Citadel WiP (Updated: 6/29/2024 PUBLIC DEMO) - A Medical Drama with Romance

[bouncyball]

UPDATE: Case Three - Chapter Two Public Demo Now Available!

Hey everyone!

Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

As a healthcare professional-in-training, I’ve been working on a medieval medical drama game with a healthy dash of romance added.

Trigger warning for graphic depictions of medicine, including death. Strong language.

Premise:

"It’s the not-so-distant future, and the landscape of medicine has been irrevocably changed. Once incurable diseases are now completely manageable. Metastatic cancer. Alzheimer’s. These patients have a new lease on life, and it’s all thanks to Citadel Health’s NINO technique. But, like all innovations in medicine, there’s more to it than meets the eye…

Play as a first-year surgery intern at Citadel Health. Will you become the star intern and curry the favor of the chief? Or will you uncover Citadel Health’s secrets and break a story or two? This will be the best and worst year of your life. Don’t forget to save lives and break some hearts along the way."

Progress Note - 12/17/2024

Hi everyone, and Happy Tuesday!

First things first…

I got into my top-choice for fellowship!

It feels like just yesterday that I was a med student…but it also feels like a lifetime ago

I just wanted to take a moment to say - thank you all for being with me during med school and also during residency. Citadel and its community have honestly been such sources of joy for me for the past few years, and I’m perpetually humbled and awed that you all believe in me enough to not just read my writing but also take the time to leave comments.

Now that fellowship application season is over, I anticipate I’ll have more time for writing (and code some of that delicious RO angst that I know some of you crave).

Cheers, and - to paraphrase PBS - Citadel is made possible by readers like you. Thank you!

-Bouncy

Links

Citadel Demo

Citadel Tumblr

Citadel Discord

Citadel AO3 page

Citadel Ko-Fi: Commissions are currently open!

Citadel Patreon: If you’d like to support my work (and get access to sneak peeks and early demo drops), become a Patron! Tiers start at $1/month.

Romance Options Currently Available:

Elliot/Ellen Sanford (he/him; she/her)

Your roommate, and Citadel Health medicine intern. You and Eli have known each other since the beginning of medical school. Can come off as a bit of a slacker, but cares deeply about providing the best possible care to patients. Aspires to become a geriatrician.

Davy Jackson (they/them)

Fellow Citadel Health surgery intern. Very self-assured, very sassy. Has huge ambitions to become a leading surgeon of the NINO technique and isn’t afraid to hide them. Whether they’re your friend, frenemy, or enemy is up to you.

Jean Liu (she/her, he/him)

Resident (hah!) coffee-drinker, and Citadel Health medicine intern. Born and bred in the Bay Area, this is really their first time out of California (and they’re already regretting it…). Would love to do a fellowship in Pulmonology/Critical Care to become an ICU attending.

Dr. Peter Grey (he/him)

Chief of NINO Surgery at Citadel Health, and one of the early pioneers of the NINO technique. Perfect for your McDreamy fantasies.

Dr. Ivy Sloan (she/her)

Medicine attending at Citadel Health. Smiles rarely. Compliments residents even more rarely. Perfect for your House fantasies.

Victor/Victoria Uytterhoeven (he/him, she/her)

One of the chief surgery residents at Citadel Health. Strict, jacked, and full of angst. Perfect for…I don’t even know. Victoria Artbreeder courtesy of @deflatedball on Tumblr.

Please enjoy and leave comments/suggestions/etc.!

[Xarena]

Whats here is good I kinda wish I could look at the stats.

[kckolbe]

With the exception of not knowing the stats or how they are affected by choices, I am definitely interested. Thus far my only complaint is the pulse check clearly has a right and wrong answer, and the answer to said question isn’t given away or hinted at previously in the text. Imagine the previous page had said this:

You think back on what you've learned about code management, and the answer comes easily to you.

"We need to start compressions, two minutes then pause for a pulse check. Get the AED. Someone needs to keep time," you say.

If that had been on the previous page, then it would have been the player’s fault for missing it, and would remind them to pay attention. The way it’s set up now, it’s just whether or not the player knows out of character, which is poor game design.

This is a pretty minor quibble. All in all, I’ll definitely be following this.

[bouncyball]

Oh, I’m a total noob at using Choice Script so I don’t even know how to use stats yet haha! Baby steps I guess…

[Harley_Robin_Evans]

Sounds good and I’ll give it a go

[Jackpot1776]

Yes! A medical game! Thank you! I’ll read and give feedback in a little bit

[ofna]

This looks really interesting and something I haven’t seen much of! Will definitely be following your progress.

As for stats, you don’t need to get too complicated with it, but you need to create a choicescript_stats.txt file and display something in there. I’m not sure what you’re going to track in the game, but most people have at least the player character’s name displayed there once they have that set.

I noticed you have finesse, direct, intuition, knowledge, etc. in your startup file. If you wanted to display those in a stat screen, here is a good explanation of how to do that.

Good luck with your project!

[Pa_Chia_Vang]

This is pretty good. Got me looking forward to more already. I love how you chose it to be a medical WIP. I don’t see a lot of that so I’m excited

[Snowflower]

Does it end at “You’ve failed”?

[violet]

love this already! I’m in bio myself, so this demo was fun for me!

The forum is a great place to learn CS (I think there’s a Wiki too somewhere, with specific instructions on how to code certain things). With all the resources out there, I’m confident this game is gonna shape up into something really good!

[bouncyball]

Yeah, haha, that’s the end of chapter one. Still trying to figure Choice Script out–sorry if it’s a little messy!!

[Fardil_Husain]

I love medical dramas. So I am definitely excited for this

[Dpwjeremy]

A very good concept definitely a different from the rest. Looking forward to see more.

Would their be a specialty into a certain field like cancer or er? Or will we be floating around depending on case by case?

[redfield]

seems interesting so far, though I personally would’ve liked an indication that the game has ended atm. I thought dashingdon is just acting up and won’t load the game further. lol

[Bulk_Biceps]

@bouncyball why are the stats taking so long to load up?

btw this is really good. its making me get emotional.

[Avid_reader]

I love this kind of themes. Tho I’m curious if the game stops at I’ve failed line

[apple]

There is no stats page, so it’s trying to load nothing. I assume @bouncyball will add that in the next update.

This looks very promising, I think Grey’s Anatomy the CoG would be a very fun time!

[Kezzalee]

Very excited to see where this goes. Haven’t seen any other medical WIPS before, so this has definitely caught my eye. Keep up the good work! x

[bouncyball]

As a surgery intern, you’ll be bouncing around different surgery teams (i.e. thoracic, hepatobiliary, neuro, etc.) so you’ll be able to see a bunch of different medical conditions! And you’ll definitely be running into other specialties outside of surgery just like in the hospital (no physicians like those in House M.D., that seem to be surgeons/pathologists/radiologists all rolled into one haha).

[bouncyball]

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much for the feedback and likes! I’m so happy everyone likes medical drama as much as I do!

Just a few things since I’ve seen a couple questions about it:

1. I’m still learning Choice Script, which includes stats and the stats page, so there is no stats page right now (oop).

2. The demo currently ends at “You’ve failed,” which is also the end of Chapter One.

Going back to work in the hospital tomorrow, but I’ll try to update in a timely manner!