Clinic: Deluxe Edition
Clinic: Deluxe Edition Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Components
- Overview
- A Few Crucial Gameplay Concepts
- Setup
- Playing the Game
- Phase 1: Actions
- Action: Build
- Action: Hire
- Action: Admit Patients
- New Patients Schedule Appointments
- Move
- Phase 2: Business
- Phase 3: Admin
- End of the Game
- Solitaire Mode
- The Modules
- Expansions
- Icon Legend
Components
- 4 double-sided player boards
- 4 double-sided Floor 2 boards
- 4 double-sided Floor 3 boards
- 1 Main board depicting assorted buildings related to the Clinic
- 60 Module tiles:
- 16 Treatment Rooms
- 16 Supply Rooms
- 16 Service Hubs
- 12 Special Modules
- 16 Entrance tiles
- 8 Helipad tiles
- 24 Parking tiles
- 12 Garden tiles
- 52 coins (20 $1, 20 $5, 12 $25)
- 4 +50 Popularity tiles
- 7 Bonus tiles
- 1 Patient Pool bag
- 1 Doctor Pool bag
- 56 doctors (in 4 colors of specialization: 20 white, 16 yellow, 12 orange, 8 red)
- 93 patients (in 4 colors of illness: 38 white, 28 yellow, 17 orange, 10 red)
- 25 nurses
- 9 orderlies
- 64 cars
- 20 conveyors
- 24 Action tiles in player colors: Build (2 per player), Hire (2 per player), Admit Patients (2 per player)
- 1 Action marker
- 1 Round marker
- 12 player discs
- 1 rulebook
Thanks to our fantastic Kickstarter backers, you will also find additional components pertaining to a few mini-expansions that are included in the base game box. Please see Expansions, p. 22.
Overview
In this game, you build and manage a medical clinic, attempting to gain the most popularity. You primarily gain popularity in the traditional way: by spending money; however, there are a few other ways to boost your clinic's fame, such as letting some of your doctors work on research.
You generate income by providing suitable care to patients, but this is complicated by the fact that building, staffing, and operating a clinic is not free!
Patients will schedule appointments for different services. Each patient will have a different severity of affliction, and this is represented by their color: White patients have the mildest problems, yellow are a little worse off, orange are in bad shape, and red are in critical condition.
In order to admit a patient to your clinic, you must offer the type of service they need. Once you get them into your clinic, you will need to move them to a treatment room, and send in a doctor — ideally a doctor well suited to the severity of their case. You can compensate for any disparity by sending nurses to assist the doctor.
Of course, treatment rooms also require supplies. Staffing supply rooms with orderlies will save you money (fewer supplies damaged; fewer employees stocking their houses with company supplies…). There are many aspects to running an efficient and profitable Clinic!
This is just an OVERVIEW, so don't worry about remembering all of this information now, It will all be explained in more detail later on!
A Few Crucial Gameplay Concepts
During a game of Clinic, you will be constructing your own clinic so you can treat patients. Here are a few core concepts to help you better understand this task. More specific rules governing how and when you may build and operate your clinic will be covered later.
Modules
A Module is a tile that represents the interior of your Clinic. It completely fills a space of the grid on your player board, and it has a checkered floor.
The four module types are: Treatment Rooms, Supply Rooms, Service Hubs, and Special Modules.
Entrances, helipads, parking, and gardens are not modules.
Building Modules
Different modules may have specific rules for building and placing them in your clinic, but there is one rule that governs them all:
- You cannot build two modules of the same color adjacent to each other.
Adjacency
The term adjacent is used very specifically in this game:
- Adjacency is always orthogonal, never diagonal.
- Adjacency considers not only north, south, east, and west, but also up and down.
Note: This means that you cannot build a module on the next floor above a module of the same color.
Services
The medical services featured in Clinic are:
- psychiatry
- cardiology
- ophthalmology
- orthopedics
- neurology
Patients & Staff
Throughout the game you will hire staff to run your clinic and treat your patients:
- Patients — The color of the patient indicates the severity of their illness.
- Doctors — The color of a Doctor indicates the severity of illness that they can treat without assistance from a nurse.
- Nurses — Nurses will assist doctors, enabling them to treat patients for which they aren't an exact match.
- Orderlies — Orderlies will help you reduce the day-to-day expenses of maintaining your clinic.
Buildings
Your clinic may comprise more than one building. A building is simply defined as a group of adjacent modules.
If you build a module that is adjacent to a previously placed module, you are simply expanding the size of that building. If you build a module that is not adjacent to a previously placed module, you are starting a new building.
Separate buildings can never be joined together later.
Floors
Each building may have a number of floors.
Your player board includes ground floor (Floor 0) and Floor 1, but there are Extra Floor boards in case you wish to build up to Floor 2 or even Floor 3. When building higher than the ground floor, you must build above a previously built module.
You can extend your board with a Floor 2 board and then a Floor 3 board at any time, even at the beginning of the game. They are separate boards merely to conserve table space.
Module Types at a Glance
Service Hubs — A service hub, which is magenta, determines which of the five types of medical care that entire floor of the building offers. Each floor of each building can only have one service hub, and hence can only offer one type of medical care.
Treatment Rooms — These orange tiles are where your doctors and nurses will treat most of your patients. The type of illness you are able to treat is determined by the adjacent service hub on the same floor. (Each treatment room tile shows the service it is for — e.g. psychiatric patients.)
Supply Rooms — These pink tiles are needed to successfully operate your treatment rooms. They perform no function themselves, they only enable treatment rooms to function.
Special Modules — These blue tiles have a range of special abilities and functions to help you run your clinic more effectively.
Parking — You will also need to provide parking for the doctors, nurses and orderlies you hire, as well as for the patients that you admit. Unoccupied borders between spaces can be used as parking, but you may also build parking spaces to more efficiently use the limited space available to you.
Setup
Please use the BEGINNER options for anyone who is new to the game; those familiar with the game can use the EXPERT options. You can have any mix of beginners and experts, even 3 beginners and 1 expert or 1 beginner and 3 experts.
Set the main board in the middle of the table (1).
