Developer Interview | Two Point Campus: School Spirits
Hey Pointians,
It's time to welcome visitors from the other side!
Feeling daunted by all things haunted? Us too! That's why today we're investigating what exactly is going on over at the Lifeless Estate, delving into some of the finer details to find out what School Spirits is all about. We sat down to chat with Design Director Ben Huskins and Designer Harry Puttock about all the different scares you can expect in our latest DLC. Grab a cushion to hide behind as it could get spooky, let's dive in!
Heya! We're all excited and full of anticipation for the new DLC, tell us a little about what people can expect.
Harry: In School Spirits you'll start a campus at Lifeless Estate, where the late heiress is sick of her self-invited guests, the Hellhole gang, ruining her afterlife with their questionable manners and constant depravity. You need to kick out the party crashers and calm the place down a bit, so she can rest in peace and finally enjoy her inheritance. That's the idea, anyway.
Husky: Sadly, the Lady Lifeless is no longer with us (and yet, is still with us), her eternal rest interrupted by all sorts of menacing presences! So she's looking for some assistance. Luckily, you're around to lend a hand. As the campus administrator, you'll be cracking down and dealing with menacing presences, trying to re-invigorate the place. The Lady is very glad to finally have an invited guest on her grounds (if they could just ignore all the strange smells around the place).
The Lifeless Estate sounds terrifying, tell us about the level and the types of students to expect.
Husky: It's so atmospheric, I really like the level, it's so different from what we've done before and has a really creepy vibe.
Harry: It's pretty spooky. I think that's fair to say... Specifically, though, people can expect a couple of new courses! School Spirits is a course for spirits across the County that are no longer as alive as they used to be. They're Free Spirits, and nothing to be afraid of, just benevolent souls looking to brush up about the eternity ahead. Paranormal Detection has students learning the cradle-to-grave process of poltergeist-pest removal, uncovering ghosts and getting to grips with the latest "ghost duster" technology.
Husky: Free Spirits from all over Two Point County are looking to enrol at the Lifeless Estate! Even though they've moved on, they still want to learn, studying School Spirits to pick up all kinds of afterlife skills. Some of them have probably been around for a while, decades and decades, so what they want to do is get up to speed with all of the latest things that people do. Looking at the curriculum, they're doing things like Science Lab or Computer Lab - because some of them weren't around to learn and be up-to-date with things.
Free Spirits looking to enrol in further education is definitely out there, what was the inspiration behind heading towards the paranormal?
Harry: We wanted to add another departure from the norm, if you can in fact call it that, of Two Point County academia. We thought that something supernatural, or mythical in some way, would be a welcome addition to our collection of courses and settings.
Of course, there was also the incentive to bring back ghosts from Two Point Hospital. They were a big part of that game, and we've had a lot of fun ideas on how to incorporate them into campus. Janitors were trained to deal with ghosts in Hospital, and we thought it would be fun to explore the origins of ghost capture training, and how people might learn to do that in an academic setting.
What new gameplay elements are there?
Husky: There's a lot of cool stuff in this DLC, we've added a lot of new features that are all kinda ghost-related. We intentionally thought, let's try and make the gameplay feel quite different to the main game, and add a bunch of new gameplay features and cool new visual stuff.
Harry: Ghosts are back, back from the dead, and ready to be the eternal drag we've come to know and shove into Ectovats (foreboding!).
How might the player encounter ghosts?
Husky: They can pop up in Detection classes (where students will be (obviously) detecting ghosts!). There's one slight downside to their study, however. Once detected, ghosts can reveal themselves. Students will be using the Media-o-Matic machine contraptions to listen out for the Estate's "guests", and (understandably) once disturbed these malevolent spirits will go around causing a bit of trouble.
Harry: Floating around the place, ghosts will bother your students and be an all-around intangible pain. You can train janitors in Ghost Capture and do... just that, capture ghosts! Ghosts will also occasionally hide in the fabric of the campus, haunting one of your rooms and undermining all of its usual academic goodness.
Husky: When a room is haunted, bad things happen. There are little signs that a room is haunted, and the interesting thing is there are different types of haunting. Depending on the type of ghost that haunts the room, it has different effects on the people in there. So you might have a haunting that makes people unhappy or reduces their learning rate, or makes them hungry. It might make them tired, that kind of thing. There are little signs that a room is haunted, and those signs gradually build up over time.
