8/10/2023 0 Comments Theme hospital game engine![]() ![]() I think our journey to get here was initially inspired by Prison Architect. RPS: But if someone came up and offered x million quid would you turn down the chance to do this with a huge team and tons of resources? That's what we want to get back to with Two Point, it wasn't so wrong back then, why can't that be done again? You all felt engaged and informed in the process. But we tended to be quite organic, everybody was involved, it wasn't like we had a massive design document. Back in the heyday of Bullfrog you had the Dungeon Keeper team, you had the Populous team, you had the Theme team, Magic Carpet. ![]() I think one of the secrets to bullfrog's success was empowering really smart people. As Bullfrog got bigger it just made more games, instead of putting everybody on one project at a time. I think the humour aspect is very important, it's always been there in the stuff we do at Bullfrog and Lionhead, and I think we wanted to get back to that.Ĭertainly making Theme Hospital was probably one of the most fun times that we had, so that's where it is.Ĭarr: And also not making it with a huge team. That's where Two Point studios got born - making these kinds of games that we used to make back in Bullfrog, these deep sims, but very accessible, don't take themselves too seriously. I left Lionhead back in 2013 and Gary came to me with the idea that him and Ben were kind of talking about doing this. But I went off and co-founded Lionhead, Gary went off to Mucky Foot and we kind of started working together at Lionhead.Ĭarr: even before that when you were on Black and White and I was on Startopia, we got rather drunk and giggly and started talking about 'we should do this again.' We really loved making those kinds of games. We could do Theme Prison and Theme Resort and a bunch of ideas that were kicking around. ![]() During that time, as we came to the end of making Theme Hospital, we were talking about the whole bunch of games we could do. Mark Webley: I started my gaming career at Bullfrog, worked on a number of the titles, and got a chance to work with Gary on Theme Hospital back in 95. He would be very clear about what he felt worked, and I thought 'yeah, this guy's quite inspirational' and said 'if I was stupid enough to leave, would you be stupid enough to jump with me?'īen Hymers, technical director: I've got ten years experience in the games industry, started at Rare, ended up at Lionhead, and there we got together to form our plans to escape and start something better. That's when we hired Ben and what excited me about him was he reminded me of people we used to work with at Bullfrog. Nothing wrong with Fable, I loved it, but it was all-consuming and I asked if I could have a small team to incubate new ideas. RPS: Did going solo happen because of the Lionhead closure, or did you jump ship before all that?Ĭarr: I had an incubation team, I just wanted to not work on Fable, I was done with it. Then I joined Lionhead, left them about two and half years ago to found Two Point Studios. I left Bullfrog and went to the Bitmap Brothers, rejoined Bullfrog, left Bullfrog and co-founded Mucky Foot Productions. ![]() Gary Carr, co-founder: I've been in the industry since 1985, worked at companies like Palace Software, and Bullfrog I was one of the earliest employees when there were only six of us. I chatted to Carr, Webley and Two Point technical director Ben Hymers (himself an ex-Lionheader) about why they're returning to Theme Hospital, why now, the importance of humour to it, what's the same and what's different, how the audience has changed since 1997, how they've been inspired by Prison Architect, Planet Coaster and Twin Peaks, and their plans for that world of sim games. The Sega-published Two Point Hospital is the first game from Two Point Studios, the new endeavour from Bullfrog and Lionhead alumni Gary Carr and Mark Webley, Their plan, ultimately, is to follow-up Hospital with a clutch of other theme/sim/management games set in the same world - picking up, perhaps, where the Peter Molyneux-founded Bullfrog left off when EA closed them down. As you may already have spotted, Theme Hospital joins the legions of 90s PC games being blessed with 21st century spiritual sequels. ![]()
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