is a fairly useless microtransationfest that probably isn’t going to hold your attention more than 15 minutes. Still, it’s free, so maybe 15 minutes is enough.

I downloaded this game because I often click on the little ads that give you free Tower Bux in Tiny Tower because 1) I want free Tower Bux, 2) It takes like 2 seconds, and 3) I want to support the people who made that game, because it is so awesome, and I assume they get money for people who agree to take a look. Hospital Story was the first game on there that really seemed like it might be fun. I thought maybe this would be someone else’s take on the Kairosoft sim model, and I was interested to try it.

Basically, the game goes in rounds. People come in the top of your hospital, and they need various treatments. You have a little electric machine, and little heart monitor, a strange machine that looks like a hand, and some sort of brain scanner. You drag the people to the machines, then tap on them to send one of your workers to do the procedure. Many patients need multiple types of procedures, so then you drag them to another place, tap on them to send a guy, and so on. Finally, after they’re cured, they’ll go to the desk, and, you guessed it, you have to tap on them to send a worker over to take their money. A game day is maybe a minute or two long, and then you can upgrade your equipment and hire more workers or whatever before going at it again. The game also gives you experience points, and you level up, but these levels seem to do absolutely nothing besides show up on the top of the screen. I don’t know why there’s an EXP system besides the fact that games have EXP systems, I guess.

This game is all about microtransations. You can upgrade your stuff with the in-game money, but hiring most of the staff requires “Medi-Points” which, as you can probably guess, they’ll be happy to sell you. They give you a few to start, which is enough to hire a few people and not be totally screwed, but it is really frustrating. They do have one thing I found smart, though: they have this weird thing where you can elect to watch commercials to get small amounts of Medi-points. Instead of forcing them on you, it’s voluntary, but they reward you. I could really get behind this sort of model as an alternative to paying, but the returns just aren’t any good. I had to watch like 7 commercials to get enough Medi-points to hire one of the cheapest nurses, and that was only with the bonus points they gave me for starting the game. I’d be doing that for an hour or more before I’d be able to buy, say, the Cat Doctor. It’s just not worth it.

As you play through the game, patients start coming in faster and faster, and you have to scramble to get them all taken care of. This might be a cool little arcade game, if for the fact that basically the only thing that makes it possible to do the numbers they throw at you is having enough staff. If you don’t have enough, you’re screwed. If you do, it’s a cakewalk. And, of course, you have to hire new workers with Medi-Points. Yeah.

Once the game picked up speed, I had fun with it for a little while as a time-waster, but it’s nowhere near deep enough of a game that anyone would ever think to spend money on it, and their little “watch ads” thing, while smart, just doesn’t give enough of a return for you to even want to try it. It’s free, sure, but there’s no reason to try this game.