The true brilliance of tycoon titles like Two Point Museum is their ability to keep you occupied. In this sequel to Two Point Hospital and Two Point Campus, there’s always something to do: a new interactive exhibit you need to research, a staff member you want to educate, or an expedition you have to send your experts on.
If you’ve played the likes of Theme Park or Theme Hospital before, you’ll know largely what to expect from this light simulation. The campaign sees you working through a series of distinct museums, each with their own gameplay gimmick or theme.
The introductory area focuses on prehistoric creatures, for example, but you’ll quickly find yourself building aquariums or overseeing a house of horrors dedicated to the supernatural. Of course, there’s a sandbox mode too if you want a bit more creative freedom.
Each stage has a strong foundation: you place exhibits to attract interest, decorate them to build buzz, and construct information boards to impart knowledge. Some exhibits will require cooling; others will need meticulous maintenance to prevent them from spoiling. Keep everything ship-shape and attendees will be encouraged to dig deep into their pockets and give you a donation.
As you progress, you’ll be able to send staff out on expeditions in order to discover new exhibits. There’s often a random element to these – your staff may get injured or encounter complications which impede their progress – so there’s always a risk/reward element. You can train your employees and equip them with helpful items in order to reduce the probability of things going wrong.
Of course, the usual simulation systems return as well. Guests will lose energy as they explore your carefully crafted curations, so you need to consider placing benches and brewing coffee to keep them energised. Staff, too, will grow increasingly unhappy if they’re not feeling fulfilled in their work, and may threaten to quit, leaving you high and dry.
Managing all of these elements, as well as the look and flow of your museums, is critical to success. As the difficulty gradually increases, you’ll need to be more strategic about how you manage your galleries and ensure customer satisfaction. It’s a time-tested loop, but it’s executed as excellently as ever here.
As we alluded to earlier, the game also brings some new wrinkles to the formula. Take the aforementioned supernatural museum, for example: here you can create viewing galleries for the poltergeists you’ve tamed, but you’ll need to create rooms that suit their tastes, otherwise they’ll escape from their confines and begin haunting your guests.
Even when you’ve largely finished building a museum, there’s a level of micromanagement that the game requires which will keep you occupied. This means the hours can quite literally fade away, as you subconsciously tweak and tinker with your setup to maximise your overall income.
A persistent unlock system, like in previous Two Point titles, allows you to unlock new furnishings and features – sometimes purely for decoration, but often for function as well. A big part of the fun is simply zooming in on each scene and seeing how different guests and staff members interact with the new items you’ve placed – the animation is outstanding.
We must reserve a special mention for the in-game radio, too, which is flippant and laugh out loud funny in the ways it mocks modern media. We also really enjoyed a lot of the announcements over the Tannoy, which captures the same sense of irreverent humour as Theme Hospital all those years ago.
Our only major criticism, one that’s consistent with all these types of games, is that it just doesn’t feel quite right on a controller. Don’t get us wrong, this is extremely playable and the developer’s done a brilliant job streamlining things, but there are times when you’ll be pushing buttons to toggle between menus and it’s just obvious a mouse would be better. Despite featuring a UI size toggle, the fonts can also still look a little small if you’re playing on your couch, too.
Conclusion
Two Point Museum successfully transposes an effective gameplay formula to another theme, with this game in particular packing some serious variety due to the different types of institutions you can build. It’s laugh out loud funny, moreish, and there’s an enjoyable difficulty curve. But if you’ve never been particularly fond of this type of tycoon title, don’t expect to find anything here that will change your mind.
