Two Point Museum Review | A Great Gateway into the Genre
Hectic and chill at the same time.
Since 2018, Two Point Studios has explored hospitals and universities, though now, the studio has set its sights on museums with its latest title, Two Point Museum.
If you’ve played any of the previous Two Point games, you should already be familiar with what to expect. In this new game, you become a museum manager, and the goal is to grow your museums by adding exhibits of items and artifacts from all over the world. All of this while making sure day-to-day operations are smooth and profitable.
For business sim fans, the previous Two Point games were a lot of fun, though I have to admit, they didn’t personally grab me. After all, I’m not usually one to play sim games (unless it’s a racing sim), and managing a hospital or a school has never really been a dream of mine.
With Two Point Museum though, my interest was piqued. That’s because I love going to museums, whether it’s a historical museum with various old artifacts or an art museum featuring modern and or contemporary works. So, with the next Two Point game being museum management, I was eager to give it a try, though I was still half-expecting to find the sim elements to be a bit difficult to get into.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case as I had a blast with Two Point Museum, enough that I think that it’s a nice gateway into the world of business sims, especially given how I’m not usually one to play games in the genre. A lot of it is thanks to how well the game’s systems work together while still being easy to grasp.
Smooth Onboarding
The various systems and mechanics of a sim game are a big hindrance for me when it comes to playing games like Two Point. That’s not to say I don’t like complex games, as I do quite like titles like Civilization, given my interest in history, enough that I’d be more than happy to learn about a Civ game’s mechanics. For a business sim, learning the mechanics can seem like work for me, but not with Two Point Museum.
How management works in this game is that you handle day-to-day operations, meaning you assign staff members or Experts tasks to do in the museum. These tasks include manning the ticket counter or serving as the museum’s security. The Experts on your roster are also important as you need to assign them to Expeditions across the world to get more artifacts to exhibit.
As you collect more goodies to display from Expeditions, your task is to display them as exhibits in your museum. These exhibits gain Buzz, a currency that can encourage guests to donate to your museum, giving you extra funds for expansion. As such, getting more Buzz is important, perhaps just as much as getting actual cash. Exhibits gain more Buzz if you put decorations near them and add signs that explain what they are.
Because more exhibits are the key to growing your museum (and its Buzz), you’ll want to send out Expeditions as often as you can. You can’t just send out Experts willy-nilly though as Expeditions can be hazardous, so you’ll need to give your Experts proper training (which costs time and money) to get you better chances of success (and even survival at times). Plus, you also can’t just go on hiring sprees all the time as staff costs can take a big chunk off your bottom line.
There are a lot of mechanics in this game, but what I explained above is essentially a summarized version of the core gameplay loop. Of course, gameplay becomes more complicated as you progress, especially when you unlock other museums with unique themes. For the most part though, this is what you’ll need to get a good grasp of.
While there are plenty of things to learn, the game does a good job of teaching you the mechanics one by one so that you don’t get overwhelmed. In fact, I would say that despite my lack of experience with business sims, I got up to speed quickly with Two Point Museum thanks to how the game’s tutorial and early game are laid out.
It also helps that I love the museum premise and setting. For this installment, Two Point Studios didn’t really stray far from the visual style they’ve established with Hospital and Campus. If you ask me, the style works incredibly well for museums as there’s plenty of charm, along with a big dose of humor, making learning the gameplay mechanics more engaging.
What is worth noting is that while many of the core elements are explained well in the tutorial, some things aren’t highlighted as much. Some of these include the various Visualization options that you have. These modify your view of the map to give you a better idea of what needs to be optimized in your museum.
For instance, there’s an Exhibit Decoration option that highlights your exhibits and how many decorations are near them already. As stacking decorations near an exhibit will have diminishing returns after a certain number, this handy Visualization can show you more clearly if some exhibits already have the max amount so you can focus on others in your museum.
This is just one of the features that I only found out about while playing. While I wished that the tutorial would go a bit more in-depth about the other features, the game still overall does a good job of showing you the ropes without making the process feel overwhelming.
I would even say that once you understand the game’s rhythm, playing Two Point Museum can be quite a relaxing experience. Relaxing may not exactly be the right word, as things can get frantic fast as you grow your museum and manage more locations.
Hectic yet Relaxing (if that makes sense)
Admittedly, I might be using the word relaxing wrongly, but I did feel that playing Two Point Museum was a chill experience. This is despite all the things that pop up, which I need to manage properly in my time as a museum boss.
The game starts out fairly easy to manage, but as it progresses, various mechanics come into play that can make things feel quite hectic. Chiefly, there’s money. In real life, there are plenty of non-profit museums, but not in this game. You can’t run your museum like a charity as you will need to strive to be in the black.
It doesn’t help that making money in this game isn’t easy. Sure, revenue itself is simply gotten though ticket sales, merch, and donations, but staffing and other incidental costs do add up to make the finance part of the game something to keep in mind, especially when you’re expanding your museum.
There’s also the fact that you’ll end up managing multiple museums at some point. You can’t just focus on your first museum too, as some Expeditions are locked until you get an Expert, which can only be hired in certain museum types.
With more museums come more exhibits, and with more exhibits, more Experts are needed. It’s a non-stop cycle of growth that requires plenty of decision-making, as is the case with managing a business in real life. Unlike a real-life business though, the stress of the decision-making isn’t present in Two Point.
Sure, it can seem overwhelming, but as I mentioned above, the game does a good enough job of onboarding you with its various systems that the ever-expanding nature of your museums feels quite natural. Because of this, even when there are plenty of things to address, the experience overall is rather chill. Thanks to how satisfying the game’s systems and elements come together, I found the game to be a relaxing and fun time instead of a stressful experience.
Again, the pause function is helpful in this regard as it helped me not get overwhelmed when multiple things are going on at once. Along with this though, the game’s soundtrack also helps make the vibe feel more lighthearted.
Two Point Museum Final Verdict – 8.5/10
Even if you’re not usually a business sim player, Two Point Museum has plenty to offer. If you love visiting museums like me, chances are that you’ll enjoy the experience of managing them in this game. This is thanks to the compelling core gameplay loop that’s engaging and quite addictive, all while having plenty of depth.
The game’s systems are quite deep, but it does teach you what you need to know well enough that you won’t have a hard time learning how museum management works, even if you’re new to the genre.
Of course, there are things that you have to learn for yourself, but overall, Two Point Museum is a great starting point for business sims. If you’re looking for a more chill game that will cause time to fly by, you’ll definitely want to check this game out.
[This game was made via a PC code provided by the publisher.]