Harry: Fortunately, Janitors qualified in Ghost Capture are trained to de-haunt rooms and remove the ghost responsible. So, if you notice a room behaving paranormal-ly, you know the people to call. Cough. Once you've captured a ghost, its life force can be stored - and refrigerated - in an Ectovat device, before being enjoyed by a student, for all manner of netherworld-ly benefits. Mmhmm (it's best not to think about it).
Husky: I don't know if people remember Ectovats from Two Point Hospital, they were a reward for one of The Superbugs, and now, they're back! They're quite useful in this DLC, as all of the menacing presences you capture across the estate might as well be made useful.
Unlocking new plots works differently in School Spirits, how will players expand their Campus?
Husky: There's a bit more going on with plots in the DLC, you can't just go around buying them. You'll notice these weird holes in the ground across the Estate, and from these mysterious holes, something utterly terrifying might emerge. You'll have to wait and see what tackling these menacing presences will look like.
Harry: There are possessed plots, full of evil spirits who have claimed parts of the grounds for themselves. The Janitors' Union won't deal with anything that horrible, so you may as well see if your Paranormal Detection students are up to the task. You'll need to develop their course, and complete damage bonus objectives to weaken the evil spirits, if you're going to be successful in Expulsion Ceremonies, banish the Hellhole gang and consistently expand your campus.
Expulsion Ceremonies: not something you'd expect working in Campus construction. Got any tips for beating the bosses?
Harry: Exorcise smarter, not harder. When you're expanding your campus and looking at new plots, be sure to notice the damage bonus criteria for the evil spirit living there. It'll be much less horrible removing evil spirits if you're able to complete those objectives. I promise. Oh, and train your Janitors in Ghost Capture! Though they don't help with Expulsion Ceremonies themselves, you'll have a much better chance if your students aren't already worn down from jump scares and haunted rooms.
Husky: When you set up an Expulsion Ceremony, it will pull pretty much all of your Paranormal Detection students over to the plot; it's a mass event! To start with, you'll only have about ten students, but you can imagine what the Ceremony could entail later in the level.
Your students deal damage to the Henchmen, so the more students you have, the more damage they can do, and also, the higher the (academic) level of students, the more damage, alongside your damage bonuses. Also, it's worth thinking about when during the academic year you decide the Expulsion Ceremony will happen. When thinking about scheduling it, you might consider things like waiting until later in the year, so you have time to improve your student's grades, or whether to wait until the next academic year, so more students enrol. There's quite a step up in the health of the Henchmen you find possessing a plot, so watch out.
What's your personal favourite or highlight from playing the DLC?
Husky: Check out the carpet in the Detection Office, it's lovely, I would love it in my house.
Harry: Lifeless Estate is an especially beautiful level, I hope people enjoy the atmosphere. Honourable mention goes out to our new addition to challenge mode; "Gradeyard Shift" is set at Lifeless Estate, and it's a really different way to experience the setting. It asks the important question: how many ghosts can a janitor catch, if a janitor can catch ghosts?
Two Point Campus: School Spirits releases on 15th March 2023, for £5.49/$5.99/€5.99. You can pre-purchase now for a 10% discount!
Update 5.0 Release Notes
Hi everyone!
We hope you're as excited as we are for the release of the latest DLC, Two Point Campus: School Spirits next week (missed the announcement? Take a look here!). Ahead of this DLC, we've got a meaty update for you with lots of bug fixes! Take a look at the release notes below for more info.
Release Notes - v5.0.123321
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue preventing bands from reaching the SU if it was moved whilst they were on route.
Fixed a crash caused by pre-built libraries on Spiffinmoore.
Fixed a missing translation on the Monthly Profit UI
Fixed an issue with VO on Mitton
Fixed graphical issues with Event Tiles
Updated the backgrounds for the room icons
Fixed an issue that stopped the balance updating if plots were bought while paused
Updated UI to reflect that room templates cannot be deleted whilst in placement mode.
Fixed an issue with student customisation altering animations.
Fixed an issue with Krampus outfit causing students to spew.
Fixed a bug preventing items being placed on Noblestead
Fixed a bug on lower graphics settings where shower pixelation would not be present whilst zooming in or out.
Fixed an issue with Faint and Swoon wall customisation alignment around windows
Fixed a bug with missing tooltip for Blaggard Invasions when using a gamepad.
Fixed a bug with inspector icons appearing through menus.
