Theme Hospital: The Unofficial Walkthrough By Steve Novicki Copyright (c) February 18, 2000 by Steve Novicki CONTENTS 1 - Introduction 2 - Doctors and Specialists 3 - Handymen 4 - Nurses and Secretaries 5 - Rooms 6 - Diseases 7 - When VIPs Come To Visit Your Hospital 8 - Cheats 9 - Farewell 1 - Introduction Hello! My name is Steve Novicki, and I will be your narrator and guide throughout this FAQ for the fantastic simulation computer game, Theme Hospital. I have been playing Theme Hospital for about two years now, and I can create a successful hospital WITHOUT the use of cheat codes up until about level six. Despite my inexperience to the game, I know a lot about it, and felt it my personal responsibility to write this FAQ for all players of Theme Hospital. Also, as stated above, this FAQ is legally Copyright (c) February 18, 2000 by Steve Novicki. If you rip off of this or any of my other FAQs for any reason without my personal consent, I can sue you and easily win. Just don't do it. Now all that boring legal stuff is said, let's get to the FAQ! 2 - Doctors and Specialists Without Doctors, like in real life, hospitals cannot function properly. Also, in a very sexist gesture, all Doctors in all hospitals are male, no female Doctors. There are a variety of different Doctors, all ranging in skill and attention to detail. There are also four different types of Doctors. Below is a list of them all and what each does: DOCTOR: Your average Doctor. He can do anything in the game except perform surgery, use the Psychiatry Room, or research in the Research Department. Also, only a Researcher can use the DNA Restorer Room. Basically, Doctors are the universal people in the game that you will need. PYSCHIATRIST: The first specialist you will encounter on the first level. These cost way more than plan Doctors to hire, but they can treat and diagnose patients using the Psychiatry Room. That is all that's special about Psychiatrists. They can also do everything that normal Doctors can do. RESEARCHER: The second most basic specialist in the game. Researchers, and only Researchers, can conduct research in the Research Department. They can also do everything that normal Doctors can do. They cost more to hire than normal Doctors do. SURGEON: The most complex specialist in Theme Hospital. I think that these cost the most of all staff to hire. Surgeons are the only Doctors who can perform surgery in the Operating Theater. You should have at least three Surgeons; one rests while the other two operate. Every operation in Theme Hospital requires two Surgeons to operate, and a Nurse to see the patients into the Ward. Surgeons can also do everything else normal Doctors can. THE DOCTORS IN GENERAL: All Doctors need to rest in the staff room for a certain period of time to allow them to recuperate from their hard day at work. If you set the Send Staff To Staff Room level too high, the Doctors (not to mention all the other staff) will get tired, mad, make mistakes, demand pay rises, and eventually quit. Set the Send Staff To Staff Room level to about twenty or twenty-five percent and they will never demand pay rises or get mad. All Doctors come with a certain level of training. Starting from the fourth level, you can train your Doctors to higher skill levels. All you need to do this is a Training Room and a Consultant (discussed later). Put both in the Training Room (making sure that their tiredness level is at zero). Also make sure that the Staff Room is close to them, or else the training of a Doctor will take longer. It is a good idea to have lots of Bookcases and Skeletons in your Training Rooms, due to the fact that it speeds up the training time. Another important fact is that the more Doctors you train at once in a single Training Room, the less the speed they will learn at. Like, if you have one Doctor being taught on a one-on-one basis, he will learn at a rate three times faster than that of the same Training Room with three Doctors in it. There are three types of Doctors: Junior, Doctor, and Consultant. A Junior is a Doctor with hardly any training, so you should train them to get them to an acceptable level of skill. The main advantage of hiring Juniors is that they are VERY cheap, and you can train them for free. A Doctor is a Doctor with a skill level that is about in the middle or a little above that. Doctors cost a little more than Juniors, but less than Consultants. Doctors and Juniors have no special features. Consultants, on the other hand, are glorified Doctors. Their skill level is extremely high, and they can be used to train young Doctors and Juniors to acceptable levels. Consultants cost a LOT of money, and the more special skills they possess (like a Surgeon), they