In May 19th, we were given the opportunity to join the online event for Two Point Campus, and interviewed the developers of Two Point Campus, Mr. Lewis Brundish and Mr. Mark Smart, and the summary of the said session are as of below.
1. After playing the demo for a while, we’ve come to like the new campus building feature that allowed us to design the layout of the campus however we wanted. Yet from our experiences in previous games, the layout of the building is one way to set the difficulty of the stage. What were the changes made to accommodate such changes while retaining the difficulty of the stages?
> Originally,the layout of the map kind of set the difficulty of the stages. But we’ve heard a lot of feedback from our players that they enjoy decorating the buildings, and it made us want to try the idea out with Two Point Campus. The difficulty now is determined by the different courses that had requirements for indoor classes and outdoor classes, which is another form of management that the players will have to deal with. And we do understand that there are players out there who just wanted to play the game for the management aspect and not the customization aspect,and to cater to both sides, we’ve made the map to take the form of a plot of land for players to freely work with rather than buildings.
2. What research and referencing has been done while designing the Wizardry school and knight school? Were there actual references from schools in the real world?
> It’s nice of you to think that we’ve actually done any sorts of referencing and research, but no, we did not. We took the mundane themes and gave it a twist of the Two Point humour and charm, and used a lot of cliches and word puns, and ramped them all up. As we’re based in England, we do get to see a lot of castles, but we just took the base idea and go all ridiculous with it.
3. What came to mind when you thought about the Wizard/ Knight themes, and what actually made its way into the game?
> We thought it would’ve been funny if there was a knight school, and people wear armour to class,and we put in a lot of bad puns and the rest is just two point humour.
4. What was the biggest feature that you didn’t feel or knew that you needed to add to the game until it was added in the Two Point Campus?
> I guess it was the timeline. In Two Point Hospital, years would go by and it doesn’t really reflect what was actually going on in the hospital. Whereas in Two Point Campus, the annual cycle becomes the core part of the game, there will be terms, holidays, and the overall academic year impacts the new structure and system to fit them all into a year. The summer break was designed to be infinite, to allow the players to rest and just have a good time, where they can customise their campus and enjoy the game without feeling constant pressure and just chill until they feel like they are ready for the next academic term or year.
5. In comparison to patients, students felt way more interactive as we need to take care of their wellbeing as well as their grades. The students are more expressive and unique as well. What was the thought process behind these changes?
> As you’ve mentioned, the students are more expressive as they actually have facial rigs now, and they have full interactions with other students and also to the environment around them. It’s a sense of fidelity that we felt that it could get the emotions through. It’s one of the ambitions for Two Point Campus to lean more into caring about the characters in their lives, generally the sims genre games were taken more seriously and hardcore, whereas we aim to make sim games to be friendly, silly and fun. It is somewhat a natural process to grow attached and helps us connect with the characters in the game.
6. Will there be any collaborations between the two point series? (Two Point Campus x Two Point Hospital)
> The two games were actually set in the same universe, if you observe carefully you can see quite some familiar faces, and there is also a medical room in Two Point Campus where you can see familiar structures similar to those seen in Two Point Hospital.
Two Point Campus is set to be released for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 9 August 2022.
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