SimHealth.

Checked the wishlist and this was nowhere on it unlike other games I thought of requesting.

StickShift wrote:Checked the wishlist and this was nowhere on it unlike other games I thought of requesting.

Hello,

We'll add this game onto the 'wishlist', shortly.

Thank you! I wanna experiment with single payer healthcare (like Bernie Sanders keeps proposing) in game.

StickShift wrote:Thank you! I wanna experiment with single payer healthcare (like Bernie Sanders keeps proposing) in game.

Sure. 

Is that game similar to that other one...I think it was called "Theme Hospital"?

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

StickShift wrote:Thank you! I wanna experiment with single payer healthcare (like Bernie Sanders keeps proposing) in game.

Sure. 

Is that game similar to that other one...I think it was called "Theme Hospital"?

Not really. SimHealth was not developed as a game. It was developed as a teaching aid by Maxis and the Merkel Foundation during the early 90's healthcare debate. The 'game' was initially distributed to both game reviewers and lawmakers involved in the healthcare debate, before it was released to the Public. Theme hospital focuses on a single hospital and has fun diseases to cure. SimHealth has none of that. It's about healthcare policy and how it affects everything. The fact that it's STILL relevant to healthcare debates now in 2017 shows how well-made it was. It just wasn't very entertaining.

StickShift wrote:Not really. SimHealth was not developed as a game. It was developed as a teaching aid by Maxis and the Merkel Foundation during the early 90's healthcare debate. The 'game' was initially distributed to both game reviewers and lawmakers involved in the healthcare debate, before it was released to the Public. Theme hospital focuses on a single hospital and has fun diseases to cure. SimHealth has none of that. It's about healthcare policy and how it affects everything. The fact that it's STILL relevant to healthcare debates now in 2017 shows how well-made it was. It just wasn't very entertaining.

Yes, I just looked it up. It's from 1994.    Can't say I am familiar with the details of the situation in America (I live in Europe), but I assume that issues from back then are still relevant today. Diabetes, smoking, drinking, an increasingly aging population, etc.

Back to the issue, a release of that would be interesting, even if by today's "gaming standards" it feels a bit dull. Let's see...

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

StickShift wrote:Not really. SimHealth was not developed as a game. It was developed as a teaching aid by Maxis and the Merkel Foundation during the early 90's healthcare debate. The 'game' was initially distributed to both game reviewers and lawmakers involved in the healthcare debate, before it was released to the Public. Theme hospital focuses on a single hospital and has fun diseases to cure. SimHealth has none of that. It's about healthcare policy and how it affects everything. The fact that it's STILL relevant to healthcare debates now in 2017 shows how well-made it was. It just wasn't very entertaining.

Yes, I just looked it up. It's from 1994.    Can't say I am familiar with the details of the situation in America (I live in Europe), but I assume that issues from back then are still relevant today. Diabetes, smoking, drinking, an increasingly aging population, etc.

Back to the issue, a release of that would be interesting, even if by today's "gaming standards" it feels a bit dull. Let's see...

It's interesting because there's a huge debate over healthcare at the moment. America currently has the "Affordable Care Act" (also known as "Obamacare") which forces you to buy private insurance with government help. Despite being pushed by Obama, the actual proposal is a product of Republican right-wing thinktanks. Republicans want to repeal the ACA, despite the fact it's THEIR idea, just because Obama's name is on it. Meanwhile, expanding Medicare (a single payer healthcare system in the US that only covers elderly retirees) to cover everyone has massive support. But the Republicans want to kill off Medicare entirely and the Democrats aren't helpful there either since it would mean an end to private insurance companies donating massive amounts of money to their campaigns. There's a wave of grassroots progressives (organizations like the Justice Democrats or Brand New Congress) aiming to take political office without corporate money to end the cycle of political corruption and institute medicare for all.

Sorry to get political, but it's relevant to the topic of the game.

StickShift wrote:It's interesting because there's a huge debate over healthcare at the moment. America currently has the "Affordable Care Act" (also known as "Obamacare") which forces you to buy private insurance with government help. Despite being pushed by Obama, the actual proposal is a product of Republican right-wing thinktanks. Republicans want to repeal the ACA, despite the fact it's THEIR idea, just because Obama's name is on it. Meanwhile, expanding Medicare (a single payer healthcare system in the US that only covers elderly retirees) to cover everyone has massive support. But the Republicans want to kill off Medicare entirely and the Democrats aren't helpful there either since it would mean an end to private insurance companies donating massive amounts of money to their campaigns. There's a wave of grassroots progressives (organizations like the Justice Democrats or Brand New Congress) aiming to take political office without corporate money to end the cycle of political corruption and institute medicare for all.

Sorry to get political, but it's relevant to the topic of the game.

Quite interesting...and in the meantime I managed to get hold of a copy of "Simhealth" (that also runs under Windows 10, with the help of dosbox). I played a little, but I have to get used to the controls for the moment. We'll see what we can do with this thing.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

StickShift wrote:It's interesting because there's a huge debate over healthcare at the moment. America currently has the "Affordable Care Act" (also known as "Obamacare") which forces you to buy private insurance with government help. Despite being pushed by Obama, the actual proposal is a product of Republican right-wing thinktanks. Republicans want to repeal the ACA, despite the fact it's THEIR idea, just because Obama's name is on it. Meanwhile, expanding Medicare (a single payer healthcare system in the US that only covers elderly retirees) to cover everyone has massive support. But the Republicans want to kill off Medicare entirely and the Democrats aren't helpful there either since it would mean an end to private insurance companies donating massive amounts of money to their campaigns. There's a wave of grassroots progressives (organizations like the Justice Democrats or Brand New Congress) aiming to take political office without corporate money to end the cycle of political corruption and institute medicare for all.

Sorry to get political, but it's relevant to the topic of the game.

Quite interesting...and in the meantime I managed to get hold of a copy of "Simhealth" (that also runs under Windows 10, with the help of dosbox). I played a little, but I have to get used to the controls for the moment. We'll see what we can do with this thing.

Good luck with it!

StickShift wrote:Good luck with it!

Hello again,

I'll shortly be creating a .rar file for evaluation of "SimHealth". Would you have the time/be interested in helping playtest (parts of) this simulation? My impression thus far is - the dated graphics and sound effects aside - that it offers several layers of complexity...interesting simulation indeed. But whether it'll eventually make its way to the G4TW download-list remains to be seen.

Since private messaging on the board has been temporarily disabled, please use the green e-mail button under my profile to get in touch with me, in case you are interested in helping us playtest this.