Surgeon Simulator: Inside the World's Hardest Game 64
An anonymous reader writes "In the space of a few short months, Surgeon Simulator 2013 has attained cult status. A sort of spiritual successor to the maddening QWOP, the PC game requires you to operate the individual fingers of a hapless surgeon in an increasingly absurd set of gore-filled scenarios. What's so remarkable is the turnaround time: the initial prototype came out of a 48-hour game jam, and was released as a commercial game just a month and a half later. A new profile of the studio's founder looks at how Bossa Studios, the London-based development team behind SS 2013, iterates so quickly, as well as what's next from the team, including an iPad version of Surgeon Simulator, and a cross platform MOBA that's half League of Legends, half Mario Kart battle mode."
Harder than this? (Score:3)
Re:Harder than this? (Score:4, Insightful)
I just googled that, cause I was curious what kind of game it is (games sites are obviously and reasonably blocked at work). I learned that there are apparently 3 such games in the series - they can't *all* be the world's hardest game...
Re: Harder than this? (Score:1)
Much, much harder. That "world's hardest game" is simply an exercise in muscle memory, and boot a difficult one at that.
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http://www.addictinggames.com/action-games/theworldshardestgame.jsp
That is pretty hard, I couldn't even figure out how to move!
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The most difficult thing about that is getting used to the awkward keyboard controls. Also the game moves the goalposts in the middle of the game by telling you the object is to complete the game with fewest deaths after several levels, when you've previously been playing recklessly.
Simulator (Score:2)
... is the operative word here. Bad puns aside though, impressive stuff!
Spy (Score:1)
MEDIC!!
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Re:Not a Game (Score:4, Funny)
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Fatality!
Lawyer Wins!
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I'm confused how a non-adversarial game can be unbalanced.
Not the hardest. (Score:2)
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Dwarf fortress in an Evil area where everything keeps reanimating is harder.
Nonsense. Unless you self-impose a challenge that reduces your starting inventory, FUN can be averted for decades.
If the Evil area is over a glacier and you didn't embark an anvil, on the other hand ...
Peek of the game (Score:5, Interesting)
Like a wet paper towel (Score:4, Interesting)
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Fun fact : there's a similarly unconventional and ridiculous piloting method in the game Wonderful 101.
You use a tablet to move your character around within the interior of a ship, stepping on and activating giant arrow keys that steer and activate weapons. The main problem being that you can't actually see the ship on the tablet, that's on the TV. So if you want to turn left, you have to watch the TV screen, figure how WHEN to initiate the turn, then look down, run your silly ass over to the left turn
1988 Version: Life & Death (Score:1)
Much more retro with 8 bit graphics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdfWCc8n_GQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_%26_Death
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Always wished they made a modern version of that game. I killed so many people because I didn't click on exactly the right pixel. You had to make a 24" cut just to get at the appendix. And apparently cutting off blood flow in the aorta is ok for five to ten minutes.
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That's awesome. I'd show my patients the game and tell them that's where I learned most of my technique.
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I can't remember how many patients I killed in L&D2. I destroyed so many brains, I should have started a zombie feed store.
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The Trauma Center series for DS? (If you ignore the weird plot and time-slowing mechanic.)
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And a much better game at that.
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for life & death you can train by having the manual..
it's not so hard in that regard.
surgeon simulator makes much funnier videos though.
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Nethack is hard because you can be unlucky, and given the amount of time required to play in order to win, the chances of you being unlucky (dying) once ends up being really high. You never know when you may turn a corner and get hit with a wand of death from a random weak monster that is smart enough to know how to work a wand. J
Problem is the interface (Score:2)
QWOP is just a silly web game purposefully eliciting utter hilarity, but calling this thing a "Surgeon Simulator" is intellectually insulting. It's just an advanced QWOP.
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Like many others, myself included, you have misunderstood. It is not a surgery simulator. It's not simulating you performing surgery. It's a SURGEON simulator. It simulates you performing a surgeon.
It's deeply broken and bad, and Steam refused to allow me to return for refund, so I watch people play it on Youtube sometimes, and it's in my library. Worst 6$ in recent memory.
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It's deeply broken and bad, and Steam refused to allow me to return for refund, so I watch people play it on Youtube sometimes, and it's in my library. Worst 6$ in recent memory.
I disagree entirely. The physics screwups just add to the hilarity.
Don't play it to be any good at it. Play it for the absurdity of the entire thing. Grab the hammer and whack away at the guy's rib cage, rip out his organs, and chuck a heart in. I'm sure he'll live.
The controls being bad is the entire point to the game and makes for some truly hilarious situations. Whoops, there goes my watch. Oh crap, I accidentally lost the bone saw and am now going to have to make do with the hammer. Oh no, I accidentall
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Now what we need is for a Surgeon Simulator add-on where you have to play QWOP.
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but calling this thing a "Surgeon Simulator" is intellectually insulting.
that's what makes it so damn funny. beats train simulator any day.
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QWOP is just a silly web game purposefully eliciting utter hilarity, but calling this thing a "Surgeon Simulator" is intellectually insulting. It's just an advanced QWOP.
It's a joke on "Train Simulator" and "Farming Simulator" and all those other "Thing Simulator" games on Steam. That's why the PC version is called "Surgeon Simulator 2013" - to mock things like Train Simulator 2014 [steampowered.com], Farming Simulator 2013 [steampowered.com], or Euro Truck Simulator 2 [steampowered.com]. I'm sure there are more.
Incidentally, for a laugh, go to that Train Simulator 2014 [steampowered.com] link, find the DLC section, and hit "see all." Currently at the bottom I see "$2953.65 - Add all DLC to Cart".
This isn't highschool (Score:5, Informative)
Inside the World's Hardest Game
It's like, the worst habit _ever_ to use, like, so many super duper words, like in, like the "hardest game _ever_", as if! It's like OMG how do they know that, WTF?? I was like, no way it's the hardest ever.
Seriously, can we do away with unsupported high school superlatives such as "world's hardest", "best ever", etc.?
Oops, I forgot, this is slashdot, editors are morons.
Thank your for a literal LOL (Score:2)
When I saw this [youtube.com] I literally LOL'd. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know this ain't brain surgery.
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The fact that you can go in with a hammer and just flail about inside the ribcage for a few seconds while the entire contents of his torso empties in a torrent of bone and flesh is just hilarious to me... I will have to check out more speed run videos.
Surgery Simulator (Score:2)
Decades ago, I had a "operating room simulator" for my 286 which presented you with a series of patients. Your job was to assign tests to be performed (but not too many!), interpret the results, and recommend the proper course of action. For some patients, surgery would be needed and you would need to administer the anesthetic, slice the patient open, perform the needed operation without the patient dying from blood loss, and then close them up again.
I stunk at this game so I found entertainment in ruinin
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Sounds like Life and Death [slashdot.org] right up there at the top of this discussion.
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That was the game. Thanks. That game was so tough that the only way to enjoy it was to intentionally play badly. So many virtual patients' lives destroyed. So many good memories.
"The Surgeon" on the Amiga (Score:2)
The Amiga had a program (game?) called "The Surgeon" it got old fast loading graphics from a 3.5 disk.
You had different surgeries to perform; I'd cut the guy open he'd scream and die. Just too much fun.