Module and Tile Displays
Look at the "notepad" on the main board (2) to see which services will be available during the game, according to the number of players (also see table below). Stack the service hubs for the available services face down, by type, next to the Service Hub area on the main board (3) to form a supply. Turn the top tile of each stack face up. Return the others to the box.
| Players | Available services |
|---|---|
| 1 | psychiatry, cardiology |
| 2 | psychiatry, cardiology, ophthalmology |
| 3 | psychiatry, cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics |
| 4 | psychiatry, cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, neurology |
Stack the treatment rooms in any number of stacks next to the Treatment Room area on the main board (4).
Stack 4 supply rooms per player in any number of stacks next to the Supply Room area on the main board (5).
Stack a certain number (see table below) of each special module face down, by type, next to the Special Module area on the main board to form individual supply stacks (6). Turn the top tile of each stack face up. Return the others to the box.
| Players | Special modules |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 each of 2 different random special modules |
| 2 | 1 of each type |
| 3 | 2 of each type |
| 4 | 3 of each type |
Next to their corresponding areas on the main board, place the following: gardens (7), helipads (8), entrances (9), conveyors (10), and parking spaces (11).
Make a bank of the coin tokens, and stack the Extra Floor boards by floor. Place the bank and floors within easy reach of all players (12).
Player Areas
BEGINNERS should use the 4×3 side. Each EXPERT can choose which side they wish to play (3×3 is challenging!).
Each player: Choose a player color and take the following:
- a player board in your color, flipped to the appropriate side.
- 3 discs in your color. Place the first on the first space of the Time Spent track around the outer edge of the main board (13). Place the second on the Turn Order track (14) (once everyone's disc is on the Turn Order track, randomize their starting order). Place the final disc on the 0 space on the Popularity track (15), stacked to match the turn order, top to bottom: the latest in the turn order on bottom; the earliest, on top.
- $15, placed at the bottom of the left side of your player board (16).
- 1 set of 6 action tiles in your color (17): 2 Build, 2 Hire, 2 Admit Patients.
- 1 psychiatric service hub (18), 1 treatment room (19), 1 supply room (20), and 1 entrance (21). See Construct your Initial Clinic, below, for further instructions on where to place these in your clinic.
- 1 white doctor (22) and 1 car (23).
- 1 +50 Popularity token in your color (24).
Bonus Tiles
Shuffle the bonus tiles, then lay out 1 more than the number of players, face up (25). In reverse turn order, take 1 bonus tile each. Apply whatever one-time benefit your Bonus tile confers. Return all of the Bonus tiles to the box.
Note: If your bonus tile gives you a person, you must also take a car, as depicted on the bonus tile. The person comes from the supply, not from the pools/displays (see below).
Construct your Initial Clinic
BEGINNERS: From a set of 1 red, 1 orange, 1 yellow, and 1 white patient cube, take a random patient. Set up your clinic according to the diagram in the rulebook that matches the patient you drew, then put all 4 patient cubes back in the supply.
EXPERTS: Simultaneously build your initial clinic per the Construction Rules, p. 7.
Note: For this initial construction, your entrance MUST connect to your service hub.
Patient and Doctor Pools
Create the patient pool by putting the following patients in the Patient Pool bag (26), according to the number of players:
| Patient | 1 player | 2 players | 3 players | 4 players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Orange | 3 | 8 | 12 | 16 |
| Yellow | 6 | 12 | 18 | 24 |
| White | 9 | 18 | 26 | 34 |
Create a doctor pool by putting the following doctors in the Doctor Pool bag (27), according to the number of players:
| Doctor | 1 player | 2 players | 3 players | 4 players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Yellow | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| White | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
Place the leftover doctors and patients in a supply within reach.
Main Board
Doctor Display. Fill each space of the University (28) from the left, up through the number of players, with a random doctor drawn from the bag. Rearrange them according to the diagram on the university: red, orange, yellow, white. Just skip any colors you didn't draw.
Nurse and Orderly Display. Fill each row of the supply (29) from the bottom, up through the number of players, with 1 nurse per space.
Place 2 orderlies per player in their allocated spaces (30).
Fill the parking lot (31) with cars (they don't need to be neat). Set any remaining cars aside for now, they can be added to the parking lot later if needed.
Appointments. For each available service (depends on the player count):
- Draw 1 patient and place them in the rightmost space on the "notepad" (32).
Other. Place the Action marker on the first space of the Action track (33), just below the "notepad".
Place the Round marker (a big cube, not round at all, but it tracks the game rounds) on the first space of the Round track (34), on the right side of the board.
Playing the Game
The game lasts 6 rounds, each of which comprises the same sequence of phases:
- Actions
- Business
- Administration
Phase 1: Actions
During this phase, each player will perform 3 actions; however, for each action, everyone will simultaneously choose which Action tile they wish to use, and then the chosen actions are resolved in a particular order. The specific procedure for each action is as follows:
Everyone simultaneously selects an Action tile (see Simultaneously Select Actions below).
Next, the selected actions get resolved: first the builders build, then the hirers hire, then the patient admitters admit patients (see Execute Actions below).
After everyone has performed their action, new patients will schedule appointments (see New Patients Schedule Appointments, p. 13), and you will advance the Action marker on the main board.
Simultaneously Select Actions
Everyone simultaneously selects an action to perform: Select one of your available Action tiles, and place it face down in the middle of the play area (with the other players' if they've already placed theirs). Because you only have 2 tiles for each type of action, you will not be able to perform the same action thrice in a round: twice at most. Once everyone has selected, everyone reveals their selected Action tile.
Execute Actions
Next, the selected actions get resolved in the following order:
- Build
- Hire
- Admit Patients
This is the same order in which they appear, left to right, in the ACTIONS area (1) of the main board.
If several players picked the same action, these players perform their actions in turn order. After you perform your action, move your Action tile from the middle of the table to be beneath the first empty action slot in the lower-right corner of your player board.
Example: For your first action you picked the Build action. You will have the opportunity to play two more actions before this round moves on to the Business phase, however, only one of those can be another Build, since you only have a total of 2 of each action tile.
Action: Build
Building your clinic to treat more and more patients not only helps the public, but it is also a monument to yourself.
