Comparison

gistalt vs SimShockPad

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

gistalt

This medical game challenges players to quickly assess patient acuity by swiping left for stable patients and right for those needing immediate intervention. It's designed to make training clinical impression skills engaging and fun.

Highlights
  • Patient acuity assessment
  • Swipe-based gameplay
  • Vital signs and lab results
  • Imaging interpretation
  • Performance scoring
  • Regular content updates
Features
Read full description

Your clinical impression (or "gestalt") about a patient's acuity is both critical and difficult to train. gistalt was designed to make it fun! Your goal playing gistalt is to accurately identify which patients are sick (requiring hospitalization or immediate interventions for stabilization) or not-sick (conditions that can be safely treated with outpatient follow-up). gistalt games are simple and fun. You'll start with a stack of patient presentations including vital signs, laboratory results and imaging. Swipe each card left (for not-sick) or right (for-sick) to see the next question. At the end of the stack, review your responses and see your score. Your gistalt score specially gauges your ability to detect the most critically-ill patients and institute the treatments that will make a difference. New questions are added regularly and don't require an app update.

About

SimShockPad

This interactive simulator trains users to manage critical hemodynamic situations like heart failure, bleeding, and septic shock. Make rapid, accurate decisions under pressure using a variety of therapies and advanced treatments to keep patients alive.

Highlights
  • Three pathological modes (heart failure, bleeding, sepsis)
  • Seven combinable therapies with dose-dependent effects
  • Advanced treatments for specific conditions
  • Multiparameter real-time monitoring
  • Adjustable difficulty and game speed
  • Multilingual interface
  • Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and macOS
Features
Read full description

SimShock is a hemodynamic simulation game. It is not a teaching or instructional tool, nor is it a clinical simulator. Think of it as a home flight simulator: true to the spirit, carefully made, but still a game. One critically ill patient, vital signs changing in real time, and very little room for error. The patient may arrive with heart failure, massive hemorrhage, septic shock or an arrhythmia. Each condition behaves differently, and what saves one patient can sink another. NEW HEMODYNAMIC ENGINE A new model links heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output and vascular resistance to filling pressures. The baroreflex has two arms and can become exhausted, each patient has an individual sensitivity to each drug, and infusions have a therapeutic window: inside it they do their job; outside it, they do something else. No drug has a hard ceiling — if you overdo it, you will see the consequences. Real physiology is far more complicated. Many rules have been deliberately simplified to make the game playable. THE THREE SCREENS · Monitor — real-time ECG and pulse waveform, with systolic pressure, heart rate and venous pressure shown in traffic-light colors. Ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias may develop spontaneously during a case. · Hemodynamics — cardiac output, cardiac index, vascular resistance, capillary and pulmonary pressures, stroke volume, blood volume and ventricular work, displayed as either values or a profile. · Trends — 1-, 5- and 10-minute evolution with an event log: this is where you can see exactly where the game went wrong. ACTION BUTTONS · Norepinephrine — at high doses, increased resistance chokes the ventricle: capillary pressure rises and cardiac output falls. · Dobutamine — increases cardiac output without increasing blood pressure. At high doses: tachycardia and hypotension. · Dopamine — above 20 µg/kg/min it irritates the ventricle: ectopic beats after ten seconds, ventricular tachycardia after twenty-five. · Nitroglycerin — unloads the lungs quickly, and can take the blood pressure down with it if the patient has little to spare. · Furosemide — makes a difference in the fluid-overloaded patient, not in the dry one, no matter how high you turn it up. · Saline and transfusion — finite bags: every milliliter counts. · Antibiotics — three regimens and one source of infection. Only the regimen that covers it works, and the infection itself must be controlled (Infection Control button). · Antiarrhythmics — adenosine, diltiazem, esmolol, propranolol, procainamide and amiodarone. · Defibrillator, non-invasive ventilation and transfer to intensive care. · Transfusion — transfusing alone is not enough: the bleeding must also be controlled (Bleeding Control button). THE CONTROLS · Notes — the assistant tells you what the patient still needs to become stable. · The doctor — tap to switch between a male and female doctor. If things go wrong, the expression changes. · Events — a log of what you did and when. · Pause — freezes time. Speed makes it run faster or slower. · Difficulty — changes how the patient evolves, not the reference ranges. · Arrhythmias — from off to a randomized 30% probability, or automatic according to difficulty. · Patient — variable or standard. Switch it off if you want reproducible games. · Random — hides the condition name and switches off the traffic lights: you have to read the numbers. · Exam — ten consecutive cases with scoring. · Cockpit — switches between the classic interface and the command-station view without losing the current game. · Language, Instructions and volume from 0 to 100 next to the clock, with a separate mute control. NOTICE SimShock is a game that represents pathophysiological situations in a simplified way. It is not an educational tool or a clinical guide, and it does not provide medical advice or recommendations. Always consult healthcare professionals.

Screenshots

gistalt4 screens
SimShockPad4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: gistalt at 100% against SimShockPad's 0%. gistalt also leads on rating (4.9 vs 1.0) and ratings volume (16 vs 1). SimShockPad's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 22 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

gistalt holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: gistalt has 16 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of gistalt's written reviews are positive against 0% of SimShockPad's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

gistalt ships an update every 22 months, SimShockPad weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 15, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
gistalt versus SimShockPad: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametergistaltSimShockPad
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (16 ratings) — better1.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings16 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 22 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.4 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size35 MB130 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperTom FadialPablo Kessler Saiz

Customer experience

gistalt

All ratings16 ratings
Positive93.8%
Neutral6.3%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

SimShockPad

All ratings1 ratings
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

In-app purchases

None

gistalt

No in-app purchases

None

SimShockPad

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is gistalt free?
gistalt is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is SimShockPad free?
SimShockPad is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, gistalt or SimShockPad?
gistalt is rated higher. gistalt averages 4.9 out of 5 from 16 ratings, while SimShockPad averages 1.0 from 1 ratings.
Do gistalt or SimShockPad have ads?
Neither gistalt nor SimShockPad shows ads.
Which is updated more often, gistalt or SimShockPad?
gistalt ships an update every 22 months, and SimShockPad weekly. Most recently, gistalt was updated on September 15, 2026 and SimShockPad on September 23, 2026.

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