Two Point Museum Review - A Relaxing Sandbox Experience

As a child, I was always fascinated by city-building and simulation titles. This specific genre scratched an itch in my brain, as I have always been a fan of symmetry, especially when it comes to creating outdoor and indoor structures in a game. To fill up my desire of playing these games, I was hooked on titles like SimCity, Cities: Skylines, and RollerCoaster Tycoon. However, as I grew up, I detached from these games, as arranging and maintaining cities or a system became too much work for me.

Fast forward to the present day, I received the opportunity to test out SEGA and Two Point Studios' new title, Two Point Museum, which is fortunately a sandbox-building simulator where you take charge of a museum and build it up to a state-of-the-art facility as you progress through the game. Straight out of the box, Two Point Museum is a relaxing sandbox-building game with a dynamic progression system that manages to give me a total experience of the city-building and simulation games I grew up playing.

This is my first time playing a Two Point Studios title, so naturally,I went into Two Point Museum with a heart full of expectations, and safe to say I wasn't disappointed. Two Point Museum presents you with a world full of customisation and opportunities to make or design your very own museum filled with your own unique touch of marine life, and prehistoric, supernatural, and scientific artefacts. In my experience, Two Point Museum is an excellent, fully fleshed-out management simulator that manages to hit the home run with a balance of relaxing and over-the-top gameplay experience.

In a nutshell, SEGA's new title is an excellent addition to the management simulation genre. You will start with the task of creating a museum from the ground up, which includes the placement of exhibits and artefacts to the hiring and training of your employees who run your museum. Aside from your exhibits placed in the museum, the way your employees work in the game will dictate how much buzz you generate, which in turn decides how money will flow in your museum.

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Two Point Museum

You begin your Two Point Museum gameplay by setting up a ticketing system, and once your visitors start swarming in, you place donation boxes and relevant supporting systems for your exhibits. With time you'll start earning money and add more exhibits. In the meantime, you have to simultaneously hire assistants, experts, janitors, and security guards who are equally important for the proper functioning of your museum. After hiring employees, you have to train them and create lounges for them to take their edge off. Each employee's role in the game is devoted to its assigned duties, so making sure that proper employees with the correct perks are hired for the job is the only guaranteed way of making your museum successful.

One system of the game that made me appreciate the game even more is the curation and care mechanic. In Two Point Museum, you cannot simply acquire or put in an exhibit or artefact by purchasing it from somewhere; you have to go on an expedition to get your hands on the next valued exhibit for your museum. After placing your new exhibit or artefact, you have to ensure the proper care through your experts. Each exhibit requires different items to stop it from deteriorating, like dusting off fossils and placing air conditioning systems near arctic exhibits.

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Two Point Museum

As I ventured more into the game, I was struck with awe as I learnt that I have to keep an eye on my visitors to keep my museum up and running, which also includes the threat of thieves raiding the museum at their own convenience. While I was able to counter the thieves with cameras, guards, and other security measures, the biggest challenge for me was keeping the children in line. Just like in the real world, children are a crucial part of the museum visitor count, which includes the challenge of keeping them in check and stopping them from touching or playing with the exhibits. I also discovered that you can keep the children busy by building attractions like tours, workshops, and playgrounds.

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Two Point Museum

While I could not control the exterior design of my museum in the game, I was content with the level of customisation I had at my disposal for my museum interior. Most games in the simulation or management category don't emphasise aesthetics or interior design. Two Point Museum strays away from it and requires players to plan out the interior of their museum with care to make sure the museum generates more buzz with time. During my play session, I was unaware of the fact that proper exhibit layout design was necessary for creating more buzz for my museum, so I had to rearrange the whole museum properly, and to my surprise, I was generating more buzz than I ever had.

Conclusion

Two Point Museum is a well-rounded and relaxing take on museum management and simulation that manages to hit the spot for casual and hardcore gamers alike. With exhibit themes like Marine, Prehistory, Botany, Supernatural, Science, and Space, Two Point Museum creates endless possibilities for players to create and run their very own museum. After my play session of the game, I can confidently say that Two Point Museum is worthy of your time and efforts. 

With care and affection, you can build a museum from the ground up and watch it come to life with each new placement; this feeling of achievement makes Two Point Museum an absolute treat. In a world full of action-packed and adventure-heavy games with an endless cycle of grinding, you can pick up Two Point Museum and play it at your own pace to soothe your mind with relaxing and aesthetically pleasing simulation gameplay.