Two Point Campus can be a complex game. While it will lull you into a false sense of certainty with its opening campus levels, it isn’t long before it introduces more difficult goals, unruly students, an overwhelming need for staff training, and educational milestones that feel near-impossible to hit. The difficulty curve is severe, particularly in the later half of the game – so if you’re struggling, know one thing: you’re not alone.
Luckily, you can hop into the game prepared with this handy gameplay tips and tricks guide. It won’t solve every problem, but it should answer a few burning questions as you prepare to get started on your Two Point Campus journey. If you’re looking to get a head start with your students, here’s how to lay the groundwork for a successful university venture.
Read: Two Point Campus review – Extremely cool for school
Watch your budget at all times
Your budget in Two Point Campus will fluctuate wildly, depending on the whims of your students and how you grow your campus. No matter which university you start in, you’ll need to spend a lot of money to begin with. You’ll need classrooms, teachers, lecture theatres, and other locales to get things booming, and while there is a temptation to go big from the start – mind your budget, and start with the basics.
You’ll want to fulfil only the required criteria at first. Don’t hire three teachers and five assistants straight away. Instead, focus only on the basics, plus a few amenities: a bathroom is important, as is having a few student dorms. Everything else can wait until the money starts rolling in, or students request new rooms.
Eventually, you’ll need particular rooms or items, but hold off on borrowing money to build these for as long as you can. As soon as you start borrowing, you’ll end up in a debt cycle that can be hard to break as the win conditions for each campus get more complicated. If you do need to borrow money, go for the smallest loan first. That way, you can expand only if you need to, or use a larger loan to pay off debt later, and leave a lifeline for the future.
Train staff instead of hiring more
Two Point Campus will often prompt you to hire new staff at the beginning of each in-game year – but if you already have staff trained up, you can save yourself a bunch of money. There’s no way to train staff once the academic year is over, so make sure you’re constantly queueing up training opportunities during term.
Not only does this help your budget long-term, it also helps to aid staff happiness. Most staff want to be trained, and better-trained staff will help students hit higher grades – so really, it’s a win-win on all counts. Yes, they will need to take time out to train but if you have some relief staff, this won’t be a problem.
Once you’ve unlocked the Training room (it arrives early in the natural gameplay progression) you’ll want to click through each staff member, and select one area of training for them. If they’re a teacher, focus on improving their skills in one subject, or train them for a second one if your university has multiple courses. It’s better to have fewer teachers with highly-trained skills than a bunch of teachers with a variety of skills. Personal happiness is also a key skill to learn, and should be trained in all staff.
You can queue up multiple staff members for training at once, so keep selecting skills if you’ve got ample budget. Then, when the academic year ends, you won’t have to hire any additional staff.
Fulfil academic demands as soon as possible
As you progress in Two Point Campus, your students will demand more of you – some will want fun items or parties to boost happiness, while others will require certain unlockables as part of their coursework. Always, always unlock the required academic items first.
If you don’t unlock these items, your students can suffer academically, and this will impact your university score, as well as your goals. When you’ve got spare Kudosh or cash, feel free to attend to other student needs – but make sure any academic demands are met first.
These have the most impact on your students, and will also have knock-on impacts for overall happiness.
Don’t spend all your Kudosh at once
There are a number of extra goals you can hit in Two Point Campus that will gain you ‘Kudosh’, a currency that unlocks new furniture, including decorative and academic objects. Kudosh is typically in limited supply, and is only received after the successful completion of academic years, or special requests.
The temptation in the game is to use Kudosh to unlock absolutely everything at once, including the pretty rainbow rugs and statues – but do not do this. Throughout the academic year, you’ll often get requests from students (as mentioned) and if you don’t have the required Kudosh, these requests will time out.
If academic requests time out, students can fail subjects – and this goes on your permanent record.
Generally, important items will cost up to 100 Kudosh – so make sure you have at least this amount spare before you start buying up new plants and paintings. If you’re too frivolous, you’ll end up in dire circumstances.
Attend to individual student needs
As well as academic needs, students in Two Point Campus also have general lifestyle needs – much like in The Sims. They’ll need to kept fed, sheltered, clean, and entertained, with the items you place around your campus determining how happy students will be.
After you’ve taken care of your basic campus requirements, you should make sure to service all existing student needs. Build a few food and drink stands, and hire assistants to monitor them. Place hand sanitiser everywhere to promote hygiene. Build a shower room for those in dorms. You can also place items like gaming systems and club stands to entertain students. If you’d like to improve your cohort’s communication skills, you can also place benches around – or love seats to get romances started.
If you’re not sure what to build, click on individual students to see how they’re feeling, and what they’d like to see around campus.
Pastoral Support, Medical and Private Tuition rooms are essential
Students may need more help on challenging campuses, and that’s where the Pastoral Support, Medical Office and Private Tuition rooms come in handy. These three rooms boost essential skills for students, and can help elevate their grades from the absolute pits to the greatest heights.
If you’ve trained your teachers well enough, a one-on-one session in any of these rooms will help students build their resilience, educational capabilities, and emotional control. This will encourage them to stay in class and not drop out (which can be awful for your academic scores), and also contributes to the overall happiness of your cohort.
Students that are struggling can be sent to any one of these courses by clicking them and selecting ‘Send To’ on the appropriate room.
It’s a good idea to check the Personnel Management tab every so often, and see how your students are doing. If you’ve got some Fs, send them to tuition. If a student is sick or unhappy, a visit to Pastoral Support or the Medical Office may be in store. Look after your students, and they’ll look after you.
Be patient with lesson upgrades and unlocks
Two Point Campus operates at a fairly slow pace, with each new campus introducing fresh lessons and opportunities. If you’re heading into the game keen to check out magic school or knight class, you’ll need to be patient. These are only unlocked in the later parts of the game, and will require you to earn at least one star in the early campuses before you can jump in.
If there’s one particular course you’re excited about and you haven’t unlocked it yet, stay patient and keep earning those stars. Eventually, the game will reveal all its secrets.
Two Point Campus launches for Windows PC/Mac, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and
If you need more help check out our guides for earning more Kudosh, and unlocking new areas like Spiffinmoore.