will pass that skill on to their students. Also, the more Doctors and Juniors work in your hospital, the more knowledge and skill they obtain. They eventually will become Consultants if they are working in your hospital for long enough. You should make sure that all staff possess a moderate to high level if Attention to Detail (specified when you hire them). If they don't, they will make more mistakes. But you can train them and Attention to Detail won't really matter then. 3 - Handymen You need Handymen, and a lot of them, dependent upon the size of your hospital. Handymen's sole purposes in life are to (a) sweep up the litter, (b) water the plants and (c) fix machinery that is damaged or old. Pretty important. Really important, actually. If you don't have any Handymen when you put plants in your hospital, they will die and cause patients to become unhappy. If you don't have any Handymen when you have a hospital with lots of people visiting it, the litter will get out of control and epidemics will break out. If you don't have any Handymen when you have one or more machines in your hospital, unless you replace it once in a while, it will explode and the room will become unusable. Very bad indeed. It's a good thing that most Handymen are cheap and reliable, the best Handyman costs about $117 to hire monthly (at least, I think it's monthly, could someone check for me?). Handymen, like Doctors, need to rest every once in a while. If they don't, they soon become cranky and get tired, mad, demand pay rises, make a lot of mistakes, and eventually quit. To remedy this, have a lot of Handymen, quite a few Staff Rooms, and set the Staff Go To Staff Room level to about twenty to twenty-five percent. Also, if you see a piece of litter in your hospital that has not yet been swept up by a Handyman, right-click any Handyman and put him directly over the tile that contains the piece of litter. If the Handyman has a high Attention to Detail rating, the Handyman will then sweep up the litter on the spot without complaining. One last comment: you can adjust the concentration of one field to any Handyman by left-clicking on one. Now click one of the buttons that you wish to concentrate; either Sweeping Litter, Watering Plants, or Fixing Machinery. All are important, but I find it best to just not have any plants in your hospital at all. 4 - Nurses and Secretaries Secretaries are probably the most important staff in your entire hospital. Without them, your patients would not know where to go. They would not even have a chance to check into your hospital because they would not have a Secretary to check in with. You must hire a Secretary(s) to see all of your patients. If you don't, you cannot start a hospital. They are kind of cheap, though, considering their level of importance. The best one costs something around $123 to hire per month, and the best thing is that THEY DO NOT GET TIRED. Not at all. They do not have to go to the Staff Room because they do not get tired, for some reason, benefiting you in the manner that you do not have to have two or three Secretaries at once. Secretaries require Reception Desks to stand behind in order to see the patients. You should, as always, choose a Secretary with a high Skill Level and, if possible, Attention to Detail. Nurses are women in your hospital who administer drugs via the Pharmacy, see patients into the Ward, and operate the Fracture Clinic. Kind of important, not really, though, because your hospital could function without any Nurses, you just wouldn't be able to cure a lot of diseases. Anyway, hiring Nurses is kind of expensive, a good one would cost about $150 monthly to hire. But you should have a lot of them, three or four, because of the fact that they perform so many tasks. They, like Doctors and Handymen, need to rest just like them, so you can go up to the section on either of them to find out how to do this. There is not really much else to say about them, just make sure that the ones you have are skilled. 5 - Rooms There are many different rooms in Theme Hospital, all serving either one or many purposes. Many of them are funny. I have gotten all of the rooms in Theme Hospital and condensed them into one section. They are all listed below. DIAGNOSIS ROOMS These rooms will diagnose patients to find out what is wrong with them. If your Doctors use all of the diagnosis equipment you have and still do not know what is ailing the patient, a fax machine message will come up, asking you what you want them to do. GP's Office (General Practitioner's) This is the fundamental room of any good hospital. Secretaries direct patients here, and then they go to the nearest GP's Office, sit, and wait. A Doctor should soon come to