Fixed a bug where removing and reinstalling DLC meant DLC career goals did not return
Fixed an issue where Sci-Fi events could not be run in challenge modes
Fixed a bug with Time Tourism Ride clipping through walls
Fixed an issue where it was possible to get in a situation where doors are appearing inside each other (from duplicating)
Updated an icon in the Level Info screen for unowned DLC's
Fixed a bug with the soundtrack on the UI
Fixed a gamepad issue with the UI that locked the cursor.
Fixed a bug causing the wrong item to appear on the cursor after placing one previously.
Fixed an issue selecting cheeseball objectives
Stability improvements for out of memory crashes, and more
As always, if you find any issues, head over to the bugs section of the forum to let us know! We'll see you next week for the launch of School Spirits!
Two Point Campus: School Spirits | Brand New DLC!
Happy Haunting!
It goes without saying, the Lifeless Estate is normally as silent as the grave! However, signs of undead life have interrupted the usual eerie silence. The new lodgers are restless spirits, big on wailing and generous with the ectoplasm. Haunted by unwelcome and undead spirits, the estate needs a new lease on the afterlife. The last heir to the estate, Lady Lifeless herself, has enlisted you to create a new boo-tique campus, fit for enrolling free spirits and budding investigators alike!
NEW LOCATION
Welcome to the Lifeless Estate!
The lawn may be lacklustre, and the surfaces strangely gooey, but all of the problems come back to the ghosts.
Lady Lifeless had hoped to spend her after-years catching up with her reading and floating tastefully around the garden. Instead, her rest is routinely ruined by rude spirits with even worse table manners. Tackle the paranormal pest problem, and learn what it means to be dead to help the estate rest peacefully.
NEW COURSES
Paranormal Detection
For a number of years, the County was happy to dabble in the occasional debate surrounding the existence of ghosts. Unfortunately, it seems the evidence is now far too ghastly to ignore, and thanks to some added science, that debate is now long finished: ghosts are a real and genuine nuisance.
Paranormal Detection students will use all the advanced tools at their disposal (mostly their eyes and ears…) to contact and uncover ghosts across Campus. Then they’ll practice all the best ghost-removal skills to bottle up the Estate’s unruly residents.
School Spirits
Being dead isn't as easy as everyone makes it seem. It's hard to rest in peace with a life & death's worth of questions on your mind. "Where am I?", "Why did I say that one thing when I was 24?", "Did I leave the oven on?" etc. Fortunately, you can learn anything in Two Point County, even how to be dead.
Enrolling Free Spirits learn from a great prospectus, covering everything needed to be a modern-day spirit. Whether they’re studying to understand their current regrets and what it means to be dead, or they need a hand being brought up to speed on the old news they missed whilst living on the other side, Free Spirits graduate with ALL the paranormal tricks a good spirit should know.
ALSO!
Expulsion Ceremonies
Lifeless Estate has been harbouring evil spirits for some time, and unfortunately, these unwanted tenants have a truly evil grudge against your best efforts at revitalising the place.
Luckily, you’ve a whole bunch of paranormal investigators in training at your disposal! Before new campus construction can take place, Paranormal Detection students will jump at the opportunity to take part in an Expulsion Ceremony! (just don’t tell them the risks…). Even better still, the evil spirits aren’t immortal, find their weaknesses to give your students a better chance at expulsion (of the ghosts! not them!).
Hauntings
The ghastly inhabitants of the Estate aren’t always the most subtle, some ghosts may reside in a specific room, possessing the place to share their anguish with your students. Depending on the flavour of ghost, your students will suffer from a range of effects, and (spoilers) none are good.
Not only will your students feel a chill in the air, but your visitors from the other side will also mess with the room (rude!). If you catch these signs early you can send over a trusty janitor trained in Ghost Capture to prevent the haunt from progressing! If given long enough, however, the ghosts will set off lights, send items dancing, and produce a weird, strange fog, how eerie.
New Challenge Mode - Gradeyard Shift
In this brand new Challenge Mode level Lady Lifeless has given up hope on her Estate, leaving her home in search of, well, literally anything else.
The place is an utter nightmare of unwanted ghostly guests, and it just so happens the Janitors' Union has been itching for a chance to mop up the paranormal pest problem. With their funding, train up a fleet of janitors to de-haunt and capture as many ghosts as possible.
WHAT’S INCLUDED
New Campus location
2 new courses, including two new fully animated classrooms
2 new student archetypes
New Challenge Mode level
and lots of new items!
