Surgeon Simulator

Did You Know?

• The game's reception has been mixed, with critics noting that the difficulty was part of the appeal.
• Rock, Paper, Shotgun described the game as 'a brilliant joke in the form of a game'.

Plot

The protagonist is surgeon Nigel Burke, who works at a fictional hospital in the fictitious UK town of Barnardshire in 1987. He performs operations on a patient named Bob, later operating on Bob inside a space station. Afterward, he is contacted by an alien race via VHS tape and operates on one of them, earning the title 'Best Surgeon in the Universe'. In the free DLC 'Inside Donald Trump', set during the 2016 presidential election, Nigel performs a heart transplant on Trump, choosing between a gold or stone heart.

Development

The initial version of Surgeon Simulator 2013 was created for the Global Game Jam, where the team had 48 hours to make the game. The control scheme was inspired by Jurassic Park: Trespasser, partly because game jam teams earned bonus points for using ten keyboard buttons. The developers initially assigned a finger to each button but found it impractical, limiting that control style to one hand while the other used the mouse. They were unsure if the game was genuinely funny until presenting the prototype to an audience, which revealed its comic potential.

Release

In January 2014, Bossa released footage of an iPad version, which launched on 7 March 2014 featuring heart and kidney transplants plus new eye and teeth transplants. The app includes a corridor feature where the player must save Bob while avoiding carts with at least seven items. A heart rate mechanic adds challenge; when it reaches zero, the player must charge defibrillators. A PlayStation 4 version, Surgeon Simulator: A&E Anniversary Edition, was announced on 10 June 2014 and released on 12 August 2014, including all surgeries in every location. A Nintendo Switch version, Surgeon Simulator CPR, was announced in July 2018 and released on 13 September 2018, adding a local cooperative mode where two players control Nigel's arms with separate Joy-Con.