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dammit
11-11-2010, 09:02 AM
With me moving out and having general chaos this christmas season, I just wanted a place to put down this particular idea that was not on a piece of paper that would go missing. Also, I'm more likely to work towards finishing this if I've already put it down here. I'm also wanting to actually finish my TF2 boardgame before I start this one (given that working with that game is only going to help me when designing this one), so don't expect much from this thread for a good few months.

The board itself will be an image of the human body (guts and veins visible) with a number of symptoms listed on the side (symptoms that wouldn't be explained by putting a marker on the body - for example: dizziness, vomiting). On the other side of the image will be a number of blocks with tests available (eg: Xray, MRI, Stress tests).

Playing with 2 or more players, one person plays as House. There are a number of decks in the game. I haven't quite worked out all the categories, but they'll be based on the type of illness, eg: Infection, genetic disoder, poison etc. The person playing House will secretly pick one, two or three cards from any of these decks (number of cards picked equals difficulty). The cards will have the illness, the symptoms, necessary treatment and tests on them. House will need to make a note of all of these secretly and then put those cards back in their rightful decks.

House will then choose a number of symptoms to reveal by placing markers on the board indicating where the problem is and possibly explaining the symptom (ie: numbness in the right foot).

They other players now each get a turn to draw a card from one of the decks. They'll have to decide if they think they're looking for a poisoning, genetic disorder or infection. Once each of them have a card they can decide to run a test or pick up a treatment card (separate deck with cards with medications and what they might treat). Running tests and trying treatments will give them clues. You're also meant to get clues from the cards you pick up with the illnesses on them. For example, you may pick up a card with Huntington's Disease on it (genetic disorder). Knowing that none of the symptoms fit that disease lets you rule it out. You may then also choose to rule out that particular treatment option and opt for a different test.

If you choose a test or treatment that isn't on House's secret list for this patient, then House has to draw a card from his Vicodin deck. This deck has a limited number of cards and when it runs out, the patient dies. If a test is correct (matches the tests on house's list) then House must reveal more symptoms (if he still has more to reveal). If a treatment is successful, then the symptoms that belong to the illness that is being treated must be removed from the board. In both cases, the game is not over because the patient still has to be diagnosed correctly. Game is won by whomever correctly diagnoses the patient.

I also want House to have another deck with situation cards such as "new symptom appears in patient - if all symptoms already revealed, House may choose to add a new illness from those still available in the deck" or "House has ****ed off cuddy - no treatments or tests for two rounds and House takes another vicodin" but I'm not exactly sure how to work that into the play.

I also realise that I've set myself a huge research task for this particular game. I'll have to research diseases and medicines and the like, but it should be interesting. Also, I do realise that a person with a complicated set of infections (like 3 random infections picked by House in this game) would probably die within minutes, but the TV program is also about that close to reality so it's not really a problem.

Essentially, my focus wasn't on making a game that is exactly like the program. That would mean making specific cases and that would mean you'd remember the cases and know the answers. Here it is more random. But because none of us is medically trained, we need the information available to us on the cards we pick out of the decks. I wanted to give the players information but allow them to test ideas and to think (to actually need to solve the puzzle) by trying treatments and tests. I also needed to create some sort of urgency, which is what the vicodin deck is meant to do.

Again, this is a very very early stage idea that I'm putting here for safe keeping. Lots and lots of work still needs to go into this and I'm only going to get around to it next year.

AndrewJ
11-11-2010, 11:46 AM
That is a VERY nice idea!

Concerning Situation Cards, I think that maybe draw a SitCard every second or third turn while the symptoms are still present, and then perhaps draw a SitCard every turn once all the symptoms are gone but the patient is still undiagnosed.

What happens if the correct diagnosis is made but the symptoms are still present, like when I'm playing this game with my friend who is studying medicine?

What happens if a player suggests something that would kill the patient, like if the patient has metal splinters in their head and brain and a player suggests and MRI? (Like someone said in the show, "That's smart, lets put a patient with metal in their head inside a giant magnet!" :-)

dammit
11-11-2010, 05:43 PM
That is a VERY nice idea!

Concerning Situation Cards, I think that maybe draw a SitCard every second or third turn while the symptoms are still present, and then perhaps draw a SitCard every turn once all the symptoms are gone but the patient is still undiagnosed.

