Two Point Campus Preview: Balancing the Serious With the Silly
Two Point Studios originally burst onto the scene in 2018 with Two Point Hospital, which allowed players to manage an eccentric, often faulty healthcare system in a world where patients routinely needed treatment for "animal magnetism" and "light-headedness." (That is, a lightbulb attached to their heads.) Two Point Campus aims to be the ideal successor to that legacy with an equally daffy tone. You are the administrator of one of the strangest colleges in the country, overseeing a student body full of underachievers pursuing questionable degrees in, say, knighting or archaeology. Some simulation games are full of serious, logistical choices about finance, resources, and logistics, but in Two Point Campus, you'll be boosting student morale by placing a plastic whale fountain in the front yard of your esteemed institution. This is a very silly game with a cockeyed perspective on higher education, but as always, Two Point attempts to weave in just enough strategic decision-making to give this farce some teeth.
The best analogue to the Two Point catalog is probably the eternal computer lab classic, Rollercoaster Tycoon. Both games prioritize the spectacle of creation rather than any excruciating spreadsheet navigation, so your campaign will begin with a small, empty building and a tableau of construction tools. Plop down a classroom, fill it with the requisite educational materials, and voila, a steady stream of undergraduates will start pouring through the corridors. Add a dormitory, and they now have a place to sleep. Throw in a shower room, and they won't be stinking up the lectures. All of this is mandated in a generously unrealistic tone. You know how in SimCity you can get by for years while leaving huge sections of
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