Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Medical Games

Episode Date: October 20, 2016

Dr. Sydnee hands the wheel over to Justin this week as he returns to his medical media series with a history of medical video games. Learn how meteors gave all dinosaurs asthma and so much more! Musi...c: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones, a Meryl Tour of Misguided Medicine. I am your co-host Justin McAroy.
Starting point is 00:01:09 And I'm Sydney McAroy. Hey Sid, remember how you had to move when you were weeks of hospital service because I was filming my TV show? Yeah. Well, I remember how that meant that you had to have to back to back hospital service weeks. Yeah, I remember that well. In fact, I am currently in the midst of the second week, so not only do I remember it, I'm living it. Well, it is exhausting. Well, I have good news because of that, I have done you a beautiful gift and I'm going, I have prepared solbona this week.
Starting point is 00:01:45 and I'm going, I have prepared sobbing this week. So wait, by gift, you mean you've done for me what I've been doing for you for how many episodes? Roughly 150, four or something, something like that. But this is a special. I appreciate it, thank you, honey. It's all gonna be all medical. I know research is not necessarily your forte. Norris medicine, but I have.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Definitely not medicine. I mean super not medicine. Like so not medicine. Yeah. It can be seen from space. We got it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we got it.
Starting point is 00:02:19 Is your forte. We got it. Okay, good, yeah, gotcha. Okay, perfect. I make that clear. Yeah, but the good news is I found, I'm striking a perfect balance. Uh huh. I, gotcha. Okay. I make that clear. Yeah, but the good news is I found I'm striking a perfect balance Uh-huh. I'm here to talk about
Starting point is 00:02:49 D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d Fair enough, fair enough. And we will get to those. But I thought that, you know, this is one area where our interests sort of align and I thought that it would be worth talking about some of the medical themed video games that have come out because I think we've done medical themed TV shows and those are great and I'll pretty much wildly inaccurate in a fun way. Yes. But I wanted to run by you some medical video games, and I was hoping for some of them, you could just kind of give me a read on not all of them, but like if they sound like there's some things I'm suspicious of as to whether they're part
Starting point is 00:03:17 of medical care, regular medical care. And so I can tell you the medical parts that are wrong, and you can tell me the parts that aren't really video game. So all yeah, they're all video games. Oh, so it's not one of those like two truths in a lie. No, that would be good though. The first and this is actually kind of a stretch, but the first comes to us from and these are all going to be fairly brief because we have more than I would have guessed to get through. And this is not going to be completely comprehensive, but it's pretty darn close. There's probably a couple that I've been...
Starting point is 00:03:48 Your research, the times you've done research I will say is very exhaustive. Yes, very exhaustive. I feel like there's going to be one statement, there's going to be one podcast ever about medical video games. And I want it to be like a good reference material. So the first one, I want to talk about 1983 way back, way, way back. The year that brought you me. The year that brought us Sydney, Macroi.
Starting point is 00:04:16 So the best year, basically the best year. The Smurls might have killed a little time waiting for said by playing plaque attack. This was a Atari game, maybe an Activision, where you played as a toothpaste tube. Now this is a bit of a stretch, and this is technically medicine, this is dental medicine, but you played as a toothpaste tube.
Starting point is 00:04:35 You play as the tube of not the brush. No, you're a tube of toothpaste, shooting toothpaste at hamburgers and more junk food. And here's the best part of this game. You're trying to defend teeth. They're like actual teeth here defending. If you score over 35,000 points, activation would send you a patch,
Starting point is 00:04:54 identifying you as part of the no plaque pack to commemorate your achievement if you send them like a photo of your score. Right, and then you could wear that to school and definitely not get bullied. Definitely get kicked in the butt several times by everybody. I have a problem with the idea that hamburgers
Starting point is 00:05:11 are the junk food that you thought were bad for your teeth. It's not, listen, graphics weren't great by then. You have to be careful about what food you represent. It's like, what does flour grow? I look like, it's gonna be hard. You think that's the bad food for your teeth? No, I know like sugar and stuff. I guess the candy is not that hard.
