13.6 hours played
Written 29 days ago
[h1]This Close To Greatness[/h1]
This game deserves a mixed review.
The essence of a working simulator is to find a way, either adding fantastical elements or interesting story bits, to make mundane work fun. Do No Harm is the medical equivalent of Papers, Please with an eldritch touch, yet it's this close to perfection. Don't get me wrong. This game still delivers that zen-ish state all the working simulators striving for, through carefully deducing patients' syndromes and administrating the right cure. The mechanics are interesting to play around, but the fundamentals and some parts of the game need tweaking, including some bugs. I still recommend it though, just go in and don't expect it to be another great hit.
[h1]Things I Like About Do No Harm:[/h1]
[b]The Medical Working Simulator[/b]
To quote a certain German doctor, "Let's go practice medicine."
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[*]So the basic is: you cure as much patients as you can within the in-game twelve-hour shift and earn enough money to keep the clinic's light on. Simple? Not quite.
[*]You must pay attention to the patients' descriptions, how they feel and how serious the symptoms feel like. Then you consult the medical book to see which of the four temperaments they need the most. After that you "guess" how many doses you need to cure the patients.
[*]You will guess a lot for the first few hours, similar to trials and errors. Don't worry though. As you progress, you will unlock more tools like Humor Circle(a rotating circle to help you pinpoint the exact dosage), Supplemental Medicines(used to determine what's patients need when they don't know their symptoms), and Patient's Health Status(a text to see how they feel after treatments) to help you administrate more precise medical treatments.
[*]Of course as the days go on, more conditions emerge and you need to keep the restrictions in mind during administration. Things like Allergies and Physical Symptoms will affect the dosage.
[*]There are eldritch elements as well. As otherworldly forces seep into our realm, the locals will start showing abnormal symptoms. These unnatural symptoms require additional methods and multiple dosage mix-up, easily making late-game extra busy.
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[h1]Things I Like And Dislike About Do No Harm:[/h1]
[b]Anomaly And Laudanum [/b]
A mini anomaly hunt to spice up the gameplay.
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[b]Like[/b]
[*]Eldritch element often comes with sanity level shenanigans, so it's natural for this game to have something similar.
[*]Whenever you see something, anything out of ordinary(a pale face, people with fly head, giant eyeballs outside the window, etc.), drink the laudanum to negate them. It's simple and keeps you on your toes, because going insane can ruin your deduction.
[*]There is also a talking totem which will remind if you are gonna see anything weird today.
[b]Dislike[/b]
[*]What I dislike about this little gameplay is that it only has three limit. Once you correctly drink the third laudanum, you are completely safe from anomalies for the rest of the day since the game won't spawn them at that point.
[*]I wish this part of gameplay weren't limited so players would still stay vigilant to the anomalies. Maybe instead of drinking the whole bottle, take a shot of laudanum.
[*]I also wish there could be more variant to the existing anomalies.
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[h1]Things I Dislike About Do No Harm:[/h1]
[b]1. The Fundamentals[/b]
This is a hot take and I will try my best to explain.
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[*]I believe Do No Harm fails where Papers, Please succeeds.
[*]In Papers, Please, players check the passport and the other documents to see if there's anything wrong to them. You follow the "hard" rules to find a clear right or wrong answer. In Do No Harm, however, there is a situation in which players need to guess things. Not every patient has a clear symptom, players can only rely on limited information to experiment(which on second thought sounds exactly how doctors work, maybe.)
[*]The frustration created from the fail state of both games is different. In Papers, Please the frustration is completely on your negligent, while that in Do No Harm comes from you guessing wrong. I believe the latter can easily result in players feeling unfair and can often disrupt the zen-ish state. You will need more dosage to correct your wrongdoings, which often lead to more resources wasted, more unsatisfying patients, less room for mistakes, and fewer earnings for the day.
[*]It also doesn't help that most patients in Do No Harm are just there for you to earn money. They are randomly selected from a set pool of avatars accompanied with the exact dialogues tie to the certain diseases. They have little personality and offer nothing for world-building, unlike Papers, Please.
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[b]2. Other Complaints[/b]
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[*]This game definitely needs more random events to cover some empty days, something like a flu has fallen upon the village and you should stock up extra medicine.
[*]There is a weird bug which pressing the dialogue bubble doesn't make it go faster. I don't exactly know how to recreate this bug though, maybe it's because I click the pages too fast?
[*]I also wish there were other locations or other options for money sink. You can easily accumulate a fortune mid-to-late game with nothing to spend.
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中文小簡評
→以醫師誓詞為名的克蘇魯風工作模擬。
→工作模擬最重要的是完成繁瑣工作的滿足感，這款的確有做到，但是遊玩體驗還是比Papers, Please略差。
→主要玩法就是在八小時工時中盡力治好病患，賺足錢不讓自己破產。說來簡單，實際做起來可不輕鬆，你需要依照病人的敘述查詢醫治手冊，從血液、黏液、黃膽汁和黑膽汁中找出正確藥方，由低劑量一步步升高找出正確療方。
→遊戲初期的確需要多猜幾次才能掌握正確劑量，之後會慢慢解鎖多樣工具幫助你更精準的調配。當然病人的狀況也會隨天數慢慢增加，除了基礎診療外，還需要注意病人過敏源、外部徵狀、甚至是後期因古神入侵而開始出現的轉變都需要納入藥劑的考量，漏看一個步驟很容易不小心把人醫死。
→古神影響絕對少不了san值，遊戲也有簡單做了個小機制，只要診療期間看到任何異樣(窗外大眼睛、慘白的詭異人臉等)，就必須喝鴉片酊抑制你發狂的心神，錯過三次會嚴重影響你的感知，大幅提升診療難度。
→不過這個小機制有幾個缺點：一天只會出三個異樣，畢竟你的鴉片酊一次只能買三瓶，喝完遊戲就不會再出了要等隔天，個人覺得滿可惜的、再來就是異樣的數量稍嫌少了點，基本上遊戲內五天內就能看完全部花樣。
→本作最可惜的一點就是工作模擬的滿足感還是差了那麼一點，拿Papers, Please做比較就淺顯易懂。同類類型的遊戲Papers, Please的流程清晰易懂，樹立明確的規則與依據讓你一一檢視文件的「對」和「錯」，簡單的二元論讓工作順暢；而Do No Harm雖然也有註解說明診療流程與醫學依據，但絕大部分的時間你必須「猜」正確的劑量，畢竟並不是每個病人都會直接跟你講他的病癥，只能靠不斷嘗試不同藥方。
→這就出現一個問題。Papers, Please失敗了頂多扣錢，多審幾個人就能賺回來，但Do No Harm可沒這麼簡單，錯誤的劑量不僅需要靠更多藥劑去彌補，你一天能用的藥方也是固定數量，這樣不僅導致你一天能醫治的病人數量減少，成效不佳不說，賺的錢變少，治療完成的滿足感也會大打折扣。
→病人也不像入境的移民那樣多采多姿，更像是隨機從固定的角色池抽一個起來，再隨機上一個症狀，就連說的話也是同樣的那一兩套重複，沒有藉機構築世界觀，更沒有一些額外事件增加遊戲豐富性。
