If you have read any of my previous pieces you might note that I grew up on Theme Hospital so was absolutely ecstatic when Two Point Hospital came out. The excitement only grew when Two Point Campus was announced. I’ve had the game for about a week now and absolutely binged it.
There are a few things which remain familiar with Two Point Campus to its predecessor Two Point Hospital. You still work your way through different areas with slowly increasing challenges and demands from campus to campus. You’re still treated to funny quips from a tannoy announcer and their still brilliant radio episodes. You might even notice some familiar tannoy announcements with a new twist. The building mechanic still remains mostly but there is a bit of a new twist to it. This is the first major difference between the two in Two Point Hospital, you could pretty much get away with building a room to its recommended sizing and filling it with the basics and maybe a plant or poster and a radiator, and that would be fine. In Two Point Campus however, I would recommend you build your teaching rooms bigger than the suggested size, and this is because your students will ask you for more items so that they can complete their assignments and get better grades. Each teaching room has its basic items and then further items you can unlock and place into the room, and if you’ve only built to the recommended size then you can’t squeeze them all in.
Another thing to note is that room prestige works a little differently, if you fill a room with the same item you are going to get less and less towards that prestige for each of the same item used, so this actually encourages you to make a well balanced and interesting room, rewarding you for your efforts. You can even customise the outside of your campus and have the choice of building your own buildings.
Another big difference between the games is the academic year structure. In Two Point Hospital you could rely on making improvements to attract more patients or upping your treatment costs as you go to increase your monthly income. With Two Point Campus your income is fixed each month but you can get bonuses from students doing assignments and earning experience points. Month to month your income is pretty steady with no chance to adjust until the next year.
Furthermore with the academic year and having students instead of patients you need to remember that your students are going to be with you for three years if all goes to plan. With Two Point Hospital you could kind of bumble your way through not really caring about patient happiness and needs outside of treatment. With Two Point Campus it’s all about the student experience, keeping your students happy is vital so you’re going to need to put on parties and films. You also need to provide items for them to learn and build relationships. You can start clubs for your students which gives them boosts such as speed, energy and improved learning. You need to keep a close eye on their grades and send them for extra tuition if needed. Remember I told you about the extra experience points you can earn to boost income? Keeping students happy, entertained, clean and well rested is the key.
One big improvement I’ve noted is staff training. In Two Point Hospital, staff had a number of slots and you would have to train up your staff in one specific area thus specialising your staff. You could get guest lecturers in or have staff train other staff, and could train multiple staff at once. With Two Point Campus most of that has changed. Gone are the lecturers, replace with a machine, gone are the days of training multiple staff at once, but in its place each staff member has three training slots, and in these slots you can place different skills that can be trained up through numerous expertise levels. This means that you no longer have to hone down on one speciality for your staff, but training does seem to take just that little bit longer as a compromise.
Two Point Campus offers loads of fun and unique schools and courses to work your way through, including clown school, knight school, a school of magic and archaeology, so there is plenty to get along with. The base game has eight starter campuses but DLC has been promised just like with Two Point Hospital, the schedule for this has not yet been confirmed. If you enjoyed Two Point Hospital then you are going to enjoy Two Point Campus. It’s a familiar game whilst offering new mechanics and encouraging new strategies and is much more than a simple reskin of Two Point Hospital. It really does feel like an addition and a move forward for the series, and I am so excited to see what the developers come up with next.
Written by Clarissa.
Edited by Alexx.