assist them, if none are, hire more Doctors. The Doctor will, if you're lucky, diagnose a patient's disease, and the patient will be sent for a cure. General Diagnosis This is kind of like the GP's Office, except that it is the second room the patient goes to. If the GP's Office can't diagnose the patient's disease, there's a good chance that the General Diagnosis room will. Cardiogram This is a piece of machinery that diagnoses patients. Somewhat effective, but if you don't have a lot of money at the moment, you might want to get this. The Cardiogram requires maintenance. Scanner We're getting into some serious diagnosis equipment here! The very sophisticated Scanner is a piece of equipment that scans patients to find out what's wrong with them, kind of like a metal detector. The Scanner is very expensive, but worth it, it can diagnose almost every Theme Hospital disease. The Scanner requires maintenance. Ultrascan The Ultrascan is very expensive, but well-worth the cost. Looking like an ultrasound, it diagnoses almost every ailment in Theme Hospital with the greatest of ease, and costs the patient a pretty penny, too. The Ultrascan is a piece of machinery that requires maintenance. Blood Machine The Blood Machine is basically a glorified way of taking and analyzing blood. It takes samples of the patient's blood and analyzes it to diagnose the disease the patient has. It looks very, very odd, and is fun to watch. It is a very effective method of diagnosis that can diagnose almost every disease in the game. The Blood Machine is a piece of equipment, and an expensive piece at that, that requires maintenance. X-Ray This is a moderately expensive piece of diagnosis equipment that is highly effective. It costs the patient a lot, and has a long life to it. The only downside to it is that it takes up an exceedingly large amount of space in your hospital. The X-Ray also requires maintenance. TREATMENT ROOMS The Treatment Rooms do exactly what their name implies: they treat the patients in one way or another. The difference between Treatment and Clinic Rooms is that the Treatment Rooms cure many diseases, while Clinics are made to cure one disease. Psychiatric The mad people's room! The Psychiatric Room requires one qualified Psychiatrist to perform treatments. It is a good idea to keep in mind that when building one of these rooms, many Bookcases and Skeletons will aid in speeding up the treatment and cause the Psychiatrist to make fewer mistakes. Pharmacy The Pharmacy is where the Nurse administers various drugs to patients with diseases that require a drug to treat them. Remember, if you have more than one Pharmacy (which is a good idea); have more than one Nurse to work in them. Drugs cost money to replace, $100 each time, about every week or so. I just threw that in there so you know that. Ward The Ward is where patients who are about to receive surgery go prior to the surgery. A Nurse sees in the patient, the patient has the surgery soon after that, and after the surgery, the patient is sent home, considered cured. The Ward is also used as a diagnosis room, the Nurse keeps patients for overnight observation. Any Ward requires one Nurse, just like the Pharmacy. Operating Theater Where people go to have surgery (duh!) The Operating Room requires two qualified Surgeons to perform the operations, and the Operating Table itself needs to be replaced every once in a while. NOTE: Sometimes, I would scroll over to my Operating Theater and find a Surgeon inside whose happy bar was filled halfway and tiredness bar was half-filled, also. This means that the Surgeon is very unhappy, and very, very tired, and due to some odd bug in the game, never knows to go to the Staff Room. It this does not happen, he will demand an outstanding pay rise, something like $300-$800. It would be to both of your benefit to remove him from the Operating Theater immediately and place him in the Staff Room. CLINICS These are where treatments for specific disease are. They are all machines, so they will need maintenance by a Handyman, except for the DNA Fixer, which does not, for some reason. Inflation The cure to the infamous disease Bloaty Head is located in this room. It is a piece of machinery where a needle is stuck into the overly inflated head, popped, and then inflated to the proper PSI using a bicycle pump. Any normal Doctor executes this procedure. DNA Fixer People with Alien DNA are sent here. For some odd reason, the game does not consider this a piece of equipment, so it does not need maintenance. Only a qualified Researcher can perform this procedure. Hair Restoration People with the disease Baldness are sent here to receive a full head of hair. It looks kind of like a hair salon hair