Starting point is 00:05:26 Yeah, why don't they just have little pieces of candy? They might have had pieces of candy. 1998, sorry, life and death on the PC. Now this is interesting because it is actually, you can make an argument looking at all the like medical games that will come out. This actually seems like it's the one that seems
Starting point is 00:05:48 the closest to reality, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. The first thing you say is you play as a domino surgeon. So, and that's just my bad grammar, Sydney G. No, I mean, like an abdominal surgeon. Yeah, that only does it, abdomens. Uh-huh. Okay, so that's not a thing. Okay, I an abdominal surgeon. Yeah, that only does it abdomens. Okay, so that's not I think. Okay, I could have guessed.
Starting point is 00:06:07 I think a general surgeon usually covers the abdomen. Well, you have to, like, there's, it's a surgical game, but like, you have to visit the patient, you have to poke and prod them to figure out what the diagnosis is, and then you actually have to go in with tools and like you scrub in, you have to anesthetize,
Starting point is 00:06:29 you have to put an aseptic on the actual area, you have to cut through different layers and tie off blood vessels and stuff. And this is an extremely hard game. There are also like lectures that you sit through and you just read lectures. Uh, was there any history on this game? Was it maybe supposed to be some sort of like, you know, we have this technology.
Starting point is 00:06:53 Now we have like PC games and maybe we could use them for. I mean, the idea of like using a game for educational purposes is not unique. You we use it to teach kids like letters and numbers. So do you think somebody was like, well, I'll use it to teach kids like letters and numbers. So do you think somebody was like well I'll use it to teach doctors how to doctor? No, because that sounds like a boring video game. I have set through medical school lectures. I Some of them are I don't know. I find them exciting sometimes. This is still this is a that's not your thing. I have trouble seeing how that's a game.
Starting point is 00:07:26 This is still a very well regarded title because it was it's it was in its time it struggled because it was not very fun, but critics continue to sound a lot of the fact that it it was so realistic. In 1990 there was a sequel called Life and Death to the Brain, and that one year of Brain Tergent, which I know is real, so don't tell me that's not real. No, that is a real thing. I actually would kinda like to play that, except like I said, I already lived through medical school.
Starting point is 00:07:55 I don't know that I wanna redo it. Brush up on your abdomen, because it's time to step into those shoes. I wanna step out of chronology because the next few are after this one are kind of a clump, but so it was going to be a little bit to 1994. With the release of SIM health, it's a simulation of the US healthcare system created by Maxis of SIM City fame. And this was right around the time when the Clinton health plan was starting to be a really hot national topic. And the people of Max's decided to create a game to represent
Starting point is 00:08:37 the American health care system. The quote from Entertainment Weekly, which gave the game a C- said, for a vivid demonstration of just how complex and boring the healthcare crisis is, try spending a few hours with SimHealth. It was not a well regarded title, but. I can imagine, but that actually sounds like a really important game. Yeah, I mean, it's very important,
Starting point is 00:09:01 but the, like, to look at this game in action is absolutely dizzying. You would be shocked at how many of the images of this game are literally just you, the player, looking at a stack of different books here. I'm showing you sitting one screenshot where it's just like 20 different books about insurance funding and cost control and benefits for you to reference. Some, you know, for someone to understand all of that that is, you know, within this game, for someone to understand all of that well enough to have been proposing a whole new healthcare plan back in 94 or perhaps currently, they must be an incredibly intelligent person, as all I could say.
Starting point is 00:09:46 Yeah. Incredibly intelligent and capable, is all I could say. That's all you need to say. I would actually really enjoy this game, I think. Yeah, I think you probably would. I think it would do everyone. It's a game for everyone. Except it's a game for their lingers.
Starting point is 00:09:57 I think everybody would really benefit from playing this game. If you like to gamify things, this is one of the most important things you could learn is how the US healthcare system works, and then you could figure out what you think the problems are and what you think we could do better and then vote for those things. That's what I think. We have now approved. Okay.
Starting point is 00:10:15 We have now made our way to my favorite chunk of the medical video games, and it is the Rhea Educational Series. There were four games in the Rhea Educational Series. They are all amazing. But we're just gonna go chronologically. The first one is, don't read ahead. Look at me, don't read ahead. Captain Novelin features an epitoponymous,
Starting point is 00:10:42 there's the word, hero hero who has type one diabetes. It was sponsored by novo nor disk, which makes novo. And the insulin, the insulin, right. This is a, I played this. It is a 2D side scroller where Captain Novo and has to fight aliens and rescue the mayor of Pineville, who is also diabetic, kind of like, I guess he's only called in on diabetic cases. He has to avoid aliens that look like junk food,
Starting point is 00:11:10 but then he finds healthy foods to keep his blood sugar in line. And if it gets too out of whack, he dies. What? He dies? He dies. That's what happens to him. I mean, you have three lives, but still. How old is this character? I mean, you have three lives, but still. How old is this character?