If you selected the Build action, you may build up to 2 components, paying the appropriate costs. The components are displayed to the left of the main board, and include modules as well as other components such as gardens, parking, helipads and conveyors.
Each component's cost is determined by the clinic floor on which you build it. You can find these costs on the left side of the floor.
Important: When you build a service hub or special module, you must take it from the face-up tiles. If the tile you want is no longer face up (because someone else built it this round, or there are simply none left), you cannot build it.
Construction costs are shown to the left of each floor on the player board. Some of these costs vary by floor, so always check the cost for the floor where you're building the component!
Construction Rules
The construction rules for each component are depicted with iconography in its area on the left side of the main board. Those rules are explained on pages 9 – 10.
General Construction Rules
Support
To build a module above ground floor, the same space on the floor below must have a module.
Example: Your clinic has these three modules (psychiatry service hub, treatment room, supply room) on the ground floor (floor 0). You cannot build on any of the red spaces until you build a module under them.
No matches
Same-type (same color) modules cannot be adjacent, not even above/below!
All service hub types are considered to be the same color (magenta), thus a cardiology service hub cannot be built adjacent to a psychiatry service hub. In the same way, you cannot build a special module (blue) adjacent to another, even if they are different.
Remember: Adjacency is always orthogonal, never diagonal.
Example: Using same setup as before, you want to build a supply room. The red spaces indicate unoccupied spaces that are adjacent to the existing supply room, and thus cannot contain another supply room.
No obstructions
Ground floor spaces might have cars parked around them (see Parking a Car, p. 12) and/or parking spaces in them. Spaces might have gardens in them (see Garden, below). You cannot build a module in a space with any of these obstructions in it. The easy way to remember this is that cars and gardens actually obstruct the spaces on your player board. If you want to build, and there is a car in the way, you will need to move the car first; and the primary ways to move a car are either sending a patient home, or building parking spaces. You also might clear parking spaces by failing to pay your staff….
Example: With your clinic set up like this, with 3 cars parked in these locations, you cannot build a module in any of the red spaces; however, you could build parking (as demonstrated in the northernmost row) or a garden (as demonstrated west of the supply room) in the middle of any of them.
Separate building
You are allowed to have separate buildings on your player board, forming a little campus; however, once you build a separate building, you cannot build a module that would connect separate buildings. Note that components that are not full-space parallelograms (such as gardens or parking spaces) are not modules, and it is OK to build them in a space that is adjacent to two buildings.
Construction Rules for Specific Components
Service hub (module)
Each floor of each building can have only 1 service hub.
Treatment room (module)
Although there are no particular construction rules for a treatment room, to be available for use it must be adjacent to a service hub on the same floor, and it must also be adjacent to a supply room; however, the supply room could be directly above or below this treatment room (it does not have to be beside the treatment room).
Immediately after you build a treatment room, you get a one-time bonus action to build a supply room, which must be adjacent to the treatment room. You must still pay for the supply room. If you don't build the supply room immediately, the opportunity is wasted.
Supply room (module)
There are no particular restrictions for building supply rooms, but a single supply room can support several adjacent treatment rooms, so clever positioning is important.
Special module (module)
Each player may only build 1 special module per round. There are no other particular construction rules for special modules; however, in order for the operating room to be available for use, it must be adjacent to a service hub on the same floor. If you'd like to read about how the various special modules work, see The Modules, p. 21.
Garden
This must be built in an empty ground-floor space (cars parked around it are OK, and need not be disturbed) or space above a garden.
Helipad
A helipad is a 5-way ingress/egress: From it, you can move north, south, east, west, or down (but not up: that's where the helicopter comes and goes) — but we'll cover movement later. This must be built in the empty space above a module, but no construction is allowed above the helipad.
Entrance
An entrance is a 1-way ingress to your campus. Your first entrance must point at a ground-floor service hub; subsequent entrances can point at any ground-floor module of any building. Entrances have their own spaces outside the normal grid of your ground floor: Place the entrance on such a space, pointing at a ground-floor module. This is the first thing new patients and staff will see, at least until you build other entrances or helipads.
Note: There aren't any entrance spaces on the north side of the clinic grounds. A strange clause in the land contract stipulated no entrances on the north side! Hey, don't complain now, you're the one who signed it. Read the fine print next time!
The Entrance tiles can be flipped to align with any entrance space.
Conveyor
Each conveyor represents the end of a transport link; you have to imagine the connection between these conveyors (perhaps it will help for you to imagine them as teleportation booths). A conveyor must always be built on a module. The first time you build a conveyor, you must build two aligned "stops" (but it still costs only $2 — the conveyor company gets you hooked with a buy-one-get-one-free sale for new customers). They do not need to be adjacent, but they must be orthogonally aligned.
Each subsequent construction of a conveyor entails adding a single stop that must align orthogonally with an existing stop. Your conveyor system can run on any and all of the three axes (east/west, north/south, up/down), and can branch as much as you like. It can even span between buildings. In fact, you are limited to one conveyor network for your entire clinic; you cannot start a second conveyor network, not even in a separate building.
Parking
2 Parking Spaces: These must be built by placing a Parking tile in an empty ground-floor space (cars parked "on the street" around it are OK, and need not be disturbed). When you build this, you may immediately move cars into it, up to its capacity of 2.
3 Parking Spaces: You build these by upgrading a normal Parking tile you have already built: Simply flip the Parking tile to the 3-car side. When you do this, repark any cars that had been on the 2-car side on this side; then you may immediately move additional cars into it, up to its capacity of 3.
Action: Hire
As you admit more and more patients, you will need to hire more and more staff!
If you selected the Hire action, you may hire new employees. You can:
- Hire 1 doctor.
and/or
- Hire either 1 nurse OR 1 orderly.
When you hire someone, do the following:
- Pay the indicated cost (see illustration on the main board).
- Take them from their space on the main board.
- Take a car from the parking lot on the main board.
- Place the new hire on any entrance or helipad of your choice. This does not take any time (see Move, p. 14).
- Park the car in any available parking space on your ground floor (see Parking a Car, p. 12). If you cannot park their car, you cannot hire them!
The cost for hiring doctors is printed under their space.
The cost for hiring nurses is printed above their space, and may increase as more nurses are hired.
