Heart's Medicine: Season One
Platform: Windows
From the developers of Delicious Emily's Holiday Season comes another gem of a time management game every casual gamer needs to experience. Heart's Medicine: Season One takes place in a hospital where the newly-arrived Allison Heart is just beginning her residency. Help sick patients by tending to their needs, shuffling them through the hospital as efficiently as you can, never forgetting to take good care of each person. The storyline is fantastic, the presentation is superb, and both the variety and the game's pacing are perfect. Heart's Medicine is simply one of the most well-balanced and entertaining time management games you can find!
Most casual games start off by showing you the developer's logo, then dropping you into a title screen. Just like a good TV medical drama, Heart's Medicine begins in media res, pushing you into the game without a warning. Your first task is to follow a doctor's instructions to save a man's life. Click when the doc says click, find the items he needs, and you'll do just fine. This intro serves as the backstory, showing you how Allison was inspired to become a doctor.
Six years later, the real game begins. Initially, you've got four main stations to take care of, each operated by a simple click of the mouse. Patients come in and take a seat at the top of the screen. Most will need to change into super-comfortable hospital gowns first, so click them, then click the screens to let them change. Afterwards, seat them at the diagnostic chair or bed, depending on their preference, and tend to their complaints. Some patients will need a simple bandage or other treatment. Most, however, will need more care in the form of a short mini-game. The first you'll encounter has you moving a magnifying glass over part of their body looking for "sore spots". What's a sore spot, you ask? A piece of glass, a fish hook, or a bee stuck in their skin. You know, the usual.
After a patient is taken care of, send him or her to the computer to check out. Then it's back to tending the other patients, as the clinic never seems to slow down. Heart's Medicine takes place in several different departments, switching every five shifts, bringing an enormous variety to the game's two dozen levels, and letting you experience the pediatric ward, the lab, and the prenatal ward. Each features a different setup and different gameplay, most notably the new set of mini-games as you take care of each patient.
Analysis: Heart's Medicine: Season One is a bit like a playable medical drama. The characters are unique and interesting, making you want to learn more about them as opposed to clicking through dialogue as fast as you can. And that's just the warm caramel filling you find when you bite into the rich and varied gameplay that includes some puzzle solving and hidden object elements.
Just like its cousin Delicious Emily's Holiday Season, the art style in Heart's Medicine is amazing to watch in action. Characters are smoothly animated and drawn with soft, almost fuzzy lines that give them an inviting but somehow semi-realistic appearance. Everything in the game looks great, even the cuts and wounds you'll spy under your magnifying glass.
Best of all, Heart's Medicine takes care of breaking monotany before it begins (as if it would ever set in with a game this unique) with some very cool trophies and bonus objects you'll find in certain levels. And let's not forget our guinea pig friend that runs around and can be captured. So, if you think all you're going to be doing is picking bees out of patients' legs, think again.
Plenty to do, plenty to experience, and an expertly-crafted gameplay/presentation package you'll fall in love with, Heart's Medicine: Season One is an excellent start to what will be a must-play time management series.
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.
When I'm not playing escape/point and click games, I am playing time management games. They are ridiculously repetitive but I get some sort of no-brainer satisfaction from them. My BF calls them "hot dog" games (because one of the games, I play a hot dog vendor).
With that said, my favorite TM game is the Delicious series. This series has grown from very simple task-oriented games to ones that have story lines, cute mini-games, and hidden easter-eggs.
Heart's Medicine has been anticipated by other TM-lovers for a few months. I bought it the minute it came out and played it in a couple of hours. Yes, you may say this is short, but I could've easily left it and come back. Addiction? Maybe.
This is an adorable game. It's probably more girl-centric but anyone who enjoys Dash or Delicious games, this one is a true winner. You have to be impressed with the cleverness of the programming. The graphics are wonderful. The storyline is cute. The mini-games (albeit frustrating at times) are well thought out.
The best part is (for TM-lovers) it reveals that a new Delicious game is coming early 2011.
So, thank you, Sebastiaan van Waardenberg--for designing a great game (with your team), for working on a new Delicious game, and for implying a Season 2.
I do like this game. It has enough tidbits to keep me from being bored, not to mention the additional replay value from it.
From what I've played so far, this game is really good. The only thing that's bugging me so far is all the GameHouse items I keep missing. -__- Maybe I just don't play enough games from them to recognize them in the game or something. Sometimes I can't find the gerbil/hamster either, but those two things are easily fixed with a walkthrough, so it's not really a complaint. I'm not even done with the game and I'm already looking forward to a Season Two. Is anyone else reminded of Miss Management while playing this?
@Kana
As far as I saw, the Guinea Pig appears at random places so there is no "walkthrough" possible.
@Kana
The guinea pig appears randomly, but if you play with the sound on, you'll hear him squeak so you can scan to look for him.
I really liked this. Looking forward to season 2!
i dont get day 5 in the FIRST part help me
Hey people.
Does someone know how to take the "Fill every station" trophy?
Thanks; this is the last one for me (and the "all trophies" trophy).
Beey.
"Fill every station" is achieved by having a patient in every chair, wardrobe or bed. They must be there all at one moment, so not after each other, timewise.
I believe you have to buy every extra set of chairs/beds of the room you're trying this trophy in.
Did anyone try this yet? Buy the "Louis the Guinea Pig" upgrade in the Lab and then click it 3 times when you're back in the game...
Does anyone know how to get the Romantic Trophy? I seemed to be short on that. I wonder why tho. Love the game. A bit short but very nice storyline
You get the Romantic trophy in the cutscene after you finish with the pediatric ward. If you have finished the entire game, but still don't have it, try replaying the last shift of the third department.
can anyone tell me where are the secret items in the first episode i can't find all of them
WOAH... in the "party" scene, did that grandpa give the big muscled doctor a... jockstrap?! And apparently one from his house?! o_o hoping I interpreted that wrong.
Woohoo! Just finished it and I absolutely loved the game! The characters, the art, the animation.. it was all perfect. Although I did wish we had to choose between the two doctors (but I guess that's going to happen in season two). Simply wonderful. And for those of you who want to know how to get the "Fill all stations" trophy: I won this in Plastic surgery shift 3. In this one the girl is already occupying one bed so that's taken care of already. For the first few patients who come in for the bed or the chair attend to them and send them to checkout. For patients who ask for the mirror, send them to the mirror and keep them there (in the 3 times I replayed this level, only 2 mirror patients come in each time!) So the first 4 patients will stand in the checkout line. Then try to move patients into the chairs by attending to bed patients and if your waiting seats are filling up, get a patient to stand at the magazine rack. That's it! That should get you the trophy.
I can't get the "Fill all stations" trophy, and I tried everything, including the advices given here. Is it possible that it is a glitch or sth?
I've completed the entire game, and have all the trophies except that one and the "all trophies" one... The game is awesome, but I just hate it when that happens...
I can't get the "five dimission" trophy, there's only space for 4 people to the computer -___-'' please help me!!!
You can send another person to the line while you're checking peoplle out, so you can get the continued bonus for the last person.
how can't I get the appreciation trophy (which is watch the entire credits), I just miss this trophy
Sending another person to the line is not working for me, it still doesn't count it as a 5 combo. I guess the person isn't walking fast enough or something but that method doesn't get me the trophy.
For the fill all stations trophy, if you have a water cooler or a coffee machine, that counts as a station also.
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