A delightful yet sometimes frustrating Sim Management game that hits all the highs and lows of campus life.

Two Point Campus is the fresh new direct sequel to the smash hit Two Point Hospital developed by once more Two Point Studios.

Two Point Campus attempts to improve on its predecessor by adding in far more options and customization options to choose from to make every year fresh and challenging with each playthrough.

Can you handle the challenges of making a profitable campus while handling each unique student’s needs? Or will you fall into disarray by the frustrating management issues that can crop up from time to time.

Read on below to see how I got along with Two Point Campus’s representation of University life and how close it really is to the true experience.

Game Modes

Much like Two Point Hospital, Two Point Campus (TPC) comes with two distinct separate game modes, the ever-standard Campaign mode which will slowly teach players the ins and out of TPC more intricate playstyle through interesting level design and whimsical comical laughs, as well as the staple of the genre the Sandbox mode which is unlocked later into the campaign.

Campaign mode:

As mentioned, this mode will teach players how to set up their first Campus, each campus has their own unique requirements to clear. Each campus comes with different star ratings, although only one star is required to move onto the next campus.

The first few campuses will start off slowly by teaching you how to design each room – showing how each room functions as well as how to hire teachers, janitors and assistants fulfilling different but intricate roles within campus.

Later campuses will teach aspiring campus creators that every student is different, each requiring separate needs from comfort, food and drinks to private tuition. Balancing all these different needs is the key to running a successful campus and keeping income in the green in order to meet the needs of the ever pressing awards ceremony that occurs at the end of each
year.

Every campus adds its own unique feature that builds into the game seamlessly, from learning to fight off invaders with janitors to making sure the campus isn’t freezing with multiple radiators TPC blends this all together while not feeling too overbearing to the player.

Sandbox Mode:

As mentioned, Sandbox mode is a later unlock from the Campaign mode will most likely take a few hours before discovering, however once unlocked Sandbox gives you access to several new modes of gameplay.

These range from:

Standard – This provides a balanced experience similar to that of the campaign mode where you’ll be able to enjoy the game without having to sweat as much by keeping with star requirements.

• Start with $300,000 and 75 Course Points.
• Standard level of challenge in growing your university.
• Unlock Items and upgrades with Kudosh and Research

Creative – Go Wild! And build your perfect dream campus with full creative freedom without having to worry about finances or unlocking content.

• Start with more Money and Course Points than you can ever hope to spend.
• Money is easy to make, so you can focus away from your finances.
• Everything is unlocked.

Challenge – Setup for the true challenging experience, challenge mode will test your skills and your financial management as you’ll start off in a much more harder scenario.

• Start with just $150,000 and 30 Course Points.
• Reaching a balanced monthly income can be difficult.
• Unlock Items and Upgrades with Kudosh and Research.
• Custom
• Allows you to set the parameters, set up your own challenges and progress at your own chosen pace.

The Sandbox mode is where I spent the majority of my game time fully exploring all the different courses and student configurations without having to worry about balancing the books and moods of all the staff and students, Sandbox mode is a welcome addition to any game of this genre as it truly gives players the freedom to go wild and design whatever they’d like without limitations.

Students – Staff and Courses oh my!

So you’ve done it! You’ve finally secured your own campus, time to design your dream campus as well as tailor all your dorms with that bright splash of color and decorations best reflected for student life but wait!

We first need to cover the main crux of the game and that comes down to setting up your campus. Outside of design work there are three main portions to running a successful campus, that is of course the Students, the Staff and the Courses of offer. Each member of campus be it staff, or student come with their own traits, needs and quirks to really brighten your campus out.

Learn how to manage these perfectly and you’ll earn Kudos. What is Kudos I hear you say? Kudos is the ingame currency used to unlock new items as well as improve the standard of your campus.

Students:

A campus won’t survive without its students, and thus you’ll be spending a good portion of your time carefully monitoring each and every student that walks through your halls. The key to keeping every student as happy as possible can be broken down in three aspects – Hunger, friendship and relaxation.

As a reflection of modern life student will slowly grow and interact with each other, this also brings in another key feature for student which is that of traits, much like staff every student has a random collection of traits, analyzing each of these traits carefully will help you keep the balance of your campus in the green, giving students a suitable place to interact, sleep and eat is very important to keeping happiness up, however there will be cases when students are more trouble than they’re worth, should a student have several negative traits such as refusing to turn in assignments as well as being lazy/messy this will negatively impact the entire campus.