You can only hire nurses from the current round's column.
Orderlies always cost $1 to hire.
Example: You decide to hire the red doctor. You pay the indicated cost ($4) and place the doctor on the entrance to your Clinic. You also find a place to park the doctor's car.
Next, you decide to hire a nurse, paying the cost of $2 (indicated in the space above the nurse) and placing them on the entrance to your Clinic. You also must find a place to park the nurse's car. You do not have the option of hiring an orderly, since you may hire either 1 nurse OR 1 orderly.
Action: Admit Patients
Admitting patients to your clinic may be the start of a logistical nightmare, but the patients have a bad case of full wallet syndrome, and they really need you to cure them.
If you selected the Admit Patients action, you may bring patients from the appointment notepad into your pre-admissions areas. Taking patients from the notepad into your pre-admissions is how you get the patients into your care, so you can move them into your clinic and start treating them. Note that we represent the patients' appointments by having the patient themselves stand on the notepad (it's a really big notepad).
The process of getting patients from the appointment notepad into your pre-admissions uses queue points (QP). The number of QP you have available for this action depends on the number of entrances and helipads you have:
QP = 1 + the number of entrances/helipads you have.
You can manipulate a patient's appointment as follows:
Move orthogonally 1 space on the notepad
If another patient is in the space to which this patient is moving, the two patients just swap places. Whether it's a swap or a simple move, this costs 1 QP.
Note: This indeed allows you to change a patient's appointment to a different, adjacent service (psychiatry is adjacent to only cardiology; cardiology is adjacent to psychiatry and ophthalmology; etc.)!
Admit the patient
This means moving a patient from the rightmost (red) column to an available pre-admissions space for that same service on your player board. This costs 1 QP. In order to admit a patient, you must also park their car (see Parking a Car below). If you cannot park their car, you cannot admit the patient!
Whenever a gap forms in a row, immediately shift the "appointments" that are left of the gap rightward to fill it.
You may repeat the above options, and may admit any number of patients (and otherwise manipulate the appointments) until you are out of QP.
Any QP you do not spend during this action go to waste; you cannot save them for later.
Note: Your pre-admissions only has room for 4 patients for each service. If you have 4 there already, you cannot admit any patients for that service.
Example: You have 4 Queue Points (QP) and want a white and yellow patient added to your pre-admissions area under Psychiatry. First, you move the yellow patient in the Cardiology row to the adjacent space above (in the Psychiatry row). Because the space you're moving into is occupied by another patient, they swap positions, moving the orange patient down to the Cardiology row. This costs 1 QP. Next, you admit the yellow patient, now in the Psychiatry row. This costs 1 further QP. You place the yellow patient on your player board, remembering to take and park their car. You have now spent 2 QPs total.
Next, you move the white patient from the Cardiology row to the adjacent empty space above. This costs 1 QP. Since there is an empty space to the right, the patient slides as far right as possible, in this case to the end of the row. You spend your fourth and final QP admitting this patient, now in the Psychiatry row, remembering to take and park their car.
Parking a Car
For each new patient you admit to your clinic, and for each new employee you hire, you must park their car. Even a patient who enters via helipad comes with a car: Someone helpfully parks their car at your clinic so the patient can drive away once they are well.
You must always park cars on the ground floor. Each space border with no module touching it has 1 parking space (as depicted on your player board). Each Parking tile has 2 or 3 parking spaces (as depicted on the tile). Once you park a car, you cannot move it, unless you build new parking spaces.
Remember: If a border has a car parked on it, no module can occupy a space on that border. So think ahead when you park cars at your clinic!
Cars are parked on the indicated areas along the borders of spaces on the ground floor.
Cars may be parked in the areas around gardens.
Parking lots allow for cars to be parked inside a space as well as on its borders.
Taking a Car
When a person (whether patient or employee) leaves, even if due to unfortunate circumstances, remove the car of your choice from your board, and return it to the supply. (Yes, the patient just drove off in the doctor's Maserati. She shouldn't have left the keys in it!)
New Patients Schedule Appointments
After each player has completed their selected action in the above order, new patients schedule appointments. Going from the top service to the bottom service, each service gets 1 new patient, drawn from the pool, added to the rightmost empty space in that row. If a service has no empty spaces, do not draw a new patient for it.
If the Action marker is already on 3, continue to Move (see Move, p. 14); otherwise, advance the Action marker, and everyone selects a new action to perform. New patients schedule appointments after Action 1, then after Action 2, and once again after Action 3, for a total of 3 times per round.
Once the Action marker is on the third space, and the new patients have scheduled appointments, it's time to move your patients and staff into your clinic.
Move
After your 3rd action is complete, it's time to move your patients and staff where they need to be. No need to wait for your opponents to finish their third action. Everyone can perform this step simultaneously; however, with beginners (or if anyone requests it) go in turn order, one time around the table: You do all of your moves, then the next player does, and so on.
You can move all of your people — doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients — as much as you want, but it all takes time, and "time is money," as they say! So, you want to move everyone to where they need to be as efficiently as possible, because time spent will incur penalties to your score at the end of the game, as depicted on the Time Spent track.
The most common goals of movement are as follows:
- Get patients into treatment/operating rooms connected to the correct service, or to outpatient services (in fact, you cannot move them to any other destination).
- Get doctors to patients, matching their colors as closely as possible.
- Get nurses to mismatched doctors and patients.
- Get doctors to labs to study and improve themselves.
- Get everyone to a legal location by the end of the movement step.
People cannot leave
Once a person has entered your clinic (moved from an entrance/helipad to spaces on your board, or from pre-admissions to outpatient services), they cannot leave the spaces on your board. The only ways for a patient to leave your clinic are by being cured, or by… expiring.
Patients never switch rooms
Once a patient finishes a round in a treatment room, operating room, or outpatient services, they stay there until cured… or until they meet their end.
How much time it takes a person to move
| Movement | Time |
|---|---|
| Move to an entrance or helipad from your Pre-Admissions | 0 |
| Move into your clinic from an entrance or helipad | 1 |
| Move to an adjacent module / ground-floor space (even outdoors) | 1 |
| Move from one conveyor to an orthogonally aligned conveyor* | 0 |
| Be whisked from pre-admissions directly to outpatient services | 0 |
| The Triage special module will reduce your total time spent each round by 3 | −3 |
* Because you have one network of orthogonally aligned conveyors, this means you effectively can move from a conveyor to any other conveyor for 0 time; however, some expansions rely on the individual stops, so always think through each step of moving by conveyor.
