A Doctor’s Term is a great student project, but not polished enough for its price. Its intriguing atmosphere and lovely visuals don’t make up for its lackluster characters and limited story.

Introduction

As someone who has never made a video game, I can only imagine how much work is needed to create one. That’s one reason why I like seeing student project games. A Doctor’s Term is a walking simulator that started as a student project, and I think it’s great that the game was finished and released on Steam. That’s a first step that many creators don’t get to make.

I want to state that upfront because I am going to critique a lot about A Doctor’s Term. As a game made by students who are still at the beginning of their careers, this product is a great showing. However, it is priced at $3.99 USD on Steam, and I feel that price is a bit too much to ask. I would be reviewing this differently if it was, say, $2 or less. I don’t want to jump on the bandwagon that insists first projects like these should be free, but I also think it’s important to remember that many customers have to carefully pick what they want to buy. Thus, I respect putting this up for purchase, but it’s too much of a cost for what it provides. Here is why.

Story

A Doctor’s Term takes place in the year 2076. You play the role of Dr Vincent Batten, a new employee to the Ministry of Health of the Fourth Republic. He is there to take care of patients during a time of unease. The rebellion group called Red Hand is causing chaos, and while Dr Batten seems to have no reason to cross paths with them, they have him on their radar. Will he stick to the program, or will he take part in overthrowing the system? That’s up to you to decide.

Due to the short runtime of A Doctor’s Term, not a lot is spelled out. I actually had to look up Dr Batten’s full name and the exact location he was in. It felt to me like the characters needed more time to develop. I think some of them should have been outright cut. For instance, Dr Batten has a son named Adrian. He gets all of one conversation and it doesn’t do much beyond give some context for the Red Hand riots. That discussion could have instead been with Julia, a character who shows up more often and thus could have used some further expansion. Julia appears in a lot of the text-based cutscenes, yet I know almost nothing about her other than that she loves Dr Batten. I don’t even know if she’s his wife. My assumption is yes, but she could be a love interest without taking that step, or they might not have official marriage in this world. That’s not a big deal, but it showcases how little attention she is given.

I would be fine with this if Dr Batten was the primary focus, and I do think that was the intention. Centering all of your development on the protagonist and having flat side characters can work if the latter helps to develop the former. Yet Dr Batten seems to be torn between having his own personality and being a blank slate. The text cutscenes call Dr Batten “you” when using narration. This gives the impression of Dr Batten being a conduit for the player instead of being himself. Dr Batten also doesn’t seem to have much drive one way or another until you are close to the end of the game. I believe this is because it makes it easier to have the player make game-changing decisions. You don’t have to worry about being out of character if said character has nothing to be out of.

Related to that, you don’t do much as a doctor. I’m not even sure why Dr Batten needs any credentials. The job is literally taking capsules a machine gives you and putting them where said machine tells you to. This is followed by the machine telling you if the capsules shouldn’t be used with the patients and having you recycle the capsules. I don’t mind this as a simplistic gameplay mechanic. It just feels incredibly silly from a story perspective. A trained monkey could do this job about as well as Dr Batten does. Even funnier is that he only does one of these a day, meaning his work shifts are about five minutes long. Must be nice to get paid for that.

Back to more serious matters, another issue I have is with the dialogue. It feels unnatural most of the time. One of my biggest pet peeves was how Dr Batten and Dr David kept addressing each other by name. If you listen to a standard conversation between two people, they won’t say each other’s names much. The doctors sound slanted due to this, along with expository at certain points. Walking simulators thrive on story and characterization, so having weak dialogue is a major drawback for this genre in particular.

On a lesser note that still is problematic, I noticed a handful of typos while playing. Most of them were in the subtitles (I got a particular chuckle out of “Gottcha!”) but some did appear in the text-based story sections. I get that this is a student project and they probably didn’t have the funds for a professional proofreader. That being said, these grammatical and spelling mistakes stand out like a sore thumb and take away from the experience.

With all of this being said, I do want to comment that I liked a lot of the ideas on a conceptual level. I enjoy dystopia settings, and this hints at an interesting one. It doesn’t bother me that this game only focuses on a piece of said setting. You’re only going to get so much out of a short experience. A Doctor’s Term does a good job of providing hints at what the setting is like and leaving the player to fill in the gaps. It just isn’t strong enough to stand on that alone, at least in my book.

Graphics

The graphics are the strongest part of A Doctor’s Term. Most futuristic settings involve a lot of metal, glass, and machinery for their environments. This game does have some of that, but for the most part the setting has a heavy focus on stone. The building Dr Batten works in looks stunning. The towering humanoid statues, plant-encroached bridge, and proudly displayed banners are striking for their uniqueness in such a time period. The sheer emptiness of such large locations gives it an atmosphere of uneasiness to go with the awe. Environmental storytelling is a big part of walking simulators, and A Doctor’s Term does a great job with it.

