Two Point Campus Preview – Where You Actually Have To Do Your Job

It’s time to profit from education with Two Point Campus, the new management simulation game from Two Point Studios. Coming off the capitalistic hellscape of the medical industry in Two Point Hospital, you are now in charge of some AI people’s formative years around the equally treacherous field of education.

Note that this was a press preview build, so we can expect things to change when the full game launches 9 August 2022.

Do check out our interview with Mark Webley (Studio Director), and Chris Knott (Lead Animator) here!

PRESENTATION

Much like Hospital, the general look is cartoony to fit the overall comedic tone. The animation feels like it’s gotten a bigger budget, with them looking good and a variety to cycle through. You can see the students juggle their stuff, or even merely loitering around. The animations are as such that they still seem unique, even “lifelike”.

The individuality extends to the locations and their themes, the courses and students. The user interface has been cleaned up from Hospital, with an easier to navigate menu, so it can make the entire experience feel much smoother. It’ll be nice to have more speed-up options; even 2x can feel slow.

CONSTRUCTING ADDITIONAL PYLONS

Building works similarly to Hospital. Build within the pre-built outer wall the building, and have a wall sticking out if your room happens to be just that one block wider. Don’t worry about it.

That said, the building system is enjoyable in how streamlined it is. Drag around an area in the recommended or larger size, slap in all the things you need to actually make the room usable, and voila! For the speedrunning techniques, select an already built room and copy it in its entirety and drop it somewhere else.

CFO OF EDUCATION

Unlike to what I alluded to, Campus isn’t a single-minded Money Is God game you might’ve done with Hospital. In Campus, the students are going to be staying for a while instead of you handling walk-in, walk-out patients. Shockingly enough, the students will need more from you so that they can remain happy.

Their needs will run the gamut of living quarters (e.g. dorms), adequate facilities, and decor. You will need to keep them happy, as if you don’t, they won’t pay the fees. Due to not being allowed to screw over the kids, that can amp up the difficulty. Totally not speaking from experience, it’s possible to get stuck on levels because they don’t think the campus looks hip enough.

Once a school year ends, you can choose to offer more courses, which in turn will increase your expenditure to furnish the relevant rooms. Consider it an investment, since more students would bring in more projected money. Other times, you can get rocked by natural disasters during which your staff and students will understandably panic, not forgetting the mess to clean up after. Hope you have enough janitors.

HANDLE IT

As you might expect, students have their own needs with varying levels of understanding of subjects. Open up their profiles and check their grades, then decide if they need to go for private tuition to improve their academic performance. The sorting system is very convenient for you to check who needs closer attention.

Managing staff is pretty simple. Yes, you will need to hire them based on their skill sets and assign them their jobs – or you can let them find something to do by themselves, even – and keep them happy, but their salaries can’t be adjusted. It can feel strange when you’re not able to do so as aside from pay cuts when you’re in the red, you can’t raise salaries when you’re flush either.

Discounting the unionizing that looms on the horizon, after the relatively normal levels of good ol’ science and culinary arts, we have Knighthood and Wizardry! I’m sure you were already expecting something along those lines, with a spy school being something you can do too. I do wonder if it’s because it’s a limited build, but the difficulty seems to spike after Level 2.

That said, as challenging, admittedly frustrating requirements and how easily debt can come, it is fun because of how different the fantasy-themed levels are from more “normal” campus stuff.

SCHOOL’S OUT

It’s frustrating, but it is also fun. The variety of courses and the students that can take them is wonderful, with a great presentation to boot. The menus will still see some polish but as is, it’s pretty nice already. There’s quite a lot more moving parts to think about when you can’t just screw around your patients, forcing you to actually learn some sustainable way to keep your operations running.

Presumably until Spiff breaks it I guess.

Two Point Campus is one I’ll look forward to seeing shenanigans for.