Two Point Campus: School Spirits releases on 15th March 2023, for £5.49/$5.99/€5.99. You can pre-purchase now for a 10% discount!
Small Hotfix - 4.1.122199
Hi everyone,
Very small hotfix for you here, so apologies for the disturbance!
Build: 4.1.122199
Fix for an upcoming Amazon Prime item
We've got more to come soon... keep an eye out!
Valentine's Creative Competition!
Welcome, Pointians, to our Seasonal Creativity Competition
Roses are red, Violets are blue, I hate the colour pink, I hope you don't too
The County takes Valentine's VERY seriously, especially seeing as the big man himself (Cupid) is touring the county and rewarding the bestest, most romantic locations. It's no surprise that the Campus deans want in on the Valentine's buzz.
With students coming out of their January exams, there's time for them to enjoy the small joys of writing cheesy cards and sharing chocolate boxes, so get to trimming roses if you're to be the talk of the County!
Across the next week, we want all of our winter blues forgotten about as you dazzle us with love-heart lights and floral arrangements alike. Build a beautiful, romantic campus, and you could be the winner of some of our coveted Two Point swag, alongside a physical copy of the game!
To enter:
Submit your best campus build with all the romantic ambience you can muster to our competition hashtag #CupidTPCampus, on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
This can be a full campus, or just a small section of one. As long as your lecture theatres are pretty and pink!
The competition starts now! Monday 13th Feb, and runs until Tuesday 20th Feb, 10am GMT.
Then you, your friends, and anyone you can persuade can vote for the winning submission on our forums.
You'll need to enroll to vote in the shortlist, so if you haven't already, signup for our community at Two Point County (once signed up you can even redeem a golden toilet for your efforts).
We'll announce the winner on our social channels after the vote closes!
Love is (literally) in the air as you join us in our latest Community Challenge mode! This time, you'll be tackling The L-Bomb! Have no idea what we're on about? Check out our blog here detailing all the pretty 'n pink changes our free Valentine Update has to offer!
Cupid's bow-and-arrow approach really isn't cut out for spreading love in the modern age. Instead, he's come up with a new-fangled contraption designed to spread romantic ambience. Cupid has only a limited supply to spread as much love as possible (what a sweetheart!) so you'll have to impress him to earn them! He's on the lookout for Campuses with the most romantic potential, travelling the County to find the best of the best. Only by creating such harmonious conditions on your campuses will you catch his eye!
Cupid's shiny new gadgets will fall from the sky, ready for action to create the perfect romantic atmosphere. Once you're gifted one from Cupid himself, you'll choose where to let it off, releasing a mist of romantic ambience. Now lovestruck, students will be drawn to cultivate romances (much easier than the old bow-and-arrow!). All the student romances you create will go toward increasing an incredibly romantic community total.
If there's enough love around the County by the end of Valentine's, we'll unlock a very special, seasonal item.
We're challenging you as a community to collect ONE MILLION Love Points. Now Cupid isn't sticking around for long, you'll have until the big day itself! The romantic total will be taken at midnight, Tuesday, 14th February, so get your rose petals flying and bunting at the ready, now!
We are sure you've got this, make sure to dodge rose thorns and share your top tips for impressing Cupid over on our socials!
TL;DR
We're challenging you, the community, to collect one million Love Points collectively in our new L-Bomb Challenge Mode.
We'll be tracking student romances from NOW until midnight, Tuesday 14th February.
No matter your score, medal or none, your points contribute to the total. Every little helps!
You can play the challenge as many times as you'd like to keep contributing.
If the goal is met, a brand new Valentine-themed item will land in the game!
Valentine's Update 4.0 - Available Now!
Happy Valentine's everyone!
Whilst an A+ would be nice, they do say all you need is love! It's a good job then that something is in the air in Two Point County, you won't be needing your rose-tinted glasses for this one! So try not to swoon as we check out everything Cupid's quiver has to offer:
We hope pink is your favourite colour as we're smitten by the hamper of heart-shaped decor, including the cutest of new costumes, an infatuation of red balloons, and SO many roses, there are so many... too many...
New Challenge Mode
Cupid is VERY busy this Valentine's, scouting out the best romantic locations across the County, looking to spread love and happiness to all (what a sweetheart), and if he’s suitably impressed with your Campus he’ll even leave you a few of his Love Bombs for you to create your very own romances. Get your students all loved up to score points and win hearts in our latest challenge mode!
