Mad Nurse

{{Short description|1984 video game}}

{{Infobox video game

|image = File:Mad Nurse cover.jpg

|caption = Cover art

|title= Mad Nurse

|publisher=Firebird Software Ltd.

|designer = Simon Pick

|released = 1984

|genre = Platformer

|modes = Single-player

|platforms=Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum

}}

Mad Nurse is a video game programmed by Simon Pick and published by Firebird Software Ltd. for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum in 1984.

The plot of the game is that you control a nurse at a maternity hospital, where you have to rescue the babies who have escaped from their cots. If left alone, the babies will eat medicine bottles, electrocute themselves at electrical outlets, and fall down the elevator shaft. The gameplay has the form of a non-scrolling platformer where the nurse can use an elevator to ascend or descend platforms. If too many babies die, the nurse is fired.

Firebird initially refused to publish the game, because dying babies were too controversial, but changed their minds when their post of head of development changed hands. Some outlets also refused to sell the game.{{cite web|url=http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/interviews/simon_pick.php|title=An interview with Simon Pick|publisher=Lemon64.com|date=|accessdate=2015-06-26|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190922191705/https://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=https://www.lemon64.com/interviews/simon_pick.php|archivedate=2019-09-22|quote=At first the guys at Firebird refused to publish [Mad Nurse] - saying it was in really bad taste [..] Then a new head of development arrived [and] he got it released. [..] A couple of high street chains banned it, but other than that it went without any comments.|url-status=live}}

The music in the game is adopted from Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt (the friska in the second section) and Brahms' Lullaby by Johannes Brahms.{{Cite web|url=http://www.lemon64.com/music/sidinfo.php?sid=25578|title = SID info}}