Hello dear friends!
We know you have some burning questions about Room Templates – “What are they?” “How do they work?” “Who came up with this GENIUS idea?”. Well have no fear, for we have managed to pick the brains of the amazing humans behind this awesome new feature, and most of what you hear is probably even true! Check out what Senior UI/UX Designer, Lauren Woodroffe and Programmer, James Gilby had to say about Room Templates:
WHAT ARE ROOM TEMPLATES?
Lauren: In short, Room Templates are your very own room layouts saved so you can place them in any of your other hospitals. This means there’s no need to rebuild them every time you start a new hospital!
WHO CAME UP WITH THIS INSANELY UNIQUE IDEA?
James: Well firstly, thanks for the compliment, we do think it’s an amazing idea. It came to me in a dream (as most of my great ideas do), I was dreaming about the game and imagined a world where being able to save the layout of a room to use in other hospitals was possible. Needless to say, I knew immediately that I had to do everything in my power to make this a reality. I needed another genius though, that’s where Lauren came in.
Lauren: James does like to mention his dreams in meetings but usually they’re all about being chased by giant monobeasts… this was the first time it’s actually been useful, so we set out on our journey to bring this completely original, unique, and frankly brilliant idea to life.
WHY ROOM TEMPLATES?
James: This is something the community have been keen to have as a feature for some time; we really wanted to prioritise something that we knew they would be excited about, and that both newer and more experienced players could make good use of. Making the perfect room can be time-consuming, we often find a layout and combination of items that works really well and want to replicate that (sometimes even across our other hospitals). This feature should help people focus more on other areas of gameplay rather than spending time rebuilding something they’ve already built dozens of times before.
Lauren: Yeah the community have been asking for something like this for a long time and we’re so glad we can bring this quality of life update to the game. Both newcomers and seasoned veterans will be able to put this feature to good use throughout their hospitals. Whether it’s to quickly place down rooms to deal with an incoming emergency or because you’ve found a winning combination of feline wallpaper and dog paintings that must be enjoyed throughout Two Point County!
I THOUGHT YOU JUST SAID YOU HAD THE IDEA?
Lauren: Well…yeah James had his dream remember? Dreams are totally random, they’re never influenced by real life things, unless he’s really been chased by monobeasts?
James: That’s correct, it came from a dream with absolutely no external influence… I did get chased by a monobeast once too.
OK… TALK US THROUGH THE PROCESS OF CREATING A TEMPLATE.
Lauren: Creating a template is really easy! If you’ve built a room that you want to save all you have to do is click it to show the info panel on the right, click the new templates tab and add it to your list. It’s as simple as that! Now, when you want to build that room again in a different hospital you just open the rooms list, click the templates button in the title bar and you’ll see all your saved templates. This will also work for rooms you’ve previously built, so if you’ve got that one favourite room of yours, just go into the hospital where it is, click it and save it!
HOW WILL THIS EXPAND THE EXPERIENCE FOR PLAYERS?
Lauren: It makes building those rooms you’ll always need a breeze and allows you to set up a new hospital quickly. Don’t spend your time building multiple GP’s Offices to diagnose patients when you could spend that time more effectively building plant mazes to “entertain” them.
James: Likewise if you’ve spent a really long time working to make a room look absolutely perfect, with all the gadgets and gizmos in the exact places you want them, you can easily transfer it to your other hospitals, or even use it as a baseline to create a similar room with a few differences.
WHAT SORT OF ROOM WOULD YOU MAKE A TEMPLATE FOR, AND WHAT WOULD YOU PUT IN IT?
James: I’d make a template for my world famous maze toilet, it takes quite some time to develop the optimal layout for having the sink as far away from the toilet cubicles as possible to maximise the required walking distance. I like my patients to feel accomplished when they use my lavatories, if it’s too easy, is it really worth doing?
Lauren: There are so many great uses for templates that it’s difficult to choose! I’d probably make a GP’s Office template as it’s one I use in every hospital. A 3×3 (or 4×3 if I’m feeling generous that day) with refreshments to keep my staff working longer happy, a nice rug and some flying ducks on the wall behind the desk. I find the ducks really tie the whole thing together.
JUST ONE LAST TIME… WHO CAME UP WITH THE IDEA?
James: As I explained, it was the dream!
Lauren: Yes… his dream…
BUT THE COMMUNITY ASKED FOR IT BEFORE YOU CAME UP WITH THE IDEA?
James: Absolutely, feedback from our community is of paramount importance to us and helps us shape new and existing features for the game moving forwards.
Lauren: We’re always listening to our community and looking for ways to improve and build upon Two Point Hospital to make it the best experience it can be.
Right… ok well I think we all know who really came up with the idea of Room Templates now (thanks for your feedback everyone!). Thanks to James and Lauren for taking the time out to talk to us about Room Templates. This awesome feature is available on Steam and console right now!
Posted 29th July 2020