Cupid's bow-and-arrow approach really wasn't cut out for spreading love in the modern age. Instead, he's come up with some new-fangled contraptions, but, there's only a limited number to spread as much love as possible! Only through impressing Cupid by creating the most promising romantic locations can you earn some of his coveted supply.
Cupid is travelling the County to find the best of the best! Only once you've enamoured Cupid with absolute pink pandemonium on your campus, alongside all-round student happiness, AND ensuring you don't fall out of love with your grades, will you be guaranteed to catch his eye! Now impressed, he'll reward your romantic potential.
Love Bombs will fall from the sky, ready for action, to create the perfect romantic atmosphere. Once you're gifted one from Cupid himself, you'll choose where to let it off, releasing a mist of romantic ambience. Now lovestruck, students are drawn to cultivate romances (isn't that much easier than the old bow-and-arrow?).
New Items & Outfit
Celebrate all things lovely with the love-filled new items in-game. Whether you're partial to a vase full of roses, or bringing out every Goth student's worse enemy: PINK! If you can think of it, there's a heart-shaped version of it ready to bring joy (or vertigo) to all your lovely students.
Show your romantic flare by rolling out the new heart-shaped rug, bunting, and pink balloons, or bring a loving touch to some existing items, like using the new wallpapers or duvet set. And if that's not enough, then why not go all out with a Tunnel of Love? Nothing says romance quite like a giant mechanical swan.
The whole county is under Cupid's love spell, so expect heartwarming in-game changes, with heart-print duvets, wallpaper, and pink ambience absolutely everywhere! As the busy Cupid can't be everywhere at once, your staff and students alike can experience a touch of the divine by stepping into Cupid's (striking) oh-so-romantic character outfit.
New Things
New Challenge: The L-Bomb
New Outfit: Cupid
New, temporary Valentine's Day theme on the Main Menu
Free Valentine's items:
Tunnel of Love
Love Balloons
Heart Rug
Concentric Hearts
Stacked Hearts
Rose Bouquet
Rose Vase
Bug Fixes:
Added a number of stability improvements to optimise memory usage
Fixed an issue where janitors were not efficiently cleaning up the campus
Fixed an issue where selecting the Items List from the Room Inspector would close the Room Inspector UI
Dorm templates or copies no longer get flagged for invalid items when rotated
Wall items from rooms that have been picked up will no longer remain in their original place
Fixed an area on Pebberley Ruins where items can be placed but are not reachable
Fixed NPCs getting stuck on the Rocket Pad area in the first Space Academy level
Status icons in the student list now give correct information on what the student is doing
Fixed a problem with Moles spawning, players should have no trouble getting them to spawn now
Minor fix for the newsfeed on Main Menu not displaying some events
"Strange Meteors" advisor now shows the correct character
Fixed a bug where earthquakes in certain levels were causing the game to crash.
As always, if you'd prefer your campus NOT to be pretty in pink, there's an option for you! Head to the settings menu and scroll down to find the Seasonal Content toggle to control the seasons (didn't realise you trained in Dark Arts?!).
Parting is such sweet sorrow... No need to be mournful for long, as once Valentine's is over, all newly added items (including the new costume and challenge mode) will remain in the game! So you'll be able to enjoy the content in your own time, all we'll do is collect up all the balloons and pink theming from the meta-map and main menu.
We can't wait for you to experience the lovely aura across campus, it's truly captivating! Update 4.0 is available now!
Hotfix 4.0.121258
Hey all!
Just a small update for today (but we've got cool stuff coming soon!)
Release Notes:
Bug fixing and balance improvements for base game and DLC levels
Bug fixing and balance updates to seasonal content
Stability improvements
As always with the smaller hot fixes, you shouldn't notice anything different, but do let us know if you come across any problems!
Small Hotfix - 3.2.120172
Hi everyone,
Just to let you know we've released a very small hotfix for some minor issues. So don't be alarmed when you get an update, it's just some backend things!
Build: 3.2.120172
Minor backend fixes
You shouldn't notice anything different, but if you do happen to see an issue, let us know in the Bugs section of the forum.
Small Hotfix 3.2.119477
Hi everyone!
Just a quick one today - we've just released a very small hotfix to make some minor changes in the backend of the game.
Build: 3.2.119477
Added minor changes to the backend of the game
You shouldn't notice anything different about the game, but if you do come across any issues, please report them on the Bugs section of the Steam forum.