I did notice that Dr Batten’s hand looks a bit odd. It looks somewhat puffy, and I think this has to do with his wrist being much thinner than I’d expect. It’s worth noting that hands are very difficult to get right, so this is a nitpick more than anything. Also, one setting element I found amusing was how the control panels for the cells are widely spread out instead of all being accessible from the main machine. This forces Dr Batten to run to each panel in the huge room for using capsules. At least he’s getting some exercise in his really easy work shifts.

One other thing: the game logo is really good. I don’t usually notice game logos, but this one stood out. The monitor lines being used to form the “A” and outlining “Doctor’s Term” makes it memorable. Kudos on that.

Sound

I played through this game four times. Upon coming to this section of my review, I had the realization that I couldn’t remember a single track from A Doctor’s Term. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen to me. Because of this, I had to listen to the soundtrack on its own, and even then it was so mellow that it simply didn’t stick with me. The music isn’t bad at all when you’re hearing it; it just did nothing for me. I suppose the best I can say is that it’s atmospheric, yet I don’t even know what kind of atmosphere I’d call it. Calming, I suppose? It’s definitely trying for some emotions. I’m willing to bet it would appeal to other players, but on my end, it’s too subdued even in context.

A far bigger problem is the voice acting. The only voice actor that I think did an outright good job was Dr David’s. He has a creepy rasp to his voice while speaking in a seemingly pleasant manner. Dr David’s is okay at best, as are a few others that appear in flashbacks. Unfortunately, Adrian’s was unconvincing, and Julia’s was very poorly done. Julia has a lot of spoken dialogue, which makes her flat portrayal even more damning. I honestly think it would have been better if the text-based cutscenes weren’t voiced. Again, I’m sure there was a limited budget and that the creators had to make do with what they had, but voice acting in these scenes wasn’t necessary and it drags the overall game quality down.

Gamplay

The primary gameplay element in A Doctor’s Term is walking. I am sure that this will shock everyone given that it’s a walking simulator. The controls are standard for moving around, using WASD or the arrow keys depending on which you fancy. To the credit of this game’s creators, you are able to hold down left shift to run. This gives enough speed to avoid tedium from walking everywhere.

Outside of doing the thing you do in the genre name, you’ll need to interact with certain devices. This is done by pressing the space key in front of the object in question. You can also read notes that you find on the ground. Why there are so many notes crumpled up and thrown on the ground everywhere is anyone’s guess. Maybe they don’t have janitors in the year 2076. It’s fortunate that the notes are around though since they give some context to the story.

The only other gameplay factor is making story decisions. Sometimes the text-based story cutscenes will have two choices. These lead to slightly different outcomes in dialogue. While I think it’s a nice idea to have that for variation and encouraging replays, the differences are too little for me to think much of. If you had time to get more attached to the characters, then maybe this would have been more compelling. As it is, I don’t care enough about Julia to be concerned about whether she’s happy with Dr Batten or not, which appears to be the main outcome of what choices you make. It could have been cut down to the two major decisions near the endgame and that would’ve been enough on its own.

A personal complaint related to this is that I wish the game hadn’t held your hand in regards to your tasks. When I read the notes scattered around, I was like, “Oooh, I can swap the capsules to get different outcomes!” Then the game just outright tells you that’s an option via its task list. I get not wanting players to be confused by what they need to do next, but exploration and experimentation is part of the fun of walking simulators. I’d have rather the task lists be optional to look at. That’s definitely a preference thing rather than an outright downside, but I figured I’d mention it for players with similar mindsets as mine.

Something that I did appreciate was how convenient it was to replay the game. Since A Doctor’s Term has multiple dialogue options and two endings, you’re encouraged to give it at least one more go-around. The second playthrough lets you skip the tutorial for using the machines, and another option allows you to jump immediately to a point close to the end. I actually didn’t use the latter because I wanted to experience as many dialogue trees as possible, but the former was much welcomed for saving some tedium.

My final note here is that A Doctor’s Term has a game-breaking bug if you’re not careful. A certain section involves taking a capsule from the machine. This capsule has a note attached to it. After reading the note, another capsule appears for you to take. However, my first time around, I was reading a note on the ground when the first capsule appeared. I exited out of the note screen and heard the second capsule being delivered. Thus, when I picked up the capsule from the machine, I was missing the first one due to it being skipped. I had to reset the game to redo that section. It’s fortunate that the game autosaves at the beginning of each section or this would’ve been a real pain.

Conclusion

Having received A Doctor’s Term for free via a curator group, I found it to be enjoyable and a good first outing for the creators, yet with nothing strong enough to make it particularly memorable. Had I bought this for its full asking price of $3.99 USD, I would have felt a bit miffed at the cost for this experience. If you are a fan of this genre and really want to give it a try, I recommend waiting for a sale. To the developers, Council of Pure Sanity, I hope that you continue making games, because this is a promising start and I would like to see where you go from here.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Council of Pure Sanity for providing a free review copy of this game.

Abridged review posted on Steam ➞

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