Starting point is 00:11:26 I mean, he's an adult man. Okay. He's an adult man. It's a male superhero. Well, he has type one diabetes, so I didn't know if it was like an inspirational game for his type one diabetes is typically not always, but typically diagnosed in childhood. So, Well, I guess he's just been living with him.
Starting point is 00:11:40 He's been doing a great job. And he does such a great job. They made him cap to no one. And he literally, this is amazing actually. He literally has to check his blood sugar at the beginning of each stage and then give himself a shot of insulin. Like you literally with the control pad
Starting point is 00:11:56 have to check your reading against the container and then give yourself an appropriate amount of insulin. You can actually ask their doctor for a, like you can customize it to the amount of insulin that you actually take. I think this is a really cool idea. It's a very cool idea. It's baffling that it is an actual game
Starting point is 00:12:17 because out of context, it is a wild experience. I think that's, no, I think that's a bad video game. This is what I can't emphasize enough. The junk food is very hard to avoid. And you basically, they're just like, you need peanut butter and toast and cereal in this level. And they're just like toast on the ground. And Captain Novelin's like, oh, perfect.
Starting point is 00:12:38 This is good. Well, I have a little bit of a problem with a kid playing a game. If, especially if the kid also has type 1 diabetes and then the character dies period. That's a little harsh. Yeah, that's a little much. But let me say that with type 1 diabetes, and especially if it's diagnosed very young, getting a child to start to kind of take ownership over that so that eventually they will be
Starting point is 00:13:01 the one, because initially parents are the ones managing blood sugar. getting children to take ownership of that as they get older so that they learn how to manage their own disease, it can be very difficult. And something like this that wouldn't not only encourage a kid, but reward them for understanding and managing their own diabetes, that would be, that's, I think that's cool. The The follow up to Captain Novelin was Rex Ronan experimental surgeon. This sounds less educational. This is awesome. It's about a guy named Jake Westbroh
Starting point is 00:13:33 who has a job with the Blackburn tobacco company. He's been smoking since he was 15 and because of that, Jake is dying. His only hope is Rex Ronan, a surgeon that shrinks himself down to near microscopic size to travel inside Jake's body and remove the tar, nicotine, pre-cancer cells and other health hazards that are preventing Jake from getting better. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why isn't he going to get better? Well, there are also micro robots in Jake's body that he is, that was sent to kill him by the tobacco company.
Starting point is 00:14:11 And they want to kill him because they think that if, if Jake gets better, he will tell the world how dangerous smoking is. Now I know this makes a question. If, I mean, if he died, that would probably send a fairly powerful message about dangerous smoking too. But no, Jake's gonna blow the lid off
Starting point is 00:14:34 of this whole dangers of smoking thing. Is he the only one who knows? He's the only one who knows. He's the only one who knows. I don't, it is baffling. This is 1994, okay. We knew smoking was bad at point. Yeah, we, everyone was very aware.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Well, and it sounds like either they were trying to make an educational game, so they said, well, we'll, he'll go in and zap, like you said, like pre-cancerous cells and nicotine and all that stuff. And then they said, and also micro robots, there'll be micro bots. Micro, well, they sin, they're not gonna attack it. Like Tara isn't gonna attack him.
Starting point is 00:15:08 You gotta have any attack and this he's trying to kill himself. Why can't Tara attack you? Why would Tara attack you? Because it's bad. I don't know, it's a video game. I don't know if it's a time video games. Make the tar evil. Why can't the tar be evil?
Starting point is 00:15:20 I mean that would be, maybe you should design the video games to me. If the junk food can attack you in the plot game and in the diabetes game? Why can't Tara attack you? The war for your lungs is not over because in 1995 we met Bronchia, the Bronchia Soros. So here's the plot of this game
Starting point is 00:15:36 because they just keep getting more and more buck wild as the Rea Educational Series continues to go off the rails. Meteor Strike, a dinosaur town, and they raise so much dust that all the dinosaurs got asthma. This is not, I'm not making this up. All the dinosaurs got asthma. That's not how asthma works. They keep going.