Once you have finished all of your movement, advance your disc on the Time track for each time you spent on movement.
Module Capacity
Although your movement is not limited by the capacity of your modules, a module's capacity does limit how many people can be in it at the end of this phase. Capacity is depicted on each module. Let's consider a treatment room, for example. It can only accommodate 2 patients and 2 doctors there. Nurses are the big exception: There is no limit to how many nurses can be assisting doctors, tending to patients, and so forth.
Remember: A full room never prevents movement through it.
If you have any doubts about a module's capacity, see the breakdown below:
| Module | Capacity |
|---|---|
| Service Hub | Any number of doctors and/or nurses |
| Treatment Room | 2 doctors, 2 patients, any number of nurses |
| Supply Room | 1 orderly |
| Operating Room | 1 doctor, 1 patient, any number of nurses |
| Triage | No one can end up here |
| Lab | 1 doctor |
| Outpatient Services | 1 doctor, 1 patient |
Take note of the following:
-
At the end of this phase, a person can only be in one of the modules above in which that type of person is mentioned. The one exception is that patients can remain in pre-admissions.
Example: Each patient must be in one of the following places at the end of this phase: a treatment room connected to the right service, an operating room connected to the right service, outpatient services, or pre-admissions. A patient cannot end up in a lab, a service hub, a supply room, or a treatment/operating room connected to the wrong service.
Example: Each orderly must end up in a supply room.
-
At the end of this phase, a module can only hold the indicated number of each type of person.
Example: Each treatment room can host 2 patients, attended by as many as 2 doctors, with any number of nurses assisting. No orderlies can be in the treatment room.
Example: Each lab can host 1 doctor, and nobody else.
-
Patients find their own way (effectively teleporting) directly to outpatient services from pre-admissions, ignoring the usual step-by-step movement, and taking no time.
-
Patients only move into your pre-admissions from the appointment notepad.
-
For a patient to be in a treatment room or operating room, the room must be connected to the correct service, i.e. the service for which that patient was admitted.
Note: Each person's movement must end on a module (unless they stayed in pre-admissions); no person can end their movement on an entrance or helipad. Likewise, you cannot leave new hires standing on an entrance or helipad. Everyone must be on a valid destination before you start the next phase.
Note: As you can see on the Time Spent track, at the end of the game, for each 3 time you've spent, you will lose 1 popularity.
Example: You want to move 1 yellow Neurology patient and one orange Ophthalmology patient from your pre-admissions. You also have hired a new white doctor and a new orderly.
- You move the new doctor to the lab:
- 1 to move from the entrance into the clinic.
- 0 to move by conveyor from the psychiatry service hub to the operating room.
- 0 to move by conveyor from the operating room to the lab.
- Total: 1.
- You move the orange Ophthalmology patient to the Ophthalmology treatment room:
- 0 to move from pre-admissions to the entrance.
- 1 to move from the entrance into the clinic.
- 0 to move by conveyor from the service hub to the ophthalmology treatment room.
- Total: 1.
- You move the orderly to the empty supply room on the top floor:
- 1 to move from the entrance into the clinic.
- 0 to move by conveyor from the psychiatry service hub to the operating room.
- 0 to move by conveyor from the operating room to the lab.
- 1 to move from the lab to the supply room.
- Total: 2.
- You move the yellow Neurology patient to one of the Neurology treatment rooms:
- 0 to move from pre-admissions to the entrance.
- 1 to move from the entrance into the clinic.
- 1 to move from the service hub to treatment room directly above.
- Total: 2.
- You have a Triage Special Module, so the time you spent moving people is reduced by 3.
- Your total time spent is 6 − 3 = 3. You record this by advancing your time spent marker 3 spaces on the time spent track.
Phase 2: Business
Generally, everyone can perform this phase simultaneously, but with beginners (or if anyone requests it) perform the steps in turn order.
In this phase, you will evaluate Patient Care and Income, pay your Expenses, and Gain Popularity according to your performance.
Patient Care and Income
Patients who receive treatment will generate income for you. These are the patients in outpatient services, treatment rooms, and operating rooms.
Important: Keep your income set aside at the bottom of your player board until this phase is done.
Each round, place your income in the indicated area below your player board. At the end of this phase, move any remaining income into your savings to the left of your player board.
Outpatient Services
In outpatient services, doctor color does not matter. 1 doctor can treat 1 patient, and you earn $6 regardless of patient color.
Treatment Rooms
In each treatment room and operating room, assign a doctor there to each patient, and a number of nurses to each doctor. If the doctor's color matches the patient's color, no nurses are necessary; however….
To successfully treat a patient, a doctor needs 1 nurse for each stage along the color progression schema that the doctor's level differs from the patient's illness severity. To put it another way, if the doctor is not the same color as the patient, the doctor needs 1 nurse for each color difference. Also, a nurse can only assist 1 doctor per round. So, if 2 doctors in the same module both need nurses, each needs its own full set of nurses.
Examples:
- If a red doctor treats a red patient, 0 nurses are needed.
- If an orange doctor treats a yellow patient, 1 nurse is needed.
- If a yellow doctor treats an orange patient, 1 nurse is needed (nurses can bridge the gap in either direction).
- If a red doctor treats a yellow patient (or yellow treats red), 2 nurses are needed.
- If a red doctor treats a white patient (or white treats red), 3 nurses are needed.
If a patient has the correct combination of doctors and nurses assigned to them, the patient is successfully treated (and you will get paid — ahem, and they are very happy)! Otherwise, treatment is a failure (and you will not get paid).
Each successfully treated patient in a treatment room or operating room generates income for you, based on the patient's color (not the doctor's color):
| Patient color | Income |
|---|---|
| Red | $32 |
| Orange | $20 |
| Yellow | $12 |
| White | $8 |
Gardens
Furthermore, each successfully treated patient in a treatment room generates an additional $2 for each garden adjacent to the room.
