Theme Hospital

The player is required to build an environment that will attract patients with comical diseases and then treat them while tending to their needs. The game has a somewhat dark sense of humour, similar to that of its predecessor, Theme Park. Diseases include Bloaty Head (which swells the patient's head), King Complex (which forces the patient to impersonate Elvis Presley), and Alien DNA (which transforms the patient into an alien).

Starting with an empty hospital, the player must build rooms and hire doctors, nurses, handymen and receptionists. Each staff member has statistics that affect their performance, and doctors can be trained so their statistics will increase. Rooms include GP's Offices, Psychiatric rooms, Operating Theatres and Pharmacies, and are built by placing down a blueprint, assigning the location of doors and windows, and then placing down required and optional pieces of furniture. The player may also set up items such as benches, fire extinguishers, and plants in the open corridor spaces provided.

Theme Hospital took over two years to develop. The idea came from Peter Molyneux and journalist James Leach, who explored the possibility of other Theme games while discussing Theme Park. Leach suggested a hospital, and Molyneux was enthusiastic about the idea. Development began when the designer Mark Webley selected Theme Hospital from a list of possible games put together by Molyneux, and Webley, along with the artist Gary Carr, visited the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Frimley Park Hospital for research and inspiration.

Carr was initially displeased at the prospect of working on Theme Hospital: he had previously left Bullfrog to work for The Bitmap Brothers because he did not have faith in Theme Park. He chose to return based on his belief that he would work on Dungeon Keeper, which he was eager to do. Initially, Theme Hospital was to feature real diseases, but these were replaced with fictional, comedic afflictions as it was decided that the game's maladies should not be too realistic: the team were faced with the dilemma of having to make the hospital fun and interesting, as Webley stated that theme parks are "colourful" compared to hospitals, and Carr believed that hospital rooms looked very similar and that it was hard to tell what each machine does.

Theme Hospital received positive reviews. Critics noted the strong gameplay, detailed graphics, satisfying comedic tone, and voice acting performance, but fell conflicted on music, repetition, the artificial intelligence, and the user interface.

The British magazine PC Gamer's Steve Owen praised the game's challenge and "cute" graphics, but criticised the interface. Frederick Claude of Coming Soon Magazine also complimented the graphics as "highly detailed", and the "very simple" user interface, although he criticised the repetitiveness and lack of multiplayer support that would later be introduced with a patch. GameSpot's Trent Ward agreed about the graphics too, lauding them as "fantastic", and also complimented the "realistic" voice acting performance, and the humour, although he criticised the artificial intelligence as "flawed". His conclusion was that the game "just doesn't fly".