Source: Love Mac | Software download link: Project Hospital for Mac
Project Hospital is a deep simulation management game where players take on the role of a hospital administrator, fully responsible for running a modern hospital—from building design, department planning, and staff hiring to disease diagnosis and treatment. This guide focuses on the Mac version, providing a detailed breakdown of its interface, complete workflow, and operational tips.
I. Core Interface and Workspace Overview
The main game interface is a highly integrated information and control panel, which can be divided into the following core areas:
- Top Information Bar: Located at the very top of the screen, it displays key hospital data in real time, including funds, date, time, game speed controls, as well as the current hospital’s reputation and patient count.
- Left Vertical Toolbar: This is the game’s core operation menu, arranged from top to bottom as follows:
- Build Mode (Building icon): Used for planning rooms, placing doors and windows, and installing facilities and decorations.
- Department Management (Department icon): View and create various specialized departments (such as Emergency, Radiology, Surgery).
- Personnel Management (staff avatar icon): Hire and fire doctors, nurses, assistants, etc., and view their status and shift schedules.
- Logistics Management (cart icon): Set up storage items and automatic restocking strategies for pharmacies and warehouses.
- Hospital Overview (chart icon): View detailed charts for finances, patients, and illness statistics.
- Policies & Billing (folder icon): Adjust treatment costs, insurance policies, and hospital rules and regulations.
- Central Workspace: Occupies the main part of the screen and is the hospital’s isometric visual presentation. Here you can directly observe patient flow and staff activity, and click on any unit (room, person, patient) to interact or view detailed information.
- Right-Side Info Panel: When a unit (such as a room or staff member) is selected, this area displays its detailed attributes, status, and available action commands.
- Bottom Queue & Notification Bar: Displays the queue of patients waiting for treatment, as well as important system notifications (such as equipment failures and staff fatigue).
II. The Complete Workflow from Creation to Export
This section will guide you through the core operations of a standard game cycle.
Step 1: Create a New Game and Initial Planning
After starting the game, select “New Game” from the main menu. Choose a game mode (such as Campaign Mode or Sandbox Mode) and set the difficulty.
Location: Main Menu → New Game.
Initial Steps:
1. After entering the game, first use the Build Mode (shortcut key C) from the left toolbar.
2. Use the “Plan Rooms” tool to designate the reception area and lobby on the ground.
3. Switch to the “Walls” tab to build exterior and interior walls, and use the “Doors & Windows” tab to install entrances and room doors.
4. Inside the rooms, use the “Facilities” tab to place essential items: the reception area needs a “Front Desk,” and the lobby needs “Benches.”
Step 2: Build Your First Department —— Emergency Department
The Emergency Department is the starting point for receiving all patients and must be built first.
Location: Left toolbar → Department Management icon → Click “Create New Department” → Select “Emergency Department.”
Specific Steps:
1. After creating the Emergency Department in the Department Management interface, return to Build Mode (C).
2. Plan and build the following key rooms for the Emergency Department:
- Examination Room: Place an “Examination Bed,” a “Medical Sink,” and a “Computer Desk.”
- Treatment Room: Place a “treatment bed” and more advanced medical equipment (such as a “suture kit” cabinet).
- Doctor’s Office: Place a “desk”, “bookcase”, and “computer”.
3. Make sure every room is connected to the main hall through doorways, and use the “Label” tool to name the rooms correctly.
Step 3: Hire and Assign Staff
Without staff, the hospital cannot operate.
Location: Left toolbar → Staff Management icon.
Specific Steps:
1. Click the “Hire New Staff” button.
2. Hire at least one Emergency Doctor and one Nurse for the Emergency Department. Be sure to check their skill levels and salary requirements.
3. After hiring, click on the staff member in the staff list. In the information panel on the right, you can assign them to a department, set their schedule (drag time blocks), and perform other actions.
4. Remember to hire a Receptionist and assign them to the front desk at the reception area.
Shortcut: Quickly open the hiring window: Command + H.
Step 4: Start the Reception and Diagnosis Process
Once the basic facilities and staff are in place, click the “Start Accepting Patients” button (play icon) in the top information bar.
Process Monitoring:
1. After the patient arrives, the assistant will register them, and the patient will appear in the queue at the bottom.
2. Click on a patient in the queue, select “Assign to Examination Room”, and the system will automatically assign an available emergency doctor.
3. You can click on a patient, then click the “Track” button on the right-side information panel to observe their complete diagnostic process from a first-person perspective: Examination → Preliminary Diagnosis → Order Tests (e.g., X-ray) → Final Diagnosis → Treatment.
4. If you need to build auxiliary departments such as Radiology to complete examinations, repeat the construction process from Step 2.
Step 5: Financial Management & Expansion
Ensuring hospital profitability is key to sustainable operations.