Operating Rooms
These work just like treatment rooms (well, half of a treatment room, because it can only host 1 patient and 1 doctor at a time), except that the operating room essentially has a built-in nurse, depicted as a nurse with an additional white border. Also, the operating room has no windows to outside, so it garners no benefit for adjacent gardens.
Going Home
Each successfully treated patient (in outpatient services, a treatment room, or an operating room) takes a car — any car (see Taking a Car, p. 12) — and goes home (this does not take you any time). The patient leaves the game (to the supply, not the bag), but the car returns to the parking lot on the main board.
Expenses
Remember your income from this round at the bottom of your player board? You must pay your expenses from this round's income. If you've spent every last cent of your income from the round, and still have more expenses, pay from your savings. If even your savings do not suffice, you must pay 1 popularity for each $1 you still owe. If your popularity hits 0 and you still owe, then you're off the hook for the rest: Consider your expenses paid.
To recapitulate, you must pay your expenses:
- From this round's income.
- From your savings.
- From your popularity, at a 1:1 ratio (1 popularity per $1).
Pay Your Employees
You must pay each employee as follows:
| Employee | Wage |
|---|---|
| Red doctor | $4 |
| Orange doctor | $3 |
| Yellow doctor | $2 |
| White doctor | $1 |
| Nurse | $1 |
| Orderly | $1 |
Facility Upkeep
Each module and garden in your clinic costs $1.
Each operating room that successfully treated a patient costs you an additional $2. That is to say that it costs you $1 in module upkeep + $2 = $3.
Each orderly reduces your total upkeep by $3 (minimum $0).
Facility upkeep examples:
- You have 4 modules and 1 garden, so your upkeep is $5.
- You have 4 modules and 1 garden, but you have 1 orderly, so your upkeep is $2.
- You have 4 modules and 1 garden, but you have 2 orderlies, so your upkeep is $0.
- You have 7 modules, 1 of which is an operating room, but you did not use the operating room this turn. Your upkeep is $7.
- You have 7 modules, 1 of which is an operating room, and you used the operating room this turn. Your upkeep is $9.
Your Operating Room successfully treated a patient, so you pay $3 instead of the usual $1 during upkeep, as indicated on the expenses area of the main board.
Gain Popularity
If you have any of this round's income remaining, you may buy popularity (just like in the real world!), in reverse turn order.
Each 1 popularity costs $3. Advance your Popularity marker on the Popularity track. If you end up sharing a space with other players, place your marker on top, so the order in which you reached that level of popularity is clear.
Note: You can only use this round's income to buy popularity.
After buying popularity, add the rest of this round's income to your savings that you can use for hiring and so forth — but remember: You can no longer use it to buy popularity!
Popularity Icons
Popularity is shown inside a hexagon, but there are four variations of this hexagon:
Instant — Popularity marked with a lightning bolt at the top, and no dotted outline: You immediately record this on the Popularity track. (Positive and negative variants.)
Endgame — Popularity with a dotted outline and no lightning bolt: You do not record this until the end of the game. (Positive and negative variants.)
Phase 3: Admin
This phase is mostly about setting up for the next round. Perform the following steps:
- Advance the Round marker.
- Reset the Action marker to Action 1.
Main board
-
Appointments: Return the patient in the rightmost space (marked with a red X) of each service to the patient pool.
-
University: Each doctor at the university levels up: red stays red, orange becomes red, yellow becomes orange, white becomes yellow.
-
University: Draw 1 doctor for each empty space (the number of spaces depends on the number of players), then rearrange the doctors, left to right: red, orange, yellow, white.
-
University: Remove the round's unhired nurses.
Example: if you just moved the Round marker to Round IV, any nurses still in column III are removed.
Your player board
- Lab: Each doctor in a lab levels up twice, giving you 1 popularity: red stays red, orange becomes red, yellow becomes red, white becomes orange. A doctor that was already red still gives you 1 popularity, even though the doctor didn't change color.
- Each other doctor (i.e. not in a lab) on your player board levels down: white stays white, yellow becomes white, orange becomes yellow, red becomes orange. Running around, treating patients is tiring!
- Each patient on your player board worsens: Red patients die, and you get −5 popularity. Remove the patient from the game and return a car to the parking lot on the main board. Orange patients become red, yellow become orange, and white become yellow.
Miscellaneous
- Special Modules and Service Hubs: Where necessary, flip the top tile of each type of special module and service hub stack face up. If a stack runs out, then that module will no longer be available to build.
- Reset turn order: The player with the lowest popularity goes first, then second-lowest, etc. If several players have the same popularity, the player who reached that popularity first goes later in the turn order. If turn order does not change from the prior round, make the last player first, and shift everyone else 1 position later in the turn order. In a 4-player game, this would result in 1→2, 2→3, 3→4, 4→1, for example.
End of the Game
After 6 rounds, the game ends. In addition to the popularity you bought during the game, you gain popularity at the end of the game in turn order, as follows:
Positive scoring
-
Employees: You gain popularity for your medical employees. Each doctor and nurse earns you the amount of popularity indicated below it here:
Employee Popularity Red doctor 5 Orange doctor 4 Yellow doctor 3 White doctor 2 Nurse 1 -
Treatment Rooms: You gain popularity for your fully functional treatment rooms:
For each treatment room you have that is adjacent to both a service hub on the same floor and a supply room (no need for an orderly in it): score the points shown next to its floor on your player board.
-
Buildings: For each additional building, which is correctly set up to treat patients, that you have: +8. (2 buildings: 8; 3 buildings: 16.)
Negative scoring
-
Patients: For patients still in your clinic, including those in your pre-admissions area, lose the amount of popularity indicated below it here:
Patient color Popularity Red −8 Orange −6 Yellow −4 White −2 -
Time Spent: Last, but by no means least, lose popularity equal to the highest negative popularity value that your marker has reached or passed on the Time Spent track.
The player with the most popularity wins!
In a tie, the tied player who reached the space first (i.e. was earlier in the turn order) is the winner.
Solitaire Mode
-
Choose which side of the player board you will use.
