Hey everyone,
We've been buzzing with anticipation to show you all the stellar goings on in our academic space race, and we're thrilled to see such an awesome response, we've been loving your excitement over on our social channels!
Today we're blasting off for a closer look at what exactly the first major DLC for Two Point Campus is all about. We sat down with Head of Animation, Chris Knott and Designer Harry Puttock to talk about what you'll be doing and what you can expect in the new DLC. Strapped in? Boosters set to ignition!
Everyone's super excited for the new DLC, tell us a little bit about what players will be doing in Space Academy.
Harry: In Space Academy, players will lead their students through a range of galactic courses. Meet aliens, mine space rocks and have a superbly science-fictional time. Everything you know and love about space has been carefully crammed into this DLC. Most of it, anyway.
Heading into space is definitely not the first place you'd expect to be building Campuses. What was the inspiration behind the setting of Space Academy?
Chris: As with all our games we tend to go with both the consensus in the studio and feedback from the community. Space Academy seemed the best choice as every science student has dreamt about going into space! Plus there's a nice large scope for us to make weird courses and even weirder machines for students. We could also see ties with existing courses in the game, so it felt like a really nice theme to step into.
Harry: It may sound outrageously simple, but it seemed like a fun thing to learn about (for the students, not us). Space is such a rich point of reference, with loads of historical moments - remember? - and pop-cultural bits to twist, reference and ruin.
What sort of locations will players be heading to?
Harry: Each of the new campus settings celebrates different elements of space travel and science fiction. You've got Universe City, the home of Two Point's old space program, which is what people will recognise as 'real life' space travel (rockets, astronauts etc.). Then you have Cape Shrapnull, HQ for the County's new space academy, which is more heavily Sci-Fi inspired. Cutting-edge and farfetched, sure, but also familiar and grounded, literally! Finally, there's Cheesy Heap: Delta-Rye, the first level we've ever set outside of Two Point County. Things get a bit wilder, understandably - heading into space - with cosmic cheese and lots of aliens... It's our spin on the unknown, and hopefully amusing, future of space travel.
Of course, there are a bunch of cosmic courses on offer at Space Academy, how do you come up with the ideas for these?
Harry: A lot of it comes down to the students. What kinds of characters do we want to see in these settings? What fun things can they be learning and doing? There's an abundance of ideas, with a theme like space, so it becomes a process of figuring out which combinations best serve each of the levels, and the DLC at large. As I mentioned with the settings, we wanted to establish three different styles, or eras, of space travel. The students and their courses are a crucial part of that. Then, when we finished, and everything was perfect, we figured out how to shoe-horn in something about cheese.
Chris: We thought of fun tweaks on existing space-themed tropes. and puns! (Obviously! ). Anything we could think of that would fit our world and maybe pay homage to our favourite space films or fiction.
Cheesy Heap, cheesy space rocks, cheesy monsters... there's a lot of intergalactic cheese in this DLC! Tell me about Cheesy Gubbins, do we really want to know how they're made?
Harry: I cannot confirm that Cheesy Gubbins has been using cosmic cheese as a secret ingredient in their famous snack. I could, but I won't.
Chris: We all know for a fact that the moon is made of cheese, so the Two Point world is perfect to explore the intergalactic cheese mysteries held within... Just don't ask how it's made...
As you've had a chance to play Space Academy, what's been your highlight?
Chris: I am biased but the new animations are really fun, the Space courses offered us a whole load of silliness to animate and the new course machines lean into the weirdness of space.
Harry: My favourite part of the DLC lives in a piece of machinery that's used on the Cheese-Moongery course. Now, that's a sentence! Please send them my love when you meet them in Cheesy Heap. Thank you.
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Two Point Campus: Space Academy is coming 6th December 2022 for £8.99/$9.99/€9.99. Pre-purchase now for a 10% discount!