Bad Doctor Expansion: 4 Starting Patient Cards
- 2–4 players
- 30–40 min
- 2018
- BGG rank
- BGG #26,901
- BGG rating
- 5.6
Bad Doctor
2018
Rules assistance for Bad Doctor
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.
- 2–4 players
- 30–40 min
- 10+
- Complexity 1.5/5
For 2 players
Rules assistant for Bad Doctor
What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
Bad Doctor is a board game released in 2018 for 2–4 players, 30–40 minutes per game, and ages 10 and up. It was designed by Dan Germain and Eric Magnan and its main mechanics are Tile Placement.
Expansions
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About the game
Central City Hospital is an overcrowded, derelict hospital. As a doctor in this terribly understaffed hospital, your job is to keep patients alive until your shift ends. Curing patients is great as long as you can claim the glory for yourself! Every patient you see takes precious time and resources as you struggle to keep them alive. Sometimes you have to leave the sickest patients for the next shift and pass the blame to someone else. If patients die on your watch, you risk being forever shamed as a bad doctor! In more detail, Bad Doctor is a light tile-laying game in which doctors compete for the glory of being the best doctor by treating and curing patients. Treat patients by laying treatment tiles with matching malady symbols. Place your doctor marker on that malady to show you helped cure that patient. You place complication cubes on patients who are not visited during your shift (or turn), but if that patient has no spaces left for complication cubes then that means the patient has died on your shift! Patients are completely cured when there are no open malady spaces on the patient or any connected treatment tiles. The player who cured the final malady on the patient during their shift collects their doctor markers and places them in the score pile on their doctor board. All other doctor markers on the patient go back into the other doctors' reserves. The game ends when one doctor has collected eight or more doctor markers in their score pile. The player with the most doctor markers in their score pile wins! —description from the publisher
Questions and answers
Bad Doctor supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.
The listed playing time for Bad Doctor is 30–40 minutes. This is the publisher’s estimate for a full game. The actual duration depends on the group, the player count and familiarity with the rules: first sessions usually run longer, while experienced groups often finish faster. Setup and teaching time are not included in this estimate.
The catalogue lists Bad Doctor for ages 10 and up. This is the publisher’s recommendation and reflects reading demands, rule complexity and small components rather than theme alone. Younger players can often join with help from an adult, so check the age guidance on your edition and consider your group’s experience with board games.
Bad Doctor has a complexity rating of 1.5 out of 5 from BoardGameGeek players, which makes it a light game. The rating reflects how much rules knowledge, planning and decision-making a typical game demands. Expect a longer first teach for heavier games, and use a preparation guide before game night.
Bad Doctor belongs to these categories: Humor and Medical. Its main mechanics are Tile Placement. Categories describe the theme and setting of a game, while mechanics describe what players actually do on their turns. Each mechanic links to a catalogue hub with similar games, which helps when you want something comparable.
The credited designers of Bad Doctor are: Dan Germain and Eric Magnan. These credits come from the published game data and name the people responsible for the game’s design, not its illustrators or publishers. Designer pages on MeepleRules collect other titles by the same designers, which helps when you enjoy a game and want to find similar ones.
The catalogue lists Bad Doctor as a base game. It can be played on its own with the components in the box and does not require any other title. Expansions, if any exist, add new content or rules on top of it and are listed separately in the catalogue with a link back to this base game.