-
Choose one of the following endgame goals:
- no more white patients left in the bag or on any board
- build 3 buildings that can treat patients
- have spent no more than 12 time (net)
- have 7 doctors still on your player board
- have all 4 colors of doctors still on your player board
- have at least 3 colors of patients still on your player board
- build a service hub on the highest floor with which you are playing*
- treat at least 6 patients during Round VI (2 red, 2 orange, 2 yellow)
- have at least 4 nurses still on your player board
- have at least $200, and at least 0 popularity (after time penalty)
* Normally this is Floor 3, but an expansion adds another floor.
-
Play according to the usual rules.
-
If you did not achieve your goal, go to Step 2 to consider a new goal, and play again. If you achieved your goal, check your score against the Hall of Fame below:
| Popularity | Title |
|---|---|
| 0 – 20 | orderly |
| 21 – 30 | nurse |
| 31 – 40 | intern |
| 41 – 50 | resident |
| 51 – 60 | fellow |
| 61 – 70 | surgeon |
| 71 – 80 | attending physician |
| 81+ | CEO |
The Modules
Service Hub
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another service hub (magenta) module. Only one service hub per floor per building. Only 1 of each service hub type may be built in total each round.
- Operation: N/A
- Capacity: Any number of doctors and/or nurses.
- Function: Determines the service offered for the entire floor of that building. Adjacent treatment rooms on the same floor will only treat patients seeking that service.
Treatment Room
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another treatment room (orange) module. Optional bonus build of 1 adjacent supply room.
- Operation: Must have an adjacent service hub on the same floor and an adjacent supply room to operate. The supply room does not need to be on the same floor.
- Capacity: 2 doctors, 2 patients, and any number of nurses.
- Function: During the Business phase, up to 2 doctors may treat up to 2 patients that match their colors. Nurses must be present if the colors do not match (see Treatment Rooms, p. 16).
Supply Room
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another supply room (pink) module.
- Operation: N/A
- Capacity: 1 orderly.
- Function: Enables each adjacent treatment room to operate. The supply room does not have to be on the same floor as the treatment rooms.
Operating Room
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another special (blue) module.
- Operation: Must have an adjacent service hub on the same floor to operate.
- Capacity: 1 doctor, 1 patient, any number of nurses.
- Function: During the Business phase, 1 doctor may treat 1 patient of matching color. Nurses must be present if the colors do not match; however, the operating room has 1 "virtual" nurse at all times to assist the doctor. This "nurse" does not require wages (see Treatment Rooms and Operating Rooms, p. 16).
Outpatient Services
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another special (blue) module.
- Operation: N/A
- Capacity: 1 doctor, 1 patient.
- Function: During the Business phase, 1 doctor may treat 1 patient, regardless of color or service required. Patients may move directly here from Pre-Admissions without costing time.
Lab
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another special (blue) module.
- Operation: N/A
- Capacity: 1 doctor.
- Function: During Admin, a doctor in the lab will improve twice. An orange doctor will become red, and a red doctor will stay red. In any case, if you have a doctor in a lab during Admin, you gain 1 popularity.
Triage
- Construction: Cannot be built adjacent to another special (blue) module.
- Operation: N/A
- Capacity: N/A
- Function: During the Move step, reduce your total time spent by 3; however, your total time spent during the Move step cannot be less than 0.
Expansions
Thanks to crowdfunding stretch goals being met, the base game includes a few mini expansions. Do not add any of these until everyone has played the base game by itself a few times; there is much to master in Clinic! Once you are ready, you can add any or all of these to the game; however, one at a time will be much easier on everyone. Don't drive yourselves to the psych ward!
Blood Transfusion
Components
- 8 Blood tokens
Playing the Game
Each round, each player can have one employee give blood (to stock their clinic's blood bank, of course).
Phase 1: Actions
Move
New! Give Blood
You may move one of your staff (nurse, doctor, orderly, or janitor) per the normal rules to an otherwise empty service hub to start to give blood, a process that will be completed in Phase 2: Business. If there are other staff in the service hub, you will need to move them out before this one can give blood (your service hubs have fancy self-phlebotomy equipment). Lay the employee down to start the procedure.
- Lie down to give blood in an otherwise empty service hub. This takes 3 time.
In Phase 2: Business, your donor will produce a Blood token. Next round, any nurse can pick this up, and carry it to a treatment room to help a patient; this carrying and drop-off process takes no extra time!
- A nurse can carry blood to a treatment room. This takes no time.
- A nurse can drop blood off in a treatment room. This takes no time.
Phase 2: Business
Patient Care and Income
New! Service Hub (Blood Donation)
If you have any employees lying down all alone in service hubs, you may draw blood from one of them. Take a Blood token from the supply and place it on the service hub with the employee, and stand the employee up again. If multiple players are drawing blood, and there's not enough to go around, the least popular player draws first.
Treatment Rooms
A nurse in a treatment room with a patient and a Blood token, but no doctor, can help that patient with the blood.
Return the Blood token to the supply.
If the patient was white, the patient is completely cured: You earn the income, and the patient goes home, taking a car, as usual.
Otherwise, you earn the income as if you'd cured the patient, but the patient only improves by 1 color (red → orange, orange → yellow, yellow → white), and stays in the treatment room. Stand the nurse atop the patient (transfusions are tough!).
Phase 3: Administration
A patient with a nurse standing on it does not worsen; instead, simply take the nurse off the patient to stand beside them in the treatment room.
Extinguishers
Components
- 8 Extinguisher tokens
Playing the Game
Your clinic is offering something innovative and experimental in Small City: fire extinguishers. Unfortunately, none of the staff know how this new-fangled technology works, but patients are happy to pay a premium for a room near an extinguisher! It's so fascinating!
Phase 1: Actions
Action: Build
Construction Rules for Specific Components
Extinguisher: It must be built on a module that does not directly treat patients (i.e. not in a treatment room, operating room, or outpatient services), and does not already have an extinguisher. It costs $2 to build on the ground floor; $3 on Floor 1; $4 on Floor 2; $5 on Floor 3; $6 on Floor 4 (an expansion adds this floor).