dryer. The Hair Restorer requires one normal Doctor to perform the procedure. Slack Tongue Clinic People with the disease Slack Tongue are sent here. Their tongue is put in a machine that slices it off quickly and painfully. The Slicer requires one Doctor to perform the procedure. Fracture Clinic Patients with the disease Fractured Bones come here to receive treatment. The cast is removed quickly, efficiently, and painfully. This clinic requires one Nurse to perform the procedure. Electrolysis People diagnosed with the extremely funny disease of Hairyitis are sent here to be electrocuted by a machine and then sent home, considered cured. The Electrolysis requires one normal Doctor to perform the procedure. Jelly Vat People with Jellyitis are sent here to be solidified. Any normal Doctor performs this procedure. Decontamination People diagnosed with Radioactivity are sent here to be cured. It is a gigantic shower where people are bathed in. Any normal Doctor performs this procedure. FACILITIES Exactly what they sound like; facilities. These aid your hospital by performing non-medical related activities. Staff Room This room is crucial to the well-being of your hospital; it lets your staff rest and recuperate. If they do not rest, they become very mad, tired, they make mistakes, demand pay rises, and eventually quit. It's a good idea to place a few of these, one at each end of your hospital. Research Department This is a very, very, very, very, very important room. Without it, you would not be able to research new cures and equipment for your hospital, therefore limiting your hospitals growth. You conduct research via the Research Screen, an icon at the bottom right of the game screen. You should first take all the percentages out of everything but Diagnosis, and put it all into Diagnosis. Then, when Diagnosis is complete, do the same thing with Cures. Then Improvements, and then everything else. The Research Department requires at least one qualified Researcher, preferably two or three, to conduct the research. You can have an infinite amount of Researchers in the Research Department at once, but I prefer to have two or three. Toilets What else is there to say, except that is really entertaining to watch people use the toilets! A good hospital would have two or three of these. Also, the more Drink Machines you have, the more Toilets are needed. Training This is where staff with an incredibly low skill level go to be trained mercilessly by Consultants. You should have a lot of Bookcases and Skeletons, because this speeds up staff training a considerable amount. Lotta rooms in Theme Hospital, huh? They all have practical uses, and none of them cost too incredibly much. The most expensive is the DNA Fixer, costing $20,000. Oh well, so life goes on. 6 - The Diseases Bloaty Head ----------- Cause - Sniffing cheese and drinking unpurified rainwater Symptoms - Very uncomfortable for the sufferer Cure - The swollen head is popped, then reinflated to the correct PSI using a clever machine Hairyitis --------- Cause - Prolonged exposure to the moon Symptoms - Sufferers experience enhanced sense of smell Cure - An electrolysis machine removes the hair and seals up the pores King Complex ------------ Caused by the spirit of the King entering the patient's mind and taking over Symptoms - Donning of colourful suede footwear and eating cheeseburgers Cure - A Psychiatrist tells the patient how ridiculous he or she looks Invisibility ------------ Cause - Being bitten by a radioactive (and invisible) ant Symptoms - Patients suffer no discomfort. Indeed, many use the condition to play practical jokes on their families Cure - A colourful liquid drunk in the Pharmacy soon restores the patient to full observability Serious Radiation ----------------- Cause - Mistaking plutonium isotopes for chewing gum Symptoms - Patients with this condition feel very, very unwell Cure - The patient must be placed in a Decontamination Shower and cleansed properly Slack Tongue ------------ Cause - Chronic overdiscussion of soap operas Symptoms - Tongue swells to five times its original length Cure - The tongue is placed in the Slicer Machine, and removed quickly, efficiently and painfully Alien DNA --------- Cause - Face huggers equipped with intelligent alien blood Symptoms - Gradual alien metamorphosis and desire to destroy our cities Cure - The DNA is mechanically removed, cleaned of alien elements and replaced quickly Fractured Bones --------------- Cause - Falling off high things onto concrete Symptoms - Loud crack and inability to use afflicted limbs Cure - The cast is set then removed using a laser-driven removing machine Baldness -------- Cause - Telling lies and making up stories to be