What happens if the correct diagnosis is made but the symptoms are still present, like when I'm playing this game with my friend who is studying medicine?

What happens if a player suggests something that would kill the patient, like if the patient has metal splinters in their head and brain and a player suggests and MRI? (Like someone said in the show, "That's smart, lets put a patient with metal in their head inside a giant magnet!" :-)

It's already been pointed out to me that someone with more medical knowledge is going to win the game more easily than those without. As would people who've played the game before and learnt some. When the correct diagnosis is made, the game is over and the person has won (one assumes that if the doctors have made the diagnosis the correct treatment would logically follow :P). I have no idea how to solve this problem at this point in time.

It's impossible for me to create a game where I can actually have individual patients (like those special difference between patients on the program) because this would mean making a game with "cases" which one could learn and easily recognise a second time they play. So I can't make a situation where the tests would kill the patients. The idea is that if someone suggests an "incorrect" test, House can call them an idiot and take a vicodin (to deal with their idiocy obviously) and not allow them to run the test. That's it. You get closer to the patients death as the vicodin deck dwindles.

I do like your ideas about the sitcards :D

Chevron
12-11-2010, 07:11 AM
What if you make the patients like cluedo?

Have a few piles of cards with patient 'characteristics'. A person draws 3 or 4 and gets a 'new' patient every time.

Metal spikes in head could be one characteristic, an allergy to penecillin could be another.

dammit
12-11-2010, 05:48 PM
The characteristics would become too repetitive, I think. I really can't see how I can make specific patient situations that won't become repetitive.

FuzzYspo0N
12-11-2010, 07:08 PM
The cool thing about house is how he likes to choose interesting cases. I would be preferring choice over random but maybe you can choose from a handful. Like a combo. For example a list of symptoms can build a lot of common issues.

Sore throat
Short of breath
Runny nose
Fatigued
Joint Pain

Each of these make 25 possible combinations for a simple diagnosis. Like common cold. But obviously with house, some organs start failing and a deadline of death is added somewhere along the way. It could be that step one is getting to a common diagnosis which would be pretty unique - and if you added something else it could add more randomness.

common cold ---> New symptoms
Kidneys failing
Vision blurry
Abdominal pains
Chest pains
Lupus(never happens)


That makes the last part even more random/unique and can make the game last quite long depending how many variations you include. You could add packs. Like a "infectious disease pack" or a "ventricular symptoms pack". That would give you time to research cool cases and to see how they generate along the way and better the game play as you go.

If you did go this way, a simple app to generate symptoms/cases and progressions would be good for heavy testing of the combinations and outputs for fun factor.

dammit
12-11-2010, 07:20 PM
The cool thing about house is how he likes to choose interesting cases. I would be preferring choice over random but maybe you can choose from a handful. Like a combo. For example a list of symptoms can build a lot of common issues.

Sore throat
Short of breath
Runny nose
Fatigued
Joint Pain

Each of these make 25 possible combinations for a simple diagnosis. Like common cold. But obviously with house, some organs start failing and a deadline of death is added somewhere along the way. It could be that step one is getting to a common diagnosis which would be pretty unique - and if you added something else it could add more randomness.

common cold ---> New symptoms
Kidneys failing
Vision blurry
Abdominal pains
Chest pains
Lupus(never happens)


That makes the last part even more random/unique and can make the game last quite long depending how many variations you include. You could add packs. Like a "infectious disease pack" or a "ventricular symptoms pack". That would give you time to research cool cases and to see how they generate along the way and better the game play as you go.

If you did go this way, a simple app to generate symptoms/cases and progressions would be good for heavy testing of the combinations and outputs for fun factor.

In practice, House is not a reflective of reality. Researching his cases will just bring up a whole lot of documents by actual medical professionals explaining how these are essentially bull****. Watching house thinking you're learning much about medicine is like watching csi and expecting to understand that profession fully. I cannot recreate the House situation. i cannot research how his cases "progress". The idea is that his cases are unbelievably complex - so complex that other doctors cannot solve the problems.

Given that players are not the best doctors in the world, I'm not expecting them to diagnose those kinds of cases. I need to give the players all the information they need to diagnose. This is the information that doctors would have on hand in textbooks and from studying. The players need these on cards. Hence the different decks.

