Sanatorium - A Mental Asylum Simulator
Zeitglas · 2025 · Medical Sim, Puzzle, Detective, Political, Card Game
PC
Mixed59% · 198 📈 Making a comeback 69%
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About Sanatorium - A Mental Asylum Simulator
“Sanatorium: A Mental Asylum Simulator Is One of the Most Unique Games I’ve Ever Seen” - VICEIt’s the roaring twenties, an age of technological progress and social upheaval. As the city around you expands, you feel left behind: a weary journalist burdened by debt and drifting purpose. Then, out of the blue, a cryptic message arrives from a childhood friend—perhaps the tip of a lifetime. It points to the infamous Castle Woods Sanatorium. A mystery waits there, and you can’t shake the urge to uncover it. It may be nothing more than a hunch, but it feels like a secret that could change everything. Even you. The decision is made: you pack your bags and set out for Castle Woods.
Test your wit and intuition. Every week, new patient files present new puzzles to be solved as you decide which tests to use to uncover symptoms and which treatments you prescribe to cure them. Decide whether you want to follow the rule book or try out experimental new treatments with unknown outcomes. Do you want to be kind or cruel? Business savvy or risk-taking? Uncover dark secrets behind the squeaky-clean facade of Castle Woods' walls. Meet helpless patients, ruthless opportunists, and an array of other intriguing characters. Collect clues and piece together the shocking truth about the Sanatorium and your own past.
Join our Discord and follow us on our platforms to get updates, read our dev diary weekly, and become part of the community!
Test your wit and intuition. Every week, new patient files present new puzzles to be solved as you decide which tests to use to uncover symptoms and which treatments you prescribe to cure them. Decide whether you want to follow the rule book or try out experimental new treatments with unknown outcomes. Do you want to be kind or cruel? Business savvy or risk-taking? Uncover dark secrets behind the squeaky-clean facade of Castle Woods' walls. Meet helpless patients, ruthless opportunists, and an array of other intriguing characters. Collect clues and piece together the shocking truth about the Sanatorium and your own past.
- Card-driven workplace sim — step into the role of a doctor in 1923, where every action is bound by the outdated tools and beliefs of the era.
- Diagnose, “treat,” or withhold — decide whether to follow harsh, archaic methods or act with compassion, knowing both choices carry consequences.
- Every patient is a puzzle — files unfold as layered card sets, with symptoms hidden, revealed, and misinterpreted through limited knowledge.
- A full campaign across 4 chapters — uncover the secrets of Castle Woods and the lives caught within its walls.
- Branching paths, multiple endings — your decisions shape not only patients’ outcomes, but your own fate as an impostor.
- Over 100 cards to chart — symptoms, illnesses, tests, and treatments drawn from the unsettled history of psychiatry.
Join our Discord and follow us on our platforms to get updates, read our dev diary weekly, and become part of the community!
DLC & expansions
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What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Still extremely buggy. It's a fun concept, and has great potential, but it is not at all ready for release.1 found this helpful
I want to like it, I do.. there are good points. It feels like it could be interesting. If you do want to play it, take notes as you go However, it plays HORRIBLY badly on Deck and I just hit a game breaking bug trying to play on PC. I cannot recommend this game1 found this helpful
Close to being a good game, but has so many weird little issues that keep it from being real primo stuff. 1. Every night, you can go exploring around the hospital. Unfortunately, most of the time there's absolutely nothing to do or see. Just doesn't seem very padded out, more of a time-waster than additional gameplay. 2. I swear the pipes broke every single night on the third ward. Having random events is great, but having the same random event every night gives for an unpolished feel. 3. The diagnoses were kinda weird and hard to make sense of or utilize. I get what they're supposed to do, but there were so many and yet I felt like I hardly ever used them at the same time. 4. Let me pick up the folder I just put down, omg! Several hours of fun before the wheels fall off. Not a lot of games like this, I don't regret buying or playing but it's too screwy to recommend to people.
I am really 50/50 on this game as a fan of the simulation/strategy genre. It is frustrating to see that there is a kernel of a great game hidden here, but the devs have just not done enough yet to bring it to life. The core gameplay idea of treating the patients, figuring out diagnoses and treatments is great. The setting is very stylish. The details in the setting are fun. But all these parts unfortunately do not yet come together to make a whole great game. I would say that it is about 70% there and hopefully its true potential will be realized. At this point though it's been more frustrating than fun for me personally, unfortunately.
I thought it's tricky to play on Steamdeck, so I moved to desktop. Somehow Steamdeck actually performed better in comparison, but not enough for me to continue playing. Sad, happy to try it again once the devs will fix it.
The game is a lot of fun and currently not too challenging in terms of managing the diagnosis, which I am grateful for. Unfortunately, quite a bit of bugs here and there, especially in Ward 4, which is frustrating as it is challenging enough already. Exploration is also very limited, though I did enjoy chatting with the gatekeeper for a while. All in all, quite fun, you can enjoy pretending to be a doctor, wearing a nice white coat, trying to juggle prescribing music, workouts, or ice baths. Great times
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