Game News Nobody wanted this game, not even its creators, and yet it has become one of the most iconic video game titles!
This title became a reference within its own game genre and yet nobody wanted it! We talk about it in this new JV Legends.
Accessibility issue
Did you know? The first video game that claims to belong to the genre of “business simulation games” (or tycoon) – a subgenre of management games – is none other than The Sumerian Gamepublished in 1964. This entirely text-based book allows you to navigate the birth and development of the first human civilizations. This style gradually becomes anchored in a very serious tone that lasts until the arrival of a man well known to the players: Peter Molyneux. The same man who had a firm idea for his theme park in 1994: he wants to make it accessible to as many people as possible. Based on the idea that “Children can create their dream amusement parkThen he puts together a team whose task it is to create the first Tycoon for all audiences. To do this, he asked Gary Carr – developer and artist at Bullfrog Productions – to Create colorful graphics like Japanese games from the 90s.
An idea that the person concerned finds so stupid that it forces him to leave the project AND the development studio. Molyneux then turned to Mark Webley, the title’s lead programmer at the time, who decided to program each character in the game to have their own reactions and behaviors. A child with nausea, for example, will not make several trips in a row. He will also take the opportunity to rework the engine originally developed by Molyneux, which will lead to his promotion to the person in charge of the various ports of the game and which will be very successful for him! Because in fact The theme park is a great successwhich makes the person behind the project think that he has a golden idea here and that it is now up to him to turn it into a diamond. And to do this, Leave the amusement parks, the hospital world will be in the spotlight!
Strong return and terrible visit
An idea that did not come out of nowhere, because it was born during a lunch with his friend James Leach, a video game journalist to whom he wanted to give a demo Theme Parkwhich The latter tells him that his concept is so good that it can be transferred to other infrastructures. Then the two begin to imagine titles that would allow them to build a prison, a mine or even, and that is the idea that interests us, a hospital. This last suggestion appeals to Peter Molyneux. He immediately puts together a new team and asks Mark Webley to take over the leadership. But now that the programmer position is filled, we need an artist! For this, Peter decides to poach… Gary Carr. To lure him in, he then promises him the Dungeon Keeper project before tasking him with founding the Theme Hospital. Astonished, the developer even declared: “I’m being recruited into the sequel to the game that made me leave the company the first time…“ But this time he stays!
In summary: On one side we have a programmer who has never maintained a game before and on the other side we have an artist who doesn’t want to work on it. Needless to say, it gets off to a bad start. To get a picture and look for something to joke about, the duo visits a hospital and comes to a very specific point: it is extremely boring. This time, in another hospital, they have the opportunity to attend an operation! Unfortunately, Carr cannot bear the sight of blood, faints and angers the surgeon, who immediately throws her out. Their opinion: The experience was more entertaining this time, but above all very grim, especially after the medical team offered them Visit the morgue. Observations that lead Gary to propose the idea of pushing the cartoon counters to the maximum to create a contrast to the sad side of the hospital world. It’s a shame when we know that it was the same idea that originally made him abandon the development of Theme Park.
The history of the Theme Hospital is full of anecdotes that are definitely worth discovering! To learn more about this more than chaotic development, Do not hesitate to consult our special section at the top of the page!