popular Symptoms - Shiny-headedness and embarrassment Cure - Hair is seamlessly melded onto the patient's head using a painful machine Discrete Itching ---------------- Cause - Tiny insects with sharp teeth Symptoms - Scratching, leading to body-part inflammation Cure - Patient drinks a pharmaceutical gluey syrup to prevent the skin from itching Jellyitis --------- Cause - Gelatin-rich diet and too much exercise Symptoms - Excessive wobbliness and falling down a lot Cure - The patient is immersed in the Jelly Vat in a special room for a bit Sleeping Illness ---------------- Cause - Overactive sleep gland in the roof of the mouth Symptoms - Overwhelming desire to crash out everywhere Cure - A high dosage of powerful stimulant is administered by a Nurse Pregnancy (not seen in the game, but downloadable on the 'net) --------- Cause - Power cuts in urban areas Symptoms - Faddish eating with consequent beer gut. Cure - Baby is removed in Operating Theatre, washed and presented to patient. Transparency ------------ Cause - Licking the yogurt from the foil tops of opened pots Symptoms - Flesh is rendered see-through and horrible Cure - A Pharmacy drink of specially cooled and coloured water cures this disease Uncommon Cold ------------- Cause - Small particles of snot in the air Symptoms - Runny nose, sneezing and discoloured lungs Cure - A big swig of uncommon cough medicine made from special ingredients in the Pharmacy will cure this Broken Wind ----------- Cause - Using a gymnasium treadmill after a meal Symptoms - Upsetting the people directly behind the patient Cure - A heavy mixture of special watery atoms is drunk rapidly in the Pharmacy Spare Ribs ---------- Cause - Sitting on cold stone floors Symptoms - Unpleasant feeling of chestiness Cure - These must be taken out by two Surgeons, and given to the patient in a doggy bag Kidney Beans ------------ Cause - Crunching up ice cubes in drinks Symptoms - Pain and frequent trips to the toilet Cure - Two Surgeons must remove the beans without touching the sides of the kidney Broken Heart ------------ Cause - Someone richer, younger and thinner than the patient Symptoms - Weeping and RSI caused by hours of tearing up holiday photos Cure - Two Surgeons open the chest and gently mend the heart whilst holding their breath Ruptured Nodules ---------------- Cause - Bungee jumping in cold weather Symptoms - Inability to sit down in comfort Cure - Two qualified Surgeons must removed the nodules using steady hands TV Personalities ---------------- Cause - Daytime television Symptoms - Delusions of being able to present a cookery show Cure - A trained Psychiatrist must convince the patient to sell their TV and buy a radio Infectious Laughter ------------------- Cause - Classic situation comedy Symptoms - Helpless chortling and repetition of unfunny catchphrases Cure - A qualified Psychiatrist must remind the patient how serious this condition is Corrugated Ankles ----------------- Cause - Driving over traffic calming measures in road Symptoms - Footwear does not fit snugly Cure - A slightly toxic blend of herbs and spices is drunk to straighten out the ankles Chronic Nosehair ---------------- Cause - Sniffing disdainfully at those worse off than the patient Symptoms - Nosebeard a badger could make a nest in Cure - A disgusting hair-removal potion is taken orally, prepared by a Nurse in the Pharmacy 3rd Degree Sideburns -------------------- Cause - Wistful longing for the 1970S Symptoms - Big hair, flares, platforms and glitter make-up Cure - The Psychiatry staff must, using up-to-date techniques, convince the patient that these hairy accoutrements are rubbish Fake Blood ---------- Cause - Patient usually subject of practical joke Symptoms - Red fluid in veins which evaporates on contact with clothing Cure - Psychiatric calming is the only way to deal with this problem Gastric Ejections ----------------- Cause - Spicy Mexican or Indian food Symptoms - Half-digested food is emitted from the patient in random clusters Cure - Drinking a special binding solution prevents anything being ejected The Squits ---------- Cause - Eating pizza found under the cooker Symptoms - Ugh. Surely you can guess Cure - A glutinous mix of stringy pharmaceutical chemicals solidify the patients innards Iron Lungs ---------- Cause - Inner-city smog mixed with kebab remains Symptoms - Ability to breathe fire and shout loudly underwater Cure - Two Surgeons operate to remove the cast solid lungs in the Theatre Sweaty Palms ------------ Cause - Fear of job interviews Symptoms - Handshakes with patient are like grabbing a recently submerged sponge Cure - A Psychiatrist must talk the patient out of this made-up disease Heaped Piles ------------ Cause - Standing