Tackle cartoon health conditions

Dr. Pill is a free game with a wacky, cartoonish vision of medical practices. Take control of a GP who must treat patients and restore them to health. The patient’s conditions may sound normal, but the treatments are rather peculiar.

The title makes Dr. Pill sound like it’s an imitation of Dr. Mario World. Instead, the game draws influence from a number of different sources. In Dr. Pill, clearing a patient’s heart of fatty deposits becomes a mini-game similar to Pac-Man, to give one example.

Treat your patients in mini-games

Dr. Pill is a game made up of several mini-games. Your first job is to handle your patients’ appointments. Each patient requests a specific day, and you must schedule them at the right time and place using the calendar. Then, when the patient arrives, you’ll take part in a simple question & answer session.

Puzzle gaming

The above tasks are easy enough, but the real game begins when the treatments start. Each condition has a slightly different mini-game with graphics that somewhat resemble the classic Operation board game. Treating kidney stones involve smashing literal stones with a hammer, shortness of breath is fixed by rotating pipes, and so forth.

Decorate your office

When you successfully treat a patient, you’ll be given virtual money that you can spend on decorations for your office. Curtains, clocks, pot plants, and more are available. By watching adverts, meanwhile, you can unlock stronger tools for mini-games, like larger and faster-working pills.

Good for young children

Given its simplicity, Dr. Pill is clearly intended for children. Some puzzles are very basic color or number matches. While they’re a little more sophisticated, even the arcade-influenced mini-games are still extremely basic. The cartoon graphics are pleasant, but the game is let down by occasional garbled dialogue, such as the line — “work more harder.”