Trust Me I’m A Doctor
So, you’ve always wondered what it was like back in the times before modern medicine we know today? You think that Swine Flu, H1N1, and Covid-19 are the only plagues this world has faced? Well now it’s your turn to become a world renown Plaque Doctor. Put on that ridiculous bird mask and do your best to come up with the greatest (if you choose to call it that) cures for all the ailments that are throw at you.
Game Overview
Trust Me I’m A Doctor designed by Jack Ford Morgan and published by Half-Monster Games is a party game for 3-8 players. Its a party game, ala Apples to Apples or it’s adult “drunk uncle at the party” Cards Against Humanity, where players take on the roles of patients and plague doctors playing ailment and cure cards from their hands to come up with the best or shall we say “Most Convincing” cure for the ailments that are presented. Accumulate 3 ailment cards to be declared the winner or as the game describes, Surgeon General.
Setup
Shuffle the ailment and cure decks. Players are each dealt a hand of 3 ailment cards and 6 cure cards. Place the rest of the ailment cards and cures in separate draw decks in the center of the table. You are set yo jump into action now.
Gameplay
Similar to being the judge in Apples to Apples players take turns being the “patient”. As the patient they play an ailment card from their hand to the center of the table. Some of the ailments are completely off the wall, but true historical medical conditions (ie. Projectile Diarrhoea…yes it is spelled this way in the game and not diarrhea). At the bottom of each ailment cards are various icons. The other players playing the “doctors”, play a cure card or combination of cure cards from their hand with the intention of playing enough cards to match the icons at the bottom of the ailment card. As players play cure cards with enough symbols to match the ones displayed on the ailment card, they do their best to verbally convince the patient that their method of curing their ailment is better than others. As others play cards players are able to convince the patient why their opponents treatment is not the best course of action all while heckling/downplaying your competitions treatment plan. How can you convince you patient that a combination of Dung Juices and Electroshock Therapy is the best cure for that case of Projecticle Diarrhoea? The patient choses their treating doctor awarding the doctor the ailment card. Players draw back up to their starting hand of 3 ailments and 6 cures and play continues until someone acquires 3 ailment cards.
Final Thoughts
Now let me first start off with saying, that this game is rated for players ages 12 and older, but I will tell you that some of the artwork and ailment/cure card descriptions might be thing you wouldn’t want your preteen seeing. For example to check out the card art for the Urethral Plug cure card. Not something I want my 12 year old seeing. Again that is just me and I would encourage parents to be aware prior.
Not with that said I think that this game has its place with the right group of people. This is a game that may not go over well with a group who enjoys Apples to Apples, but may go over very well with a group of friends who enjoy Cards Against Humanity but what something less vulgar but has the freedom to go there if the group so chooses.
The group I played it would got some good laughs out of some of the cards and hearing players give descriptive explanations of how their treatment is right for the patient. The art is funny, weird, and sometime disturbing; but what can you say…plague doctors of the past had some off the wall diagnoses and cure for their diagnosis. Although after going through most of the ailment cards and having to reshuffle the cure card discard pile, the game started to get stale for us. We did attempt the game a second time with the same group and while we had a few laughs we determined that the games level of deployability with the same group dropped off. We agreed that this also is a game that all players at the table have to be in the mood to play or at least be prepared for what to expect and in the mood for that kind of experience. One big downside to the game is that play can become very subjective with players just selecting what their friend at the table played as a cure since the information is all open knowledge.
While this game wasn’t a hit for us we would think that this game might get some enjoyment out of a group of med students looking for a late night chuckle and a de-stresser from the med school grind.
More from Half- Monster Games
Half-Monster Games currently has a Kickstarter campaign that is live for their newest game, Trust Me I’m a Superhero. From the sounds of it this game looks like it takes some of the flaws of Trust Me I’m a Doctor and improves on them. In this game, players play 2 cards facedown from their hand of 10 cards; 1 Super and 1 Power card thus creating a “superpower” for their hero. The judge or “Citizen” then selects a “Call for Help” card from their hand and plays it face up in front of all players. Players then take turns revealing their superpower and how it will aid in the call for help. The citizen selects a winner after some heckling, arguing, and convincing. That hero games the call for help card. First to 3 wins. If this one sounds more up your alley check out the campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jackfordmorgan/trust-me-im-a-superhero-a-card-game-of-debatable-heroism. The campaign ends November 26th, 2020.