Starting point is 00:15:55 They build a machine to try to get rid of all the dust, but then it was destroyed by a bad guy. So now, bronchi and fellow dinosauraykey, are collecting pieces of a machine that will clear away the air, but they're vulnerable to shortness of breath from tar, cigarette, smoke, furry animals, et cetera. And Bronkey frequently has to manage his asthma. Similar to Captain Novo and...
Starting point is 00:16:21 That's a really scary... Pit stops. That's a really scary message, though That's a really scary message though, because what it sounds like is if you go in a dusty enough room, you're gonna develop lung problems. That's how it works. No, you don't get asthma from being in a dusty room. Listen, they made video games.
Starting point is 00:16:38 The word doctor is okay. They didn't ask any. Next up, packing in Marlin. This is designed for kids with juvenile diabetes, but accent on the juvenile. I know type one diabetes is also a juvenile diabetes. Yes, yes. This is for kids. Packing in Marlin are at a summer camp.
Starting point is 00:16:57 This you could tell, you could feel Ray starting to give up. They're at a summer camp where rats have stolen all the food and medical supplies. What kind of summer camp are they? What is this? What is this? Well, the kind of summer camp where two diabetic elephants are the only ones that can stop
Starting point is 00:17:12 the rats that stole the food and medical supplies all while you guessed it, managing their diabetes. What? Okay, why are they elephants? I thought elephants were scared of mice. They're scared of mice. They're more scared of diabetes, so they have to get their food and medical supplies back. More I can't, the kids get them back from the rats.
Starting point is 00:17:31 Why did they have to call an elephant? I'm pretty sure it's like an anthropomorphic thing. And I don't think there's both elephants and kids at this wild summer camp. Oh. So there are a bunch of elephants. Kids. Not, I mean, they're junior, two-in-a-lifense with diabetes at summer camp
Starting point is 00:17:49 where rats stole all the food. And two of them, or they do like other elephants from outside that come in. No, back in Marlon, they're like, you know what, I'm moving on. 1997. I still need to know more about the summer camp. Is this a post-apocalyptic summer camp?
Starting point is 00:18:03 Oh, I see. Like what is going on? I'll show you some videos afterwards. Is this a summer camp from the Hunger Games? Why are there rats everywhere stealing food? Paki and Marlon was in 1995, 1997 brings us theme hospital. Now this is actually one of the better regarded. There aren't a lot of well-regarded games, but. I can't imagine why.
Starting point is 00:18:22 Yeah, I know. Theme hospital was made by Bullfrog originally conceived by Peter Mullin you who has been involved with like Fable and you remember black and white? No, black and white, where you're a god and you had to put it in the Peter Mullin you. Okay, but he didn't actually develop theme hospital. Theme hospital was published by Electron Arts in 1997 and you would design and operate it privately on hospital and you're trying to cure patients. Now, I know what you're wondering. Why is it called theme hospital? Well, it's because it was a sequel to the game theme park. And I don't think they knew. I mean, I guess that's probably one
Starting point is 00:19:03 way of demonstrating that it's a sequel to Theme Park, but it is, they just called it Theme Hospital, which doesn't make any sense. It's a very, it's an odd game, but it's one that actually came to the PC and PlayStation a little bit later. But it's a very silly game. Like the sense of humor is one of the things that people remember about it a lot, which makes sense.
Starting point is 00:19:31 I think if you're making a medical game, you don't want it to get too bogged down. There's a lot of pop culture. And you don't want the main character to die if they don't do well. Yeah, and there's a lot of like pop culture references. There's references to Red Warfin, H.E.G.R.S. guy to the galaxy and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:19:50 So classic nerd references from the 90s. Well, I mean, that sounds kind of neat. I don't know that like being the business manager of a hospital sounds fun to me. Well, I'm a doctor, so of course it doesn't. Luckily for you, there was life signs in 2005, life signs surgical unit, which was the localized version of a Japanese game called Resinant Doctor Tendo to the scales of life. The first resident doctor, Tendo, was never released here in America.
Starting point is 00:20:25 It's a surgery game on the DS. You actually, the interesting thing about it, and really the only reason this is notable, it was just as focused on the relationships between the doctors as the other ones as surgery. Sorry. But the interesting thing about this is that there's an eight-year gap. Theme Hospital comes out in 97. It's eight years before there's none. They're medically theme game. And what you see is the advent of the DS and the Wii, which all of a sudden makes medical games, specifically games that feature surgery make a lot more sense.