Location: Left toolbar → Hospital Overview icon → “Finance” tab.
Keep a close eye on income (treatment fees) and expenses (salaries, maintenance costs, loan interest). When funds are sufficient, return to Build Mode (C) to plan new specialty departments (e.g., Orthopedics, Cardiology) to treat more complex conditions and earn higher profits.
Step 6: Saving Game Progress
The game auto-saves periodically, but manual saving is crucial.
Location: Menu button in the top-right corner of the screen (three horizontal lines) → “Save Game”.
Shortcut: Command + S (quick save).
You can create multiple save slots so you can back up before major decisions.
III. Advanced Tips for Common Features
- Quick room cloning: In build mode, select an already-built room (such as a standard examination room) and use the “Duplicate Room” feature (or the shortcut
Command + C/Command + V) to quickly create a new room with an identical layout, greatly improving expansion efficiency. - Staff skill specialization: On the staff management screen, review each doctor’s skill tree in detail. Assign doctors who excel in “Surgery” to surgery, and keep doctors with high “Diagnostics” in the emergency department, putting everyone’s strengths to best use and improving diagnostic speed and treatment success rates.
- Logistics automation settings: In logistics management, set “Auto-Order” for the pharmacy and warehouse. Configure it so that when the quantity of an item falls below a certain threshold, it is automatically restocked, preventing treatment interruptions caused by shortages of medicine or supplies.
- Patient flow optimization: Use the “Patients” chart in the hospital overview to analyze queue times across departments. For departments with excessively long queues, consider building more rooms of the same type, hiring more staff, or optimizing the room layout (reducing walking distance).
- Shortcut navigation: Become proficient with the
F1-F7keys to quickly switch between different department views for centralized management.
IV. Common Issues and Solutions
| Symptom | Possible Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Patients are piling up in the reception area with no one attending to them | 1. No nurses hired. 2. No nurses assigned at the front desk. 3. Nurses are fatigued or have left their posts. |
1. Hire nurses (Command+H). 2. Click on the front desk and assign nurses in the right-side panel. 3. Check nurse schedules and make sure they are on duty. |
| Doctors stay in the office and do not treat patients | 1. Patients have not been assigned to a specific room. 2. The diagnostic process requires support from other departments (e.g., X-ray), but that department has not been built or has no staff. 3. The doctor’s skill is insufficient to handle the condition. |
1. Manually assign patients from the queue to a room. 2. Build the required examination/treatment departments and hire qualified staff. 3. Refer the case to a doctor or department with higher skill. |
| The hospital is consistently losing money | 1. Maintenance costs for advanced equipment are too high. 2. Total employee salaries are too high. 3. Treatment success rate is low, resulting in less income. |
1. Temporarily stop using non-essential high-maintenance equipment. 2. Lay off some redundant or low-efficiency employees and optimize scheduling. 3. Invest in building diagnostic departments to improve diagnostic accuracy; upgrade doctor skills. |
| The game runs with lag | 1. The hospital is too large with too many units. 2. Mac hardware performance limitations. |
1. Lower graphics quality in the game settings (e.g., shadows, resolution). 2. Use “Quick Save” from the menu and then restart the game to free up memory. |
| Unable to build or place objects | 1. Insufficient funds. 2. The build path is blocked (e.g., objects that must be placed against a wall). 3. The room’s minimum facility requirements are not met. |
1. Check the funds display at the top. 2. Make sure the placement position matches the object’s prompt (green means placeable). 3. Check the required items list for that room type in the department interface. |
V. Mac Shortcuts Summary Table
| Function | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Save | Command + S |
Immediately save the current game progress |
| Open Build Menu | C |
Enter/exit build mode |
| Open Hiring Menu | Command + H |
Quickly open the staff hiring interface |
| Open Department Management | D |
Quickly open the department management interface |
| Open Hospital Overview | O |
Quickly open the statistics overview |
| Open Policy Menu | P |
Quickly open policy and billing settings |
| Rotate Object/Room | R |
In build mode, rotate the direction of the selected object or room |
| Demolish/Sell | Delete |
After selecting an object or room, demolish or sell it |
| Pause Game | Space |
Pause/resume the flow of game time |
| Increase Game Speed | + |
Increase game speed (three levels in total) |
| Decrease Game Speed | - |
Decrease game speed |
| Switch to Emergency Department View | F1 |
Focus the view and highlight emergency department-related elements |
| Switch to Radiology View | F2 |
Same as above, corresponding to Radiology (other F3-F7 correspond to different departments) |
| Cancel Selection/Close Window | Esc |
Cancel the current selection, or close the open popup window |
Tip: This guide is based on the core mechanics of the game “Project Hospital.” Specific interface details may vary slightly with game version updates. By mastering the processes and tips above, you will be able to efficiently plan and manage your own digital healthcare empire.
