Combine that with classic Theme Hospital-style visuals yet again, and the game is a treat for the eyes. After all, why just rave a bunch of ovens in your cooking class when you can have one giant oven the students gather around in order to make massive burgers? Why not have students attending clowning classes dress as clown 24/7 (heck, giving each student a unique look is a gameplay benefit as well, with different student types affecting others)? How about actual bookworms that pop up on campus grounds like a game of whack-a-mole that you can click on for little rewards? The charming visuals even extend to each classroom having its own unique door, like the recording studio having a giant piano door. If words like “knights,” “giant robots,” and “cheeseball” stood out in that last bit, it’s because like its predecessor, Two Point Campus embraces a light-hearted, exaggerated charm when it comes to its visuals. Every campus has a new twist, and they’re all a treat to discover, giving you nice obstacles as well as you spend hours trying to figure out how to accomplish all of your tasks. The athletic campus focusing on the cheeseball court needs a marketing office in order to attract more applicants despite a small building to work with, and needs air conditioners installed to deal with the massive heat. The knight school needs a medical wing to deal with rust-related injuries caused by all the armor worn, and invading rival knights need to be dealt with by janitors trained in security. One campus needs you to build research labs and training rooms in order to come up with updates to the robotics lab and staff members that can implement those upgrades so that the students can build better giant robots. It keeps going from there, as Two Point Campus consistently does a great job in introducing you to each new facet of its gameplay. And the next thing you know, your budget isn’t doing well and it looks like you might be in the red, so if you want this university to succeed, it looks like it’s time for a loan, at least until tuition fees increase the following years and more students come in… Oh, and some students might be in danger of failing, so you might want a private tuition room or two, which require more teachers. They’d also like some clubs as well, which require kiosks with more assistants to be hired. Now you learn that you need to keep students entertained as well, which requires a student union with its own assistant, as well as the ability to schedule events in different rooms. Then you move on to a culinary school, however, and suddenly the focus has shifted. Of course, you can also stick around or come back later to go for the goals needed for two or three stars (thus unlocking new decor, courses, entertainment and more in the process), which seems like another simple task at first. Then decorate the place up to make sure each student is happy and thus keeps their grades up and pays tuition, meet the goals given to you, and earn the star needed to unlock the next campus or campuses. Just build a dormitory, a library, a classroom with a science course, student and staff lounges, bathrooms, etc, then hire all the staff needed. Things start out quite simple, of course. Sure, it’s tantalizing to jump right into the sandbox mode, but each new campus in the campaign essentially serves as orientation for different courses, buildings, mechanics and more, and Two Point Campus does a fantastic job in that area, allowing you to get used to the various aspects while still providing a nice challenge. But there’s still a campaign mode of sorts to check out, one that sees you traveling to a dozen different campuses around Two Point County and bringing them up to shape as the new dean. There’s not exactly much point in bringing up the premise again, since it got recapped in the previous paragraph and can easily be figured out via the game’s name alone. Yes, Two Point Studios’ follow-up to the wildly successful Two Point Hospital shows that the develops still have plenty of magic to apply to the genre (quite literally here, given some courses), creating an addictive time sink that’s worth enrolling in. But now after having spent some time with the game, I immediately get why it wasn’t released during a school year: because if it was, it would immediately kill all productivity among students. After all, you would think that a proper release date for a new simulation game about crafting the university of your dreams would tie in more with the beginning of a new school year. While reporting on Two Point Campus over the past month, I kind of noted how amusing it was that the game was being released when it was still summer vacation.
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