Starting point is 00:21:00 Because of the stylus. Yeah, so this becomes the new era of medical games and they make a big comeback. That makes sense to me that if you were going to focus on one area of medicine that would make a good game, it would probably be surgery because there is a hands-on component to it. Well, Justin, I want to hear more. You see where I slow on the up to you. This is a hard gig isn't it? Get into the building department. It's not, it's not, you gotta be ready for it. Well, I have to do is say, well, Justin,
Starting point is 00:21:32 tell me what comes next in the evolution of medical video games. That's not, I mean, I usually make them sound more natural. I just read ahead and make it sound more natural. Okay, let's go to the building department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, that ask you lift my car before the mouth. All right, Justin.
Starting point is 00:21:52 So what came next in the, I'm assuming more surgery games? More surgery games. That is the name of the biz. And we have arrived now in 2005 with the most prolific and celebrated medical franchise in history, I would say. I think it's fair. It's, you know, that's not a hugely impressive achievement, but...
Starting point is 00:22:15 I'll take your word for it. I certainly don't have any opinion to the contrary. Well, you'll have an opinion on this one because it's trauma center. I played this one. You have played this one. The first one of these was under the knife and it went so well that they started pounding them out every year. Now, the things you have to do about trauma center, and it'll back me up on this evening.
Starting point is 00:22:36 First off, it's a highly stylized take on surgery. There's a lot of generic sort of like antibiotic gel and make you better cream. Yes. And there's also a lot of, I think the same thing you find in a lot of medical TV shows, there's a lot of drama around everything. Oh, yeah, it's not very dramatic. Yes, a lot of backstory about the relationships between various people and other personal drama that's going on,
Starting point is 00:23:06 as well as intense music. Kind of the thing you see, I never understood why that's part of a medical TV show, but it's part of this too. There was one where somebody had a bomb inside them and you defused them. Which is exactly a plot from Grey's Anatomy as well. Yeah, who was there first?
Starting point is 00:23:23 It's hard for me to say. But I think the biggest creative license is that you had something called the Healing Touch, which with the Wii pointer or the DS stylus, you would draw a star on the screen and it would like make the patient much better. Yeah, you could do that and like raise their vital signs because there was like this generic like vital signs thing Which just went down when you weren't doing very well Like all vital signs are just down. Yeah, they're just worse They're all just going down. They're just bad and then you could make them go up with there was
Starting point is 00:23:58 I think there was like a syringe of liquid just better and you just shoot the better liquid in them It makes everything. All the vitals go up. But these are the popular Atlas start pushing them out annually. You had under the knife second opinion, new blood under the knife too. And lastly, trauma team. Now, those are all surgery games. Not huge differences, I would say. Maybe some new tools here and there, and I think the visuals got a little bit better. But the biggest change, I think, was the last one in this series, 2010 Trauma Team.
Starting point is 00:24:34 And I don't know if you remember this one, Sid. But in addition to surgery, it had some other specialties in there. They had first responders, they had orthopedics, they had endoscopy, and then they had diagnosis and forensics. Now, the diagnosis and forensics was great because it was basically like a house. It was a house like character. Yeah. And you just diagnosed weird ailments.
Starting point is 00:24:55 Yeah. That was fun. That was great. And that was a, that I'm assuming was inspired by the popularity of house at the time, because that was- Because I think the character was like a surly, was it any kind of a grumpy surly? He was like, you know what it was?
Starting point is 00:25:16 Almost like a surl, more of a prodigy kind of like super genius, if memory. It's a little test date too. A little test, yeah. I mean, you're a little test date, too. A little test, yeah. I mean, you're a little test state. But there were a couple of other specialties in there that I wanted to just run past you to see if like, this is how it works in the medical field.
Starting point is 00:25:34 Orthopedics. That's a specialty. Yeah, okay. Is that the question? Because yes, there were the pedic surgery. It had a, it featured a laser to carve artificial bone fragments. Like, is that real? No, I mean, I have cut through bone
Starting point is 00:25:51 in an operating room before and I use a saw. We have like electric saws and then we have like this thin wire that is strung between two handles and you kind of like loop it under the bone and then pull back and forth if you can imagine that Yeah, just on it. This was like that, but it was like It was a laser and you use it to kill stigma and burn off polyps No, I mean polyps are removed like they're cut out, but they're
Starting point is 00:26:23 And oh also player switch off with each completed step in the operation if a mistake is made so If you make a mistake in co-op mode with doctor do you switch? My turn my turn That's that's how it works. That's how it works. Okay, and Doscopy um, and in Doscopy there was a spray that uncovered camouflage ulcers. Do you have that? No. I don't even know how to parse that.
