Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?
Dr. Oops! is a game where you play as an unlicensed doctor working at a shady hospital, treating one crazy patient after another.
You listen to what patients have to say, read their medical questionnaires, and observe their appearance to figure out what symptoms they’re really suffering from and diagnose their illnesses.
But this isn’t exactly a normal hospital. You treat patients using a gun loaded with medicine, and most of your patients are pretty weird. You’re also drowning in debt, so saving your patients isn’t enough—you need to make money every day and pay off your debts as well.
You’ll probably experience one of the most ridiculously stupid comedies you’ve ever seen. Probably.
Rose:Where did the idea for this game come from?
One day, I got a lump on my eyelid. Before going to the hospital, I searched my symptoms online and tried to figure out what it was myself.
Surprisingly, I found the whole process pretty interesting, and that made me think, “Maybe this could be a game?”
But I didn’t think making a serious medical game would be much fun, so I added debt, a shady hospital, weird patients, and a gun that shoots medicine. Eventually, all of that became Dr. Oops!
Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?
I think the biggest difference is that patients don’t directly give you the answer.
For example, a patient might tell you they can’t sleep, but that alone isn’t enough to identify their illness. By talking to them, reading their medical questionnaire, and carefully observing their clothes and body, you can discover additional clues.
You combine those clues to first figure out, “What symptoms is this patient actually suffering from?” and then use that information to diagnose the illness.
Having some medical knowledge can give you an advantage, but the game is designed so that even if you don’t have any, you can still reach the correct diagnosis through observation and deduction.
Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?
Instead of normal staff credits, I wanted to make an ending sequence where the development team themselves appeared as patients and the player had to treat them.
Wouldn’t it be fun if you could ask each staff member about their hobbies and sex life?
But we were running way too short on time, so unfortunately we had to cut it. lol
Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?
Definitely the voice recording.
Dr. Oops! has more than 300 characters, and every single one of them is fully voiced in Japanese.
And I personally voice every single character myself.
I recorded around 5,800 lines, resulting in more than 8,000 audio files. The recording alone took 77 days.
Players will probably just think, “Wow, there are a lot of characters with weird voices in this game.” But behind the scenes, there was one man spending 77 days making weird voices over and over again.
Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?
After treating a patient, for some reason the entire screen suddenly turned completely yellow, and it looked like I had ended up in the Backrooms.
Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?
More than anything, I want players to walk away thinking, “That was such a stupid game, but it was so much fun.”
Dr. Oops! has deduction, and it has a story, but ultimately, making the player laugh is extremely important to us.
Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?
Creating medical deduction puzzles for more than 300 characters and fully voicing all of them was far more hellish than you could ever imagine.
But I’m glad I did it, so go ahead and do it anyway.
Rose:Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?
That before or since, there’s never been another medical game as ridiculous as Dr. Oops!
Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?
Because it’s the kind of ridiculous game you’ve probably never played before.
If you like weird games, I’m sure you’ll love it.
Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?
Definitely, absolutely, probably a game.
Rose: How has previous experience in making games in a large scale setting prepared you for a solo or small indie team game making?
My experience was extremely helpful when it came to understanding how to take a game from planning to prototyping, production, and finally closing out development, including the overall workflow, pacing, and estimating how much time and work each stage would require.
That said, we still ended up three months behind schedule. lol
Rose: From your previous employment at a larger studio, what is one thing indie devs would learn that would break them out into the modern algorithm?
I think the era when an indie game could succeed based on a single clever gimmick is over.
With AI, ideas and concepts can now be copied and reproduced in huge quantities. Because of that, I think we need to create games that are both difficult to imitate and genuinely compelling.
At the same time, I have a feeling that deciding to make a follow-up to an already successful genre just because that genre is popular is a path straight to hell.
Rose:What’s a common mistake you see across all size developers you would warn new or current devs about?
Don’t get too fixated on the game mechanics themselves.
Instead, I think the standard for making decisions should be: “What kind of experience do I want the player to have, and how do I want them to feel?”
Game mechanics are simply a means of creating that experience.
Rose: This industry is known to be unforgiving, what are some event tips you have for indie devs?
Put yourself in a position where you can make games sustainably.
There are many things you only begin to understand after making several games. So rather than putting yourself in a situation where your first game absolutely has to succeed, put yourself in a position where you can afford to fail and still make the next game.