About the game
Run a hospital: build rooms, hire doctors, set prices and treat invented illnesses like Bloaty Head. The joke is the tone — the management underneath is serious and gets hard fast.
Bullfrog, 1997. The demo the publisher released, with the first hospital playable in full.
Controls
- Mouse — everything
- Right click — cancel
- Esc — menu
- Space — pause
The version in short
- Year: 1997
- Genre: City builder
- Size: 12.3 MB, loaded once
- Controls: mouse, or your finger on a phone
How this runs
The game runs through a DOS emulator inside your browser: the emulator, the files and your saves all stay on your device and nothing reaches our server. The emulator, the licensing and what to do about a black screen are explained on the retro games section page.
FAQ
Is this the actual 1997 release?
Yes, these are the original Theme Hospital files, not a remake or a port. The emulator runs them the way they ran on a machine of that time.
How big is it and what loads?
The game archive is 12.3 MB plus about two megabytes of emulator. It loads once — after that the browser keeps the files cached and the next launch is instant. On mobile data, do the first launch on Wi-Fi.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. The game uses a mouse, so on a phone your finger is the cursor: drag to move it, tap to click.
Are my saves kept?
They are, but only in this browser on this device — they are written inside the emulator. A different browser or a cleared cache means starting over.
