Animal Hospital (Anomaly)

Animal Hospital (Anomaly) is a cooperative game that combines veterinary hospital management with imposter detection mechanics, inspired by games like That's Not My Neighbor. Players work the night shift at a strange hospital where sick animals arrive for treatment. However, some of these patients are actually disguised anomalies attempting to infiltrate the building. Before admitting each patient, their appearance, a snapshot, and security camera footage must be carefully reviewed. If any irregularity is detected, it must be rejected using the security airlock; otherwise, the anomaly will enter the hospital and endanger both patients and staff.

Although the game doesn't fully explain its story, several dialogues suggest that a mysterious infection or supernatural force is transforming ordinary animals into hostile creatures. The hospital appears to be one of the few places still attempting to contain the phenomenon. The mystery unfolds through events, conversations, and encounters with increasingly dangerous entities.

Spoilers: If an anomaly manages to enter, it can become a Skinwalker, a creature that attacks players and other patients, reducing their Sanity and making it difficult to complete the turn. Some anomalies even perform rituals or trigger special events if they are not identified in time.

The most important characters include Dr. Harlow, who provides some of the information about the anomalies and states that they hate being photographed; Barney, a character who stars in a side event with several choices and endings; and the players themselves, who can choose different classes with specific skills to survive and treat patients.

Patients' abnormalities can manifest in various ways, including visual ones.

In Animal Hospital (Anomaly), the real danger isn't just the disguised patients, but also the entities that appear within the hospital as the players try to complete their shift. Anomalies fall into two main categories: anomalous patients, who attempt to enter the hospital disguised as normal animals, and environmental anomalies, which appear in the hallways and rooms to hinder the team's work. Both affect the Sanity bar; if it reaches zero, the screen begins to distort, and survival becomes much more difficult.

Patients with abnormalities may exhibit visible changes even before entering the hospital. Some of the most common abnormalities include three red eyes, an exaggerated smile with human-like teeth, hollow eyes, misaligned eyes with a disturbing expression, a hunched posture, and spasmodic movements known as twitching. They may also sometimes have a deep, distorted voice. A single patient may display several of these abnormalities simultaneously, so examining only one detail is never sufficient.

Other anomalies can only be discovered using a camera. A photograph can reveal eyes different from those seen in person, altered ears or horns, images completely unlike the actual patient, static-filled photographs, or even cursed images with bloodshot eyes and distorted smiles. Some cursed photographs consume 10 sanity points when viewed by the player before they finish developing, forcing them to be handled with care.

Security cameras (CCTV) reveal anomalies impossible to detect with the naked eye. A patient may appear as a completely black figure (Void), with their face covered by a black band from which very realistic eyes (Black Eyes) protrude, with a deformed body that changes shape each time it is viewed.