Theme Hospital is a business simulation game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1997 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows compatible PCs in which players design and operate a privately owned hospital with the goal of curing patients of fictitious comical ailments.

[5] Starting with an empty hospital,[6] the player must build rooms and hire doctors, nurses, handymen and receptionists.

If the player fails, they are fined and must face a damaged reputation,[20] a statistic that shows how well the hospital is doing and affects the flow of patients.

[21] VIPs may also occasionally ask to tour the hospital; if impressed, the player is granted a cash bonus, a reputation increase, or both.

The player can pick up any staff member in the building and move them (mainly to reassign them to another room or send them to get rest), or dismiss them if they argue about pay or are no longer required.

When the goals have been met the player has the option to move on to a new, more elaborate hospital with tougher winning conditions and more diseases present, or stick with their current one.

[24] A patch was released that fixed bugs and added support for Serial Cable, Modem, and IPX/SPX network gaming (with up to four players[31]) in the Windows version, and a difficulty setting.

[38] During the initial stages of programming, Bullfrog hired James Leach, who wrote the game's text and came up with the diseases.

Bass modelled the vending machine that would use the Kit Kat graphics and used 3D Studio to render it into the game palette, which he then edited using Deluxe Paint.

[41] The game deviates from the NHS model; Webley and Carr decided that players should think of the hospital as a business, with profit highly important.

The team, who worked in offices near the Royal Surrey County Hospital, drew some inspirations from Theme Park and borrowed a great deal of code.

Webley explained that the way the team worked meant that only they could perform their assigned duties otherwise they would not get done, effectively giving members ownership of their parts of the game.

[36] Carr was also afraid that if they had produced a design document, Electronic Arts would have considered the omission of the other eras feature cutting.

[36] An idea that Molyneux pushed Webley's team to implement was a screen that enabled players to mix coloured chemicals to apply them to diseases.

The tester Jon Rennie simplified the game from the original design; Webley was keen for players to be able to begin play without a long tutorial.

Webley was invited to appear on a local radio station; he did not consider the game to make light of real-world health management because it featured fictional diseases rather than real ones.

[51] A Sega Saturn version (titled Sim Hospital as of October 1995) was in development and due for release in mid-1996, but was cancelled.

[54] It was distributed a second time through the "On the House" programme in September the same year, as a temporary replacement to Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 due to an excessive number of requests for the latter.

[56] An open-source remake, CorsixTH,[57] improves the original game with features such as modern OS support, higher screen resolutions and a level editor.

Critics noted the strong gameplay, detailed graphics, satisfying comedic tone, and voice acting performance, but fell conflicted on music, repetition, the artificial intelligence, and the user interface.

The British magazine PC Gamer's Steve Owen praised the game's challenge and "cute" graphics, but criticised the interface.

[64] Frederick Claude of Coming Soon Magazine also complimented the graphics as "highly detailed", and the "very simple" user interface, although he criticised the repetitiveness and lack of multiplayer support that would later be introduced with a patch.

[68] GameSpot's Trent Ward agreed about the graphics too, lauding them as "fantastic", and also complimented the "realistic" voice acting performance, and the humour, although he criticised the artificial intelligence as "flawed".

[69] Computer and Video Games's Alex Huhtala concurred about the graphics, describing them as "large and colourful", but commented that the humour wears off after a while, although he felt it is good to begin with.

[73] Next Generation's reviewer echoed others' views about the humour, describing it as something they had come to expect from Bullfrog, but criticised the lack of multiplayer support.

[78] Other comments from critics included Edge's reviewer's compliments of the balance of patients and illnesses against the player's resources, and his belief that the game is a refinement of its genre,[70] and PC Zone's reviewers commendation of the detail: it was remarked that it gets players "helplessly immersed", and the game was awarded the PC Zone Classic accolade.

GamePro explained, "Since the game was developed for mouse control, the directional pad's response is a bit jerky.

[66] GamePro found the dry humor was the game's shining quality, offering the player a consistent source of laughter through the steep challenges.

[72] Absolute PlayStation's reviewers had a mixed view about the graphics: they criticised the resolution and colour palette, but complimented the sprites.