Move
When anyone (staff or patients) moves into a module with an extinguisher, they must spend 1 additional time gawking at it. Even if someone takes a conveyor to that module, with intentions of continuing on the conveyor, they can't help but take a moment to study this thing before continuing; however, if the conveyor does not have a "stop" in that module, the extinguisher has no effect on the conveyee.
- Moving or conveying into a module with an extinguisher costs 1 additional time.
Note: A person who started the round in a module with an extinguisher will not spend time looking at it. Only people who move into the module with the extinguisher take time to gaze at it (even if they immediately move out of the module).
Phase 2: Business
Patient Care and Income
Treatment Rooms
Furthermore, each successfully treated patient in a treatment room generates an additional $3 for each extinguisher adjacent to the room. They're just so enthralling!
Workaholic Doctors
Components
- 4 purple workaholic doctors
Setup
Create a doctor pool by putting the following doctors in the Doctor Pool bag, according to the number of players:
| Doctor | 1 player | 2 players | 3 players | 4 players |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purple (workaholic) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Orange | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Yellow | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| White | 3 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
Main board:
University: Fill each space from the left, up through the number of players, with a random doctor drawn from the bag. Rearrange them according to the diagram on the university: (purple, red, orange, yellow, white). Just skip any colors you didn't draw.
Note: The university can never have more than 1 workaholic doctor; if you draw additional purple doctors, simply return them to the bag after filling the university.
Playing the Game
Phase 1: Actions
Action: Hire
Workaholic doctors cost 2× to hire. Because there can only be 1 at the university, and it is always in the leftmost space, this means it will always cost $8 to hire a workaholic doctor.
Move
Module Capacity: A treatment room with a workaholic doctor in it has greater patient capacity for yellow or white patients (but not for both at the same time): It can hold 3 yellow patients or 4 white patients.
Phase 2: Business
Patient Care and Income
Treatment Rooms
A workaholic doctor can treat either 1 red patient, up to 2 orange patients, up to 3 yellow patients, or up to 4 white patients in a single room at once, with no need for nurses. After he treats patients, lay him down (exhaustion!).
Phase 3: Administration
Main board
University: Draw 1 doctor for each empty space (the number of spaces depends on the number of players), then rearrange the doctors, left to right: purple, red, orange, yellow, white.
Remember: The university can never have more than 1 workaholic doctor; if you draw additional purple doctors, simply return them to the bag after filling the university.
Your player board
Each purple doctor lying down on your player board leaves the game (remember to return the doctor's car to the main lot).
Zombies in a Clinic
Components
- 8 green zombies
Phase 1: Actions
Move
If you have any zombies in your clinic, they must move (however you like, according to the following rules) before anyone else.
- Zombies can move to an adjacent module / ground-floor space. This costs no time.
- Zombies cannot use conveyors.
Then all the other people move as usual, except that no one is allowed to move into a module or space with a zombie in it. They can move out of one, however, and this is important because…
At the end of movement, anyone (staff and patients) in a space with a zombie is removed from the game (except 1 doctor in a lab with 1 zombie), but lay them near your player board. You must leave their cars parked on your board. Having the corpses near your player board will help with parked car accounting. Any patients that die this way give you the usual penalty for letting a patient die!
Phase 2: Business
Patient Care and Income
Treatment Rooms
In any treatment room that has 2 yellow patients, but neither doctors nor nurses, replace the 2 yellow patients with 1 zombie. If there aren't enough zombies to go around, players earlier in the turn order get them first, and for everyone else, the pair of yellow patients remains, unmutated.
Labs
1 doctor of any color in a lab with 1 zombie can cure the zombie, earning $32. If you do this, set the zombie beside your board (for car accounting), and lay the doctor down.
Note: Once 2 yellow patients become a zombie, their cars stay forever abandoned, even if you cure the zombie. In other words, each zombie should have 2 cars.
Phase 3: Administration
Your player board
Lab: Each doctor standing in a lab levels up twice, giving you 1 popularity: red stays red, orange becomes red, yellow becomes red, white becomes orange. A doctor that was already red still gives you 1 popularity, even though the doctor didn't change color.
Lab: Each doctor lying in a lab stands up.
Clinic / Pre-Admissions: Each non-zombie patient on your player board worsens.
End of the Game
Zombies: You gain 9 popularity for each zombie still in your clinic (such a spectacle!).
Icon Legend
Wooden pieces
- Doctor (any color)
- Doctor (Red)
- Doctor (Orange)
- Doctor (Yellow)
- Doctor (White)
- Doctor Improves (example of white to yellow shown)
- Doctor Regresses (example of yellow to white shown)
- Nurse
- Conveyor
- Patient (any color)
- Patient (Red)
- Patient (Orange)
- Patient (Yellow)
- Patient (White)
- Patient Worsens (example of white to yellow shown)
- Orderly
- Car
Tiles
- Service Hub (any type)
- Service Hub (any one type)
- Service Hub (Psychiatry)
- Service Hub (Cardiology)
- Service Hub (Ophthalmology)
- Service Hub (Orthopedics)
- Service Hub (Neurology)
- Treatment Room
- Supply Room
- Special Module (any one type)
- Special Module (Outpatient Services)
- Special Module (Lab)
- Special Module (Triage)
- Special Module (Operating Room)
- Garden
- Helipad
- Entrance
- Parking Lot (2 space & 3 space)
- Building
- Cannot build two modules of the same color adjacent (on all 3 axes)
- Floor
- Round
- Treatment
- Expenses
- Adjacency on 3 axes
- Requires a supply room and service hub to operate
- University
- Pre-Admissions (player board)
- Appointments
Actions
- Build
- Hire
- Admit
Queue points
For each Queue Point you may:
- Move 1 patient in appointments 1 space (swap if target space is occupied), OR
- Move 1 patient from rightmost column of appointments to pre-admissions (must match service)
Movement / Time
- Time
- Move from an entrance to an adjacent space on the same floor
- Move from a space to an adjacent space on the floor directly above or below
- Move from a helipad to an adjacent space on the same floor or directly beneath
- Move from a space to an adjacent space on the same floor
- Move from a conveyor to any orthogonally aligned conveyor (on any floor)
- Move from pre-admissions to an adjacent conveyor
- Move from pre-admissions to an Outpatient Services special module
- Move from pre-admissions to an entrance or helipad