History VideoGame / RhythmDoctor

* TrainingMontage: "Dreams Don't Stop", the Chapter 5 boss, has one part showing [[spoiler:Lucky teaching the Middlesea Hospital patients how to play baseball and training them into competent athletes, which pays off when they win the game against the University]].

* OminousVisualGlitch: A recurring theme, relating to the fact that you're operating a remote connection that may be disrupted.

* OminousVisualGlitch: A recurring theme, relating to the fact that you're operating a remote connection that may be disrupted.

* BookEnds: At least in the first early access build, [[spoiler:the Insomniac is both the first and final boss]].

* NotThatKindOfDoctor: Ada and Ian begin running into this problem with increasing frequency due to the hospital's staff being slashed to the bone. It especially becomes an issue in Act 5, where they have to service the Physiotherapy ward, despite neither of them being qualified PT's and the Rhythm Doctor machine having a negligible-at-best effect on such injuries. Sure enough, the treatment in this chapter is used mostly to regular the patient's stress-induced arrhythmia as he struggles with the fact his busted shoulder won't heal in time to save his budding baseball career.

** In Act 5, Dr. Edega is openly pushing for the Rhythm Doctor treatment to be used as a MagicalDefebrillator, insisting to Lucky that it's a miracle cure while foisting the actual details on Ian. Ian's insistence that Edega's promises are dangerous, irresponsible, and also physically impossible doesn't appear to faze him.

* MeanBoss: Dr. Edega almost constantly hounds Ian and Ada so that they don't take unsolicited breaks, and uses the Rhythm Doctor program as a crutch to avoid hiring more employees, leaving everyone stressed out.

** The early boss level "Battleworn Insomniac" has no real changes to one's input timings, unlike any other level in the game... but becomes severely chopped-and-screwed due to the patient's connectifia abortus infection damaging the wi-fi. [[spoiler:"Super Battleworn Insomniac" dials it up to eleven with not only more glitches, but a grueling 7/8 time signature represented by the patient's heart ''having a fragment broken off''.]]

** [[spoiler:The night shift version of the first boss goes [[UpToEleven even further]] with its glitching, to the point of making even the stage intro glitch out.]]

** "Worn Out Tapes" is a collaboration with upcoming game ''VideoGame/Unbeatable'', featuring a collection of patients from the game and set to the titular song composed for it.

** "Meet & Tweet" is a reference to ''VideoGame/BitsAndBops'', in which the blue wren from that game's minigame of the same name meets the canary from this game. It borrows the minigame's song for the level, as well as its gimmick of ShowDontTell speech bubbles depicting stories the birds are telling each other.

* {{Crossover}}: One of the minigames is largely a reference to ''VideoGame/BitsAndBops'', in which the birds from that game's minigame "Meet & Tweet" meet the bird from this game. It borrows the minigame's song for the level, as well as its gimmick of ShowDontTell speech bubbles depicting stories the birds are telling each other.

* Leitmotif: The central guitar riff for 1-2 "Intimate" becomes representative of Logan and Hailey as a whole, notably appearing later in 4-4N, "Murmurs", when the two characters become involved in the song.

* TheFaceless: Dr. Edega is always seen with his face buried in a clipboard, never showing what he looks like.

* MagicalDefibrillator: Subverted. Although your defibrillator helps with the abnormal heart rhythms caused by Cole and Nicole's caffeine and cigarette addictions, it's only a stopgap solution: it's mentioned that the problem needs to be solved at its root for their addictions to go away. The game's premise is based on managing clearly dysfunctional heart rhythms, and mismanagement will mangle hearts regardless of defibrillator use.

* OminousVisualGlitch: About halfway through "Battleworn Insomniac", the patient is confirmed to have connectifia abortus which apparently [[InterfaceScrew causes your visual (and sometimes, audio) signals to become glitched]]. [[spoiler:"Super Battleworn Insomniac" takes this up to eleven with the ''intro screen'' undergoing InterfaceScrew from the get-go. It only gets worse from there.]]
** Expect this wherever connectifia abortus goes. Even on the pad showing the intro notes for a level where it interferes, it will occasionally glitch out to a test screen.

* OneSteveLimit: Lampshaded. Both the tutorial character and one of the patients later in the game are named Hugh. The latter does not like this, and demands that the former change his name.

* SuddenlyVoiced: "One Shift More", as part of being a sudden musical number, switches from textboxes to voiced lyrics for the doctors.

* TriumphantReprise: The final Act 7 song uses parts of "One Shift More" to once again take the patients' perspective, but this time it's used to show that they ''don't mind'' not getting treatment immediately because they know how hard the rhythm doctors are working for them. The rest of the song carries a positive tone, with the patients appreciating all they do.

* MostWritersAreWriters: Cole's alternate song, "i wish i could care less", is basically about him trying and failing to get back into regularly composing music presented in musical form. The song also shows him going through computer files filled with tracks and failed songs.

* MustHaveNicotine: Nicole often smokes on the job, and even smokes ''on the hospital floor''.

* AdjustableCensorship: In one tutorial, it is possible to abort the summoning of a spider to scare a patient by pressing the spacebar twice when prompted, in case the player is arachnophobic.

* WorkInfoTitle: The first stage's song, "Samurai Techno" and its night shift version, "Samurai Dubstep" are named after their genres.

* MeanBoss: Dr. Edega almost constantly hounds Ian and Ada so that they don't take unsolicited breaks, and uses the rhythm doctor program as a crutch to avoid hiring more employees, leaving everyone stressed out.

* MostWritersAreWriters: Cole's alternate song, "Write More, Care Less", is basically about him trying and failing to get back into regularly composing music presented in musical form. The song also shows him going trough computer files filled with tracks and failed songs.

** The early boss level "Battleworn Insomniac" has no real changes to one's input timings, unlike any other level in the game... but becomes severely chopped-and-screwed due to the patient's connectifia abortus infection damaging the wi-fi. [[spoiler:"Super Battleworn Insomniac" dials it UpToEleven with not only more glitches, but a grueling 7/8 time signature represented by the patient's heart ''having a fragment broken off''.]]

* OminousVisualGlitch: About halfway through "Battleworn Insomniac", the patient is confirmed to have connectifia abortus which apparently [[InterfaceScrew causes your visual (and sometimes, audio) signals to become glitched]]. [[spoiler:"Super Battleworn Insomniac" takes this UpToEleven with the ''intro screen'' undergoing InterfaceScrew from the get-go. It only gets worse from there.]]

* MustHaveCaffeine: Cole, one of the two main patients of Act 2, is dependent on coffee to be able to produce his music.

* GratuitousPanning: In [[2-X, "All The Times", as the window moves around the screen, the music also pans from speaker to speaker.]]

* ShoutOut: The night shift version of stage 2-4, "Bomb-Sniffing Pomeranian", has Cole and Nicole playing a fighting game that is strongly implied to be ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''.