Saturday, April 10, 2021

Back to the Future in the "A Stitch in Time" DLC

I'm a big Two Point Hospital fan so you can guarantee that when/if a new DLC drops that I will be snatching it up.  The most recent addition is the time travel themed "A Stitch in Time."  Three new hospitals challenge you to travel through time to cure a variety of diseases while coping with the general weirdness of traversing the space-time continuum.


Pros:

+ Three new hospitals to manage with each having its own distinct time period and set of illnesses.  The first map is medieval themed with patients strolling through in a variety of hose and silly medieval outfits.  The next map takes you way, way back to prehistoric times and all patients are cavepeople with appropriate prehistoric diseases.  The last map thrusts you into the future and has its own unique twist--you have to build a new room with a special machine to send patients back to their appropriate time period.

+ Time portal mechanic is interesting.  Patients don't arrive by conventional means and instead pop into the level through portals in the floor.  One of the new damage/disaster sequences is a "time storm" where a whole bunch of patients will come popping out of the portal, the ground shakes and lighting strikes throughout the hospital causing damage.  This presents a dual challenge of an influx of patients and the need for your janitorial staff to repair and clean.  Eventually you can unlock and place more time portals.

+ New items to make your hospital appropriately themed for the time period.  A variety of medieval, prehistoric, and futuristic items can be purchased with kudosh and added to the decor of your hospital.

+/- No new treatment rooms (other than the Yesterizer which sends patients to the appropriate time period--which is staffed by an assistant).  This might be a downer for anyone who was hoping to build another treatment room and do the requisite research to upgrade said machine.  I am actually glad that they didn't add in any new treatment rooms because scrolling through the huge list from all the DLC's has gotten a bit crazy.

+ New diseases.  My favorite is reptile dysfunction, but there are plenty of others with goofy descriptions.  Most of the diseases are basically a time themed re-skin of the core diseases--for example, rather than jest infection, patients now have jester infection and are dressed like medieval jesters.  It's a clever way to reuse treatment rooms.   

Cons:

- I wish they had come up with something a bit more unique using the time portal mechanic.  There's only one map that requires you to build more portals.  The number of portals you have seems to influence the number of patients that will appear and, of course, during time storms you'll face even more of a challenge as patients pop out of every portal.

- An abundance of psychiatric illnesses.  My poor psychiatrists were completely bogged down on almost every map.  You will probably want to build multiple psychiatry offices on each map.

Recommendation:

If you're a Two Point fan, you'll undoubtedly want to grab this DLC.  If you're hoping for something drastically different or new mechanics/new treatment rooms...you might be disappointed.  I wish they had done a bit more with the time portals, but I'm mostly content to while away some time trying to manage my silly hospitals.

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