our review
Doctors with border-line behaviour
Place doctors to laugh yourself back to health
Emergency Room, Dr. House, Grey’s Anatomy and Schwarzwaldklinik: a lot of TV-series purport to bring the (imagined) daily routine of a hospital to our TV screens; board games, however, do rarely pick up this topic. For all those among us who love it – and have somewhat outgrown „Doctor Bibber“ – there is now some new medication:
The first impressions confronts us with a somewhat smaller games box. We place this – still fully clothed – test subject is placed onto the diagnostic table / games table and can already diagnose some first signs for witty word play – for the assistant physicians, which we players are embodying as well as for the patients (for instance, there is “Quentin Quarantino”, “Sharon Gallstone” or even “Antonio Bandageras” and so on). After a superficial check-up of the rule book, a first diagnostic finding yields enough data to diagnose a worker placement game in the classic style and thus symptoms with which we are confronted very frequently, as in recent years nearly every second board game shows those symptoms. Usually, in such a case, we prescribe a first, non-invasive trial game to find out, if we can send the patient home instantly for some permanent bed-rest on our games shelves or if some more therapy efforts and some more intensive engagement could be worth our while.
Nurse, hand us the swab and the game components, please:
Check for the correct side of the game board, arrange the studying markers, bandages and money tiles to be on hand, equip the hospital pharmacy with medication tiles (available in three colors), shuffle the patient cards and put four of those cards on display, and, finally, provide each colleague with a player board, one money tile and two player markers and two color markers. Now the surgery can begin: In each round we place our two player markers on the general hospital board in order to acquire medication, bandages or money. Money, of course, is especially important for us doctors, for which we, like it or not, even invest the odd night shift or two. However, we should not be too eager to concentrate on the corresponding action, that is, the action case of “nigh shift”, because the first colleague to do so receives only two money tiles and, furthermore, is allowed to choose the starting player for the next round, and only for the next players to choose this action the money yields raises to three or even four.
As regards to the other available actions the prospects looks better for the early board who will really catch the better worm, that is, the better worm treatment. Take the action “acquire medication”, for instance: Whoever chooses this first, may take two respective tiles for free, all other players only get one for free, and a second one would have to be paid for with a money tile. The obvious corruptibility of the local hospital pharmacist is not his only short-coming, his store of medicines is rather limited, too. It can happen very easily that all medication tiles of the intended color are already owned by your colleagues. It is only a small consolation that there are, at least, enough bandages around.
With the resources we acquired we treat our patients in the course of the game in order to be rewarded with victory points. The more medication we provide for our patients, the more rewarding is our raise in esteem or prestige; it comes in very handy that each patient is himself fully aware of what or which combination of medication and bandages is best for him. If you want prestige, you will have to choose the action “treat patient”: The first player to do so may cure his favorite patient with two tiles – medication and/or bandages) without incurring additional costs, each additional treatment tile would require a money tile again. Colleagues who rise to the challenge later, probably due to night shifts, need a money tile already for the second medications. Health insurance funds, however, allow only a certain time span for treatment of a patient, when this time ends the patient is discharged uncured, and probably with lethal consequences, from hospital. We have not yet have complaints about that. The best timing in this case is really awkward, especially in a game with five players, as each patient in principle only wants to be treated by one and only one and the same assistant doctor. So, all players must try to do their best for the only four patients with special dispatch and timing, in order not to be left without a patient.
To spend his hard-earned money for medication goes deeply against the grain of a doctor in the making, and he would rather invest his money in various additional certificates and diplomas, which can be done by choosing the action „studying“. To pay three money tiles for one such additional qualification seem an appropriate price – to study really hard is of course impossible due to lack of time, as a night shift should be spent more in sleeping as in brooding over books. Furthermore, each additional qualification diploma that you acquire will earn you a victory point at the end of the game, but only if you manage to pass the “Final Exam” later in the game (this is only possible only once for each colleague. You can choose from qualifications in “Intensive medicine”, which allows you to apply an additional medication or bandages tiles for free when treating a patient; “Pharmacy” in turn awards you a medication when you discharge as cured one of your own patients. “Finances” work in a similar way, albeit with the reward of two money tiles (your patient was obviously not on the National Health Service, but a private patient). “Management” in turn influences the passage of patients through the system.
Money can also be used to acquire victory points directly, but take care: This action is called „Bribery“ and the corresponding action case is marked in red? Should this color on the board have a similar meaning to that of this color in road traffic? The action option of “Sabotage” is also using the signaling color of red and lures you with the option to pinch money or medication from another player, which may seem disloyal towards your colleagues at first glance, but finally only “profits” your patients. Should the colleague involved bee to touchy and believe this to be unfair, the sniveling guy can always use “Snitching”. Actions marked in red do not only include the risk of a later revenge by the respective victim, but can also be directly punished with using “Snitching” and result in legal transfer of money or loss of points.
So, the Hippocratic Oath seems to need a fresh interpretation in this context: It is better to do “nasty” actions at a point when someone else has already gone “snitching” or when you are the last player in a round or when there is more than enough money available to console you for the rather hurtful loss of points.
For the heads of clinics among us it is of interest, that each of us has, on his player board, two very special, albeit again marked in red, character abilities, which are also activated by using the player markers, which of course then are lacking on the hospital board.
The initially formed diagnosis of the game symptoms is improved somewhat due to further tests, insofar as – besides the increased variance of available option for actions – there are also some vexation factors that can be used, albeit while paying close attention to the possibility of being squealed on by a colleague. Furthermore, the respective special abilities of doctors are not balanced but actively imbalanced. Some of them don’t even profit their owners directly, but only provide disadvantage for other players, which can even result in a kingmaker, or better, head of clinics creating effect. Which is really too bad, as it are those special actions that should motivate you to immediately play another game of Hospital Rush. Anyway, the colleague named „Vanessa Toad“ should be mobbed out of the hospital instantly: She is the only one who commands the action of „this I will tell to the boss instantly”, which results in additional payment – on top of the sanctions imposed by the “Snitching” actions – in order to not lose victor points when you where caught red-handed. Due to the continuous scarcity of money this, naturally, results in a very low readiness to use red action cases, which in turn results in a detrimental effect on the mood of the game.
Harald Schatzl
Players: 3-5
Age: 10+
Time: 45+
Designer: Thomas Kjølby Laursen, Kåre Storgaard, Steen Thomsen
Price: ca. 25 Euro
Publisher: Pegasus / eggertspiele 2014
Web: www.pegasus.de
Genre: Worker placement
Users: With friends
Version: multi
Rules: de en
In-game text: yes
Comments:
Seems to target casual players among medicine students and assistant doctors
Few rules
Good, easily understood symbols
Witty design can be taken for foolish slapstick, too
Not recommended to expert players
Compares to:
All simple worker placement games
Other editions:
Currently none
My rating: 4
Harald Schatzl:
A tactical and yet rather easily accessible worker placement game which arouses interest more due to its satirical mood and creative implementation of the topic then with new ideas, but surely not experienced players. A part in the more or less positive final diagnoses is played by the relatively fast game play of less than an hour as well as several rather nasty options for interactions, which in turn demand a certain degree of frustration tolerance from your fellow players.
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 2
Strategy (blue): 1
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 1
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0