I already have a number of decks which will be the different types of illness, which will be combined for a combination of symptoms to appear on the patient. The person playing House will control which symptoms are on the table. So that will account for "changes" in the patient as the game progresses (and the illness progresses).

FuzzYspo0N
12-11-2010, 09:34 PM
Ah i think i may not have read the first post properly.
But in the above, i was never assuming the player should guess these things. Just suggesting a way of bringing variety with little in hand.

dammit
12-11-2010, 09:52 PM
How does a player who's never watched house and have no medical knowledge guess a diagnosis?

dislekcia
13-11-2010, 03:28 AM
Dammit, have you played any of the evolutions on Cluedo? Fengol has one, called Murder at the Abbey, that would be a great research game for you. The basic premise is that players have to deduce which of a set of cards is missing from the deck that's split among all the players. It's a competitive game, players have to pass cards around each turn, so it's all about keeping track of which cards you've been given by whom and which cards you've "revealed" to others and when. Based on the knowledge that each player has of the cards in circulation, they then have to accuse someone, if that card is indeed missing, they win.

What might make sense is to use a similar mechanic, but have players split into the doctors and House. House must choose what to reveal in order to prolong the game so that he can get through his vicodin deck and win. The doctors must successfully diagnose the illness(es) by deducing which illness cards House is missing from his deck, to do so they must have some sort of shared resource that they use up as the game progresses. The tension would come from the doctors co-operatively trying to get as much information out of House as possible, who is actively trying to give away no information at all. The co-operative twist on this sort of game type would be a novel one, AFAIK.

dammit
13-11-2010, 03:08 PM
I'm intrigued. I plan to do a lot of research on various game play mechanics before even getting into the nitty gritty of this game (one of the reasons I want to finish the TF2 game first as that's still a work and education in process) so I'd be very keen to try Murder at the Abbey or any other board/card games you're willing to share with me :)

Karuji
14-11-2010, 10:17 AM
Actually this sort of reminds me of BSG, and house's spine glows blue.

The Dash
15-11-2010, 02:04 AM
This.

I couldnt stop thinking about how awesome a medical/cluedo monster mashup would be, i actually started watching house (Loving it)

So,
Youd have a patient, House being a GM type person just doesnt fit. He is after all just another doctor. Although a GM would be needed (see below)

Basically, you dont want cases, for reasons already mentioned. On the other hand, standard disease sets make diagnoses for people with a medical background easy. Also, real diseases sometimes exclude some symptoms and force others. Which makes me suggest something radical.

Just like House, make it all up.

You have several decks of cards.

Symptoms - Randomly draw 5-7 to make a patient. Start with some facedown so they are unknown

Drugs - For treatment. A drug could remove or add symptoms. On the back of the symptom cards, they have an exclusion list. When a drug is played, House checks the card. If its on the list, it makes the patient worse, ie add symptoms. House takes a Vicodin. If its not on the list, move the symptom to the "stabilized" pile. Once all symptoms have been stabilized. The patient wont die. But if the disease is not diagnosed new symptoms get added

Diseases - Each card has a made up disease with certain symptoms. A player can play disease card/s to try a diagnosis. If it matches all the symptoms that player wins. (The player secretly checks the unkown symptoms) If it doesnt explain a symptom, house takes a Vicodin. That player isnt allowed to administer drugs anymore, but can still make diagnoses or push other players to administer drugs.
Maybe make it so that you can make one guess without knowing all the symptoms, but only be able to guess again once all symptoms are known

Diagnostics - House chooses to reveal a symptom based on a diagnostic played

Each played starts with some disease cards, some drugs and some diagnostics. House starts with some drugs and diseases. (more diseases than the others)

Each turn, a player can draw a card, or administer a drug, or run a diagnostic, or guess for the disease. But only one. Instead of drawing the card the player can offer to trade a card with another player. The deal should be secret to keep it from House. When a player plays a card, everyone knows.

At any point, house can play a disease card. If hes wrong, he sulks and adds a vicodin to his stash. If a player makes a diagnoses but is short on symptoms house can add a disease to try cover the missing symptoms. Either they both wrong, and do their thing, but if they solve the case they share a win.

So either.
Player guesses, wrong = house gets closer to winning. right = wins the game. If house adds to the diagnosis they either both get penalized, or share a win.

Hmmm, seems ive put waaay to much thought into this