around by water coolers Symptoms - Patient feels like he/she is sitting on a bag of marbles Cure - A pleasant, yet powerfully acidic drink dissolves the piles from the inside Gut Rot ------- Cause - Mrs. O'Malley's Good Time Whisky Cough Mixture Symptoms - No cough but no stomach-wall lining either Cure - A Nurse can administer a selection of dissolved chemicals to coat the tum Golf Stones ----------- Cause - Exposure to poison gas inside golf-balls Symptoms - Delirium and advanced shame Cure -These must be removed by an operation requiring two Surgeons Unexpected Swelling ------------------- Cause - Anything unexpected Symptom - Swelling Cure - The swelling can only be reduced by lancing during an operation requiring two Surgeons As you can see, there are quite a few interesting diseases in Theme Hospital (over 30). There are four ways of curing a disease. The most common way is via the Pharmacy; that is, patients go see a Nurse who administers medicine, curing their ailment. The second way is by means of a Psychiatrist, who will talk with the patient in the Psychiatrist's Office, curing the patient. The third most common way is through a machine, a.k.a. a clinic. You get a lot of money by curing most of the machinery-curable diseases because it requires the use of expensive machinery; you also have to maintain the machinery, though. Be careful. The least common method of curing diseases is through an operation. Operations are performed in the Operating Theatre by two qualified Surgeons, and most of the diseases, once cured, fork over a pretty penny. 7 - When VIPs Come For Visits To Your Hospital VIP visits are very frequent. As most of you know, VIP stands for Very Irritating and Pompous, and if you get one bad word from any of them, your reputation goes down like a cement block in a lake. But this is very, very rare, and you much more likely than not get a cash award and if you're lucky, a reputation boost, from the VIP. Just make sure that your hospital is spick and span, the staff are all in good moods, no one dies, and none of the machines blow up. Also, try to cure as many patients as possible while the VIP is visiting. The VIP checks for all of these things, and also to see the technology of your equipment (Scanner, Ultrascan, high-tech pieces of machinery like that). This will almost guarantee you an excellent word from the VIP. I also like to block off sections of my hospital that are either not finished, have no radiators, or are hopelessly dirty. These tips should make VIP visits a lot easier. 8 - Cheats The cheats in Theme Hospital are called fax machine cheats. This is because you punch certain numbers in on the fax machine that comes up every once in a while, and you enable the cheat mode. HOW TO CHEAT: 1. Wait for a message to appear in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, as these are normally questions directed to you by your Doctors. The best way to do this is to build a single GP's Office and the place one Reception Desk, hire one Receptionist and one Doctor, open the hospital, and wait. 2. Wait for a little box with a question mark on it to pop up. Click on one if it does. 3. If you're lucky, a fax machine will be revealed. Using the mouse pointer, enter the following numbers to get the corresponding response: 24328: Enter cheat code mode. 7287: Enter a secret rat-shoot level after beating the current level. While in cheat mode, press the following button combinations to activate the corresponding responses: Shift + C: $10,000 (hold continuously for a lot more money) Shift + Control + C: All items *F11: Lose game *F12: Win game *Might not work with all versions. You can also cheat using a good hex-editing program, like HexEdit or Norton Disk Editor. Just start a brand-new game of Theme Hospital, save it to a file, and open that same file in the disk-editing program. Now change offsets 00061A95 - 00061A97 to FF FF FF, respectively. This will give you a TON of money to fool around with! 9 - Farewell It was truly fun writing this FAQ to share information of one of my favorite games with other people, and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. This took me approximately three hours to type (I type fast), and I had a lot of fun while typing it. If you have any questions, comments, updates, or complaints to or about this FAQ, let me know with an e-mail or two to Aristotle47@aol.com or TheRedBaron64@hotmail.com (preferably Aristotle47@aol.com). I usually check my mail two - four times each day and would be happy to read and reply to anyone who sends me one regarding any of my FAQs. You can also read my reviews for various games; they are under the alias Aristotle. Farewell, my good friends, and happy gaming.