‘Two Point Campus’ Preview: Build Your Own Hogwarts
I thought I’d seen it all when I was baking giant pizzas or leading classes in virtual normality in my last Two Point Campus preview, but it turns out Two Point Studios have a lot more hidden up their sleeves, as I’ve discovered in my latest preview of the game.
As I previously touched on, the courses in Two Point Campus are unlocked in a linear fashion: with each new level, you’ll be introduced to a new course and given new challenges to achieve a star rating. The first of these new levels I go hands-on with is a quiet and unsuspecting campus called Noblestead, and as the campus name suggests it is our first foray into the Knight School course. The once-calm campus will soon be overrun by armour-clad students attempting to pass. Knight School requires the usual Lecture Theatre to be built, but as well as this you also need a Battle Ground and Jousting Field, because it wouldn’t be a Knight School without jousting, would it? As your campus expands, you’ll need more of these to cater to students' demands.
Take a look at the Wizardry Course reveal for Two Point Hospital...
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The second level is possibly my favourite so far, just because it basically lets you build the wackiest version of Hogwarts you could ever imagine. Introducing Spiffinmore campus, a sprawling magical castle with lots of plots to expand on. As you’d expect, this Hogwarts lookalike lets you dabble in Wizardry Class, and conjure up all manner of spells - although sadly there’s not a spell to make all students pass with flying colours. However, students can enrol in either Wizardry or Dark Arts at Spiffinmore, and better yet - and in true Two Point style - the classrooms have had a magical makeover, with the Potion Room featuring a massive cauldron and the Spells Room having a Duelling Ring.
In an interview last month, the game’s creative director Gary Carr said:“We just rip off most movies and TV shows that we think have got good gags and turn it into a computer game, and we do lean into parody, that’s something we’ve always done.” A comment which further reinforces the likelihood that this campus has been heavily inspired by Hogwarts. Like it wasn’t already obvious.
Not only do these levels introduce us to new courses, they also add new gameplay elements such as pastoral care and medical issues, and trust me when I say they are as important in Two Point Campus as they are in real life. Natural disasters also plague these new levels, which can set you back a bit at first, but in time you’ll slowly have the staff support to help bring your campus back to form. For example, Noblestead gets hit with a hell of a lot of earthquakes, and one of the early game challenges requires you to have an 80% attractiveness rating to students, and every time an earthquake hits debris litters the campus which sends the rating plummeting. These additions definitely keep players on their toes, and I’m sure there are many disasters and courses that Two Point Studios are yet to announce.
My second hands-on with this cheery business management sim was definitely more challenging than the one before it, but nothing that would sway newcomers to the series. Two Point Campus slowly ramps up the difficulty one campus at a time, taking you from quaint small-town universities to the more specialist and demanding campuses like Spiffinmore. Although the start of term - by which I mean, the release date - was pushed back from this May to the 9th August, Two Point Campus is shaping up well, and it won’t be long until you are shaping the next generation.