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Big Pharma - Now inducing nausea on steam

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
http://www.bigpharmagame.com/

This gives me some Theme Hospital vibes, looks like it could be fun. Tech tree, assembly lines, managing economics. Will it be shit?

What if you had it in your power to rid the world of disease, to improve the lives of millions, to ease suffering and cure the sick… and earn a tidy profit?

As the head of your own Pharmaceutical Conglomerate you have this power resting in your hands. Will you use it for good? Being totally altruistic may not be the best business plan. The uncomfortable truth (is there an ointment for that?) is that some remedies are more profitable than others and illness is good for business.

Welcome to the world of Big Pharma!

TaDvTlU.jpg


Big Pharma is part business sim, part logistics puzzle. It’s one thing to work away in the lab perfecting new formulas, but converting the ‘sciency stuff’ into cold hard cash means bringing an engineering and business mind to the problem.

Factory space is expensive, and those fancy new agglomerators and centrifuges don’t always slot nicely together.
 

Burning Bridges

Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
27,562
Location
Tampon Bay
Count me interested.
Can you do un-pc stuff? Human experiments? Or selling substandard products to third world countries? That could be awesome!
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
There seems to be very little info right now, unless you want to sit through hours of dev diaries. They seem to allude to some ethical considerations though, trying to be altruistic and so forth. I would personally enjoy it immensely if they went all the way and let you do terrible things for profit.
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
A drug that eases migrane but induces nausea as a side effect is 125% as profitable as one that only eases migrane, because of production costs.

Realism, baby.

I wish I had to employ wage slaves to pull the levers on my machines to make it more like Theme Hospital. Scientists, too. They're just a number in another tab, why not have you build a lab for them in your factory and then build a state-of-the-art coffee machine to keep them happy, you know, like in THE REAL WORLD? It's kind of annoying to find out certain stats that are available to you, feels like they're all in different tool tips or something, but maybe you'll get used to it and I'm pretty drunk so who the fuck knows?

Hate to disappoint, but no signs of unethical experimentation so far, bros.
 

sexbad?

Arcane
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Apr 7, 2013
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sexbad
Codex USB, 2014
Yeah, I have similar feelings. I'm not even sure if the game is shallow, since I didn't get so far, but I don't like the way things are represented. Looking over a sterile assembly line and keeping track of numbers is not quite as fun as I had hoped. I will try to get a refund.
 

Gregz

Arcane
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
8,511
Location
The Desert Wasteland
What if you had it in your power to rid the world of disease, to improve the lives of millions, to ease suffering and cure the sick… and earn a tidy profit?

Joke, the last thing big pharma wants is to cure anything. They want a world of junkies dependent on their pills.

A drug that eases migrane but induces nausea as a side effect is 125% as profitable as one that only eases migrane, because of production costs.

Realism, baby.

I wish I had to employ wage slaves to pull the levers on my machines to make it more like Theme Hospital. Scientists, too. They're just a number in another tab, why not have you build a lab for them in your factory and then build a state-of-the-art coffee machine to keep them happy, you know, like in THE REAL WORLD? It's kind of annoying to find out certain stats that are available to you, feels like they're all in different tool tips or something, but maybe you'll get used to it and I'm pretty drunk so who the fuck knows?

Hate to disappoint, but no signs of unethical experimentation so far, bros.

:killit:

Sounds like a marketing 'game' brought to you by Big Pharma.
 

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,651
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Does the game include Internet forums full of lunatics claiming that you bribed every scientist is the world to make it look like vaccines work? Because if not, -50 Realism points.
 

tripedal

Savant
Joined
Feb 22, 2015
Messages
401
Location
Ultima Thule
I was looking forward to this but it turned out a disappointment. The "logistics puzzle" part is far too simplistic, the "business sim" part feels superfluous, and there's a conspicuous lack of crafted scenarios (instead the game relies on randomization). Just play the Zachtronics games or Factorio if you're into this sort of thing.
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
So far, for me, it's ALWAYS been less profitable to improve a drug by removing a side effect or getting it to the maximum efficacy concentration. Always. It doesn't even seem like you can outcompete a rival in a certain market by making a much better drug for that ailment. This is even the case when I just had to add two $10 steps in the production line to remove causes fatigue or whatever it was.

