Designer: Mike Nudd (Dice Hospital, Vampire: Prince of the City, Waggle Dance)

Artist: Sabrina Miramon (Dice Hospital, Photsynthesis, Quadropolis)

Publisher: Alley Cat Games (Chocolate Factory, Dice Hospital, Welcome to Dino World)

Genre/Mechanisms: action point allowance system, dice rolling, variable phase order, worker placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Dice Hospital Community Care is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total almost 8x the initial funding goal, with 5 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About:  Community Care contains three new Dice Hospital mini-expansions: The City, Maternity, and The Improvements.

How It Works: Dice Hospital plays over 8 rounds, with each round consisting of the following phases: Patient Intake, Hospital Management, Hospital Activation, Neglected Patients, Discharged Patients, and Shift Change. In Patient Intake, the first Player draws dice from the bag, places them in ambulances, and then all players bid on the ambulances and their dice contents. In Hospital Improvement, players may either take a new department tile or a new specialist card. In Hospital Activation, each player activates their hospital to heal and discharge as many patients as possible. This is the worker placement part of the game where players take turns placing their workers in different hospital departments. At the end of the phase, any untreated/neglected patients will decrease one die face; any patients with a 1 die fact die. Discharged Patients then score points, scaling upwards the more patients. This means players gain more points from sometimes neglecting patients and not healing them in a given round or two, and instead discharging a much larger group of patients in a single round after they’ve been working on healing over several rounds. Shift Change is an upkeep phase with some resource and board resetting. After the 8th round, end game scoring includes players losing 2 points for every fatality they had over the course of the game, and gaining 1 point for each unspent Blood Bag token in their possession.

The City expansion changes the Intake Phase and the bidding process, increasing player interactivity. The Maternity Phase adds in a new mechanics with mother dice and baby dice, and makes players compete for objective cards. The Improvements adds customization with color-specific room improvements.

Comparisons:  Some other games featuring both worker placement and dice include Anachrony, Champions of Midgard, A Feast For Odin, Raiders of the North Sea, Robinson Cruse: Escape from the Cursed Island, and The Voyages of Marco Polo. A few similar games that are also very dice-centric include Dice Throne Adventures, Dice City, Dice Settlers, Dice Town, and Pioneer Days. Clinic is thematically similar, but a much heavier gaming experience.

What Should I Pledge?:
$38 Paramedic: the retail version of Community Care containing three expansions, with U.S. shipping included.
$44 Doctor: the KS version of Community Care containing three expansions, with U.S. shipping included. See the KS Exclusive section for details.
$114 Hospital Admin: everything released for Dice Hospital to-date. This includes the Doctor pledge with the KS version of Community Care, a copy of the base game, and the base game’s deluxe add-ons box. There is shipping for this pledge level.

Add-Ons:
$38 each additional copy of the Community Care Retail Edition
$44 each additional copy of the Community Care KS Edition
$49 Dice Hospital: Base Game
$28 Dice Hospital: Deluxe Add On Pack
$16 Cat Cafe
$57 Chocolate Factory: Base Game
$73 Chocolate Factory: Deluxe Edition
$27 Dino World: Base Game
$37 Dino World: Deluxe Edition
$32 Coral Islands: Base Game
$28 Ruthless
$20 Pocket Pharma
$18 Pocket Sub
$13 Cauldon Master & Expansion

KS Exclusives:
The KS Exclusive Pack will be… you guessed it, KS-Exclusive. It’s a deluxe upgrade pack that includes the 5th player expansion, a Helicopter mini to replace the Helicopter meeple in The City, 1 screen-printed Birthing Die for Maternity, and several base game upgrades: 5 Wooden Pill Bottles (to replace cardboard tokens), 4 Wooden Syringes, 1 Parking Garage, and a new Round Marker.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S. you’re looking at $114 for the Hospital Admin pledge plus $10 in shipping, for a total of $124. Of course, that doesn’t include any of Alley Cat’s additional games offered as add-ons.

Dice Hospital Community Care completes its Kickstarter on Thursday, July 25th and tentatively ships in May 2020.