Starting point is 00:26:53 No, you just look. In Doscopy is like when we take a camera and look, would they be camouflaged by? Now when you use the endoscopy thing, do you have to be really careful about bumping in the walls of the patient's internal organs so they don't die? I mean, you don't want to push it through the wall of their internal organs. But it's not like a... No, but it's gonna touch things. Like, it's gonna touch things.
Starting point is 00:27:22 So sadly... No, that's fine. Just don't push it through the wall and you're cool. Sadly, there have been no more trauma team games or trauma center games, I guess you could call them. Since 2010, the series has been, I'm ready for another one though. I think we're, or I would play that game.
Starting point is 00:27:37 I enjoy this game. Connect. So like that, VR, oh yes please. 2007, it's possible. That might be too real for some people. Yeah, I mean, yeah, VM might get in there. To not me, but's possible. That might be too real for some people. Yeah. Yeah. VM might get in there. Not me, but you know.
Starting point is 00:27:47 Hospital Tycoon, you managed a hospital, not like theme hospital. The player needed to manage the staff. You insure patients are cared for. They have the correct treatment facilities. There's new equipment that you buy. This game was critically paned pretty badly. And it was notable mainly because the company that released it, Code Masters, acknowledged that there was a lot of glitches and bugs in it.
Starting point is 00:28:12 And then they acknowledged that they would not be fixing them because it wasn't popular enough. I have a problem with the title of this. Okay. Hospital Tycoon. Yes. If you were going into the healthcare field, I mean, any branch, healthcare management included,
Starting point is 00:28:25 because you want to be a hospital tycoon? Well, I find that personally offensive. I know what you're saying, but tycoon is like a, it's like a subgenre of games like. Right, no, I understand, because there's like, there's like one for like, amusement parks, right? Well, there's like, they're actually literally called like, called like there's like real-world tycoon and stuff like that
Starting point is 00:28:49 Like other there's all kinds of tycoon. I know, but I don't find it. I find that like Can we leave health care out of the tycoon business please? Could you be a tycoon at something else and then be a helper? at medicine So you want the game to be called hospital helper? Yes helper at medicine. So you want the game to be called hospital helper? Yes. Fair enough. I don't know. I don't make the titles.
Starting point is 00:29:10 I'm just saying I'm offended by hospital tag game. 2009 was perhaps the weirdest, one of these games, it was Gray's Anatomy, came out on WeInPC. As in the TV show? Yes, this is based on the TV show. It's baffling. Like, maybe even weirder than the Raya Educational Series,
Starting point is 00:29:31 you make story decisions in the game. Like, Derek wants to just be alone, but you want him to come over and handle you. So you have to make a story decision whether or not you're gonna like flirt or whether or not you're gonna give them the cold shoulder. But to do this, to make these decisions, you have to play a mini-game where you put together a three-piece puzzle to like that is the picture of Meredith doing the thing that it like being flirtatious or
Starting point is 00:29:56 giving him the culture. It's literally a three-piece puzzle that you assemble to make this choice. This sounds as convoluted as the storyline of Grey's Anatomy was at times. There is also surgery in the game as well, but it is nowhere near as robust as some of the others. Well, that's what I mean, that's the important thing to know about the life as a doctor is that I mean, every once in a while we're healing patients, but most of the time we're really just obsessing about our own inner turmoil and looking really great in scrubs and also making out in broom closets and also having like parties where you dance and drink bottles of wine in
Starting point is 00:30:36 your beautiful homes that you afford on your medical resident salaries. That's medicine. This is an all original plot in this game. It's not based on any of the episodes. It's based on an outbreak of diptheria in the hospital. And there were some plot lines like Christina seeking a fellowship despite Derek's bad review and then catching diptheria. Literally what the Wikipedia page says.