I think it should be less profitable sometimes, but not always. I suppose this has mostly been on the tier 1 drugs and those probably have the smallest profit margin, so improving them costs relatively more and the bonus to the sale price of the drug (+10% for a B grade etc) is less noticable. I guess the prevent stroke medicine is going to be worth making well, but not the pain killer. I just don't feel like that makes a lot of sense. People would easily buy a painkiller that didn't give them a rash instead of one that did, for one, and probably spend money to avoid the rash, too. The existence of a very good drug for something should greatly diminish the sales of worse drugs.

So far the game is a bit better than my first impression, but I still really miss more involvement in ingredient discovery (stupid indiana jones luls) and research. Both would've gained a million fun times if scientists were recruited like doctors in Theme Hospital. Like the only actual gameplay that's not graphical spreadsheeting is the assembly line, and that's pretty much grade school maths with graphics to trick you into thinking it's like Theme Hospital.
 

DDZ

Red blood, white skin, blue collar
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Under the Gods
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I am enjoying this game quite a bit. After a few hours I thoufht it was shallow, but it seems like the higher dificulty levels expand the game a bit with more research abd patents.

Will try that soon.
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
Oh man, I must've reached one of the goals for a level because something popped while I was building an assembly line and suddenly I was in the level select screen and added a bar to the level I was playing, but I couldn't go back to my game. I wanted to try something out FUCKYOOOUUUUU :negative:

I was just going to make my erectile dysfunction plus anti-malaria combo-pill with the small side effect of inducing nightmares and it was going to make a killing with the Machete Rape Gangs but now ITZ will never happen. :rage:


But seriously. Fuck you for popping up insta-quit buttons in the middle of the screen. Who does that?
 
Last edited:

Xor

Arcane
Joined
Jan 21, 2008
Messages
9,345
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
So far, for me, it's ALWAYS been less profitable to improve a drug by removing a side effect or getting it to the maximum efficacy concentration. Always. It doesn't even seem like you can outcompete a rival in a certain market by making a much better drug for that ailment. This is even the case when I just had to add two $10 steps in the production line to remove causes fatigue or whatever it was.
It matters much more on tier 4 and 5 drugs than it does on lower tier ones.

I have mixed feelings about this game. On the one hand, laying out assembly lines is surprisingly fun, and the goals are generally hard enough to necessitate planning ahead, but on the other hand the game gets repetitive quickly, and you can easily end up in a situation where you have a scenario beaten but you have to wait a few years to get credit. The game initially reminded me of Rollercoaster Tycoon, and while that had the same problems with scenarios getting repetitive, that game had tons of character to make up for the boring parts.

I don't want to call it a bad game, though. There are plenty of things that it does well.
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
Yeah, I guess I underestimated how much shit is removed in the beginner levels, which should probably just be renamed tutorial and skipped altogether.

I don't really agree with that kind of progression, especially when game mechanics are removed outright, like patents.

It's fun, but as you say it could've had much more character to make it feel special, in a good way. As an example, I don't really 'feel bad' about pushing out a minimal effort max profit drug with bad side effects to earn money until it gets an E grade and then just put in an extra dissolver/evaporator in the assembly, creating a new drug with the same side effects, $10 less profit compared to the original one before it got the bad grade, and repeat until that also gets a bad grade. There could've been some kind of negative feedback there, at least some kind of company reputation that would punish you for having really bad side effetcs, or just some fluff that tells you you're a bad person.
 

Dead Guy

Cipher
Joined
Sep 12, 2012
Messages
281
Good news, everyone!

I cured Insomnia.

AfCKSHz.jpg
 

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