Once you’ve identified these problem students you can take steps to mitigate these issues, but for times when these problems can’t be mitigated you can simply expel the student.

I’ve had several instances during gameplay where one bad student was the reason that I wasnot able to clear a Campus within a decent time-frame while I did everything possible to ensure every student passed, much like in real life there are simply some students that aren’t cut out for campus life.

Staff:

So you’ve gained a large following of students. Are you ready to open? But wait, what is this you don’t have any staff to fulfill the needs of these students? Well then let’s break it down.

For a Campus to succeed you’ll need to hire varying members of staff, each have their own unique function and purpose, make sure to take care of these members of staff by giving them the tools they need to inspire and nurture the next generation of students. Be it giving them a sample space to rest and relax or training them further to teach better classes or take care of the needs of campus.

Staff can be broken down into three subsections, that of teachers, assistants and janitors, we’ll start with the obvious one and that is teachers.

Teachers are the most expensive members of staff as they’re required to teach the courses (mentioned below) as well as give lectures to students along with private tuition. These members of staff can be quite hard to balance as they will also need to take time off during classes to break so making sure to have a suitable amount of teachers is key to keep the
campus running without mistakes, pay careful attention to the traits as well as the cost of each teacher as while one may cost more they may not have the current traits you’re looking for, it is important to check each teacher and divide them up based of where there strong points lie.

Assistants, cheaper than teachers but equally as important the main purposes of assistants are to run and monitor lesser parts of the campus, be it that of a library or a student union, they are also required when it comes to planning events for students to keep happiness up overall or
simply to dispense coffee for thirsty students and staff members.

Finally, we come to the janitor, while some may look down on the profession during their time on campus the Janitor is the true unsung hero of the campus, not only are they responsible for keeping everything in working order, cleaning as well as upgrading items throughout campus
they also moonlight as your only defense very campus invaders, campus invaders will lower the morale of your campus as well as destroy items placed throughout. So the noble janitor will drop everything to make sure these villainous invaders are dealt with post-haste, don’t doubt the power of the janitor as they will make sure everything is kept in order from behind the scenes.

Courses:

The final aspect of campus life is the courses, after all what’s the point in hiring all these staff members when you have no classes to teach?

Two Point Campus really ups the antics from Two Point Hospital with a large and hilarious selection of courses in game, of the seventeen courses currently on offer, some of which require further progression in the story to unlock.

All have their own unique features, rooms, types of students as well as potential downside. Do you wish for students to take up the lance and fight as noble knights? Or would you rather delve into the Dark Arts of Magic? Selecting courses is an important aspect that really makes the game feel alive. After each Campus year you’ll be asked to spend course tokens to further improve current courses or open new ones, just be aware that after each year you’ll need to also improve and expand your campus to keep up with the ever increasing student count.

Customization:

Customization is now a big feature within Two Point Campus; these changes were implemented after developers noted that many players were feeling quite restricted while playing Two Point Hospital.

Two Point Campus allows you the freedom to design the true campus of your dreams, from the buildings to the grounds to even the attire used by the student and staff, the customization suite really brings a spark to the game like no other. The only limit is your own imagination, want to build a grand entrance with rose gardens and hedge mazes? That’s entirely possible, would you rather favor blue roses over the classic red?
You’re more than welcome to link to Creativity breakdown and comments made here.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, my experience with Two Point Campus was enjoyable and had me reflecting on my own University experience. There were some ups and downs when it came to each campus, as well as some of the random traits that students could spawn with that really became frustrating, it felt that I spent more time in the Student overview menu attempting to fix one or two students when the easiest thing would have been to expel them for a poor performance.

The best thing I can pass onto players is always start small when it comes to building a new campus during the early stages, managing finances along with the ever-increasing teaching requirements per year can reduce your overall funds significantly.

If you really want to go all out and create your dream campus this is best done using the sandbox features rather than trying to replicate it during a challenge mode or during the normal gameplay experience.

That being said while there where many frustrating moments during my time playing Two Point Campus these were easily pushed aside by the utterly hilarious commentary from the Narrators and PA systems as well as bright and colorful nature of the game in general.

The variation in courses and students themselves was a dream. Watching my own little campus students run around like little ants trying to manage not only their own timetable, grades and friendships was a delight to see time and time again.

The tone, graphics and audio work perfectly and make Two Point Campus one of the premier Sim Management games on the market at this point in time.

Skriven av: Steve Gilman