Starting point is 00:31:03 Why did she catch diptheria? Was she not vaccinated? I mean, I don't know Cindy. I'm not a writer on the crazy anatomy game. But that is a haunting tale that we should remember. We won't catch dip theory and prevent us from our surgical fellowship. If we get vaccinated against dip theory. Real quicks. the last one I want to touch on is 2013. Surgeon simulator 2013. This was great. It's a parody of games like farming a simulator is what the title is is referring to or baseball simulator, whatever. I think there's even a cricket management simulator game,
Starting point is 00:31:44 but it was created during a 48 hour game jam, but then the developer, Bosses Studio, has spent an extra additional 48 days turning it into a retail product. You played this one a little bit. It is intentionally really difficult to control. Yes, yes. Each of the buttons on the controller
Starting point is 00:32:03 are on the keyboard map to a different digit. So each digit of the left hand has its own button that you have to use to grip tools and stuff. Yes, that was very difficult. It's actually a meta gag based on game called Dresset Part Tress Pass Air, which was notoriously difficult to control because it gave you control over the arms, but didn't do it especially well. But started to simulate it really funny. If you have been checked out,
Starting point is 00:32:27 it's one of the ones that's worthwhile. Lastly, Big Pharma, 2015 is a game where you manage a pharmaceutical company. It's a simulator rematch. Do they know when they named it that, that that's kind of like a negative, I think, yeah. When you say Big Pharma,
Starting point is 00:32:40 that's like a negative company. It's kind of ton of cheek, it seemed like to me. But anyway, those are all the the Medical games that I found I mean most of them there's a couple of skips because they Seemed very boring. There's a lot of these that are made like educationally like that that were never really widely commercially released but I feel like I've carved most of those That's gonna do for us in is that it yep, that's it That's going to do for us, then. Is that it?
Starting point is 00:33:04 Yep, that's it. Do you want to do the stuff that I normally do? Can you say thanks to the taxpayers for letting us use the song Medicines as the intern after a while? Hey, can I thank you first? Yeah, thank you. For leading me through all these medical video games? Which one of those, which one would you most want to play,
Starting point is 00:33:21 and which one do you most want to see YouTube video out of our town? I want to play the one about about my girl Hillary's healthcare system in 1994. Okay. Perfect. The one that looks incredibly boring. Can I just say that there should be a game about family
Starting point is 00:33:37 medicine? Where's my game? Where's my family medicine game? There needs to be like we see patients and you spend a lot of time talking and understanding them as individuals and then you make sure that they've gotten all of their appropriate vaccinations and their colonoscopies and their mammograms and their pap smears and their appropriate lab embroidery testing and you counsel them on diet and exercise and
Starting point is 00:33:58 wearing their seatbelt and safe sex. It sounds like second life to me, but we'll give it a whirl. No, that's my job. This is my first life. This is my real life that I just described. Things. Doesn't that sound fun? Well, you know, we're kind of in Alpha Stage on Famine Medicine simulator 2016, so we're going to keep working out some of the bugs, and we'll say if we can't get it through play testing, just get some of the rough edges out. I want to real life test it out when you can't come to work with me. Never mind. That's a hit of violation. Thank you to MaximumFun.org is the website for a podcast network called MaximumFun. Dot orgs on in their title. I tend to forget that. But if you go to MaximumFun.org, you can check out all of the other cool podcasts.
Starting point is 00:34:40 Yes. There's a ton of great shows there. Check out Minor corner if you need a new one to listen to. We hadn't had for them. I believe in the last episode, but if that wasn't the first way, you go give that a whirl. There's a ton of great shows. There's a ton of fun and activities for kids. That one's not true, but there are a lot of podcasts. And I believe that is going to do it for us folks. So until. Thank you to the taxpayers for a theme song medicines.
Starting point is 00:35:08 Good, that's exactly it. Yeah, you didn't say it. Okay. You kind of, you said at it. I fixed it for you. Thanks, you're welcome. Thank you. Until next week, my name is Joseph McRoy.
Starting point is 00:35:19 I'm Sydney MacRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. See it's harder than it looks, huh? I have a hard kid. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artistone Listener Supported
Starting point is 00:35:54 A tie is a pedantic person. I think when he pronounces these words, it's in a very show off-y way. Gyro E-ro Sacre-blue Sacre-blue In pronounciities words, it's in a very show offy way. Jiro. E-ro. Sakrablu. Sakrablu. Heirs rock. Oolah-ro.
Starting point is 00:36:10 And... And... What you are witnessing is real. The participants are not actors. They are actual litigants with real cases. They call in via Skype to Judge John Hodgman's Court, the real People's Court. Now I call you to Judge John Hodgman's Court, the real People's Court. Now I call you to Judge John Hodgman's Internet Court, find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you download podcasts.

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