What struck me most about Two Point Studios' previous games was how much they developed from a single concept. The simple seed of a hospital setting, and then a campus, they were able to offer such depth of systems, such variety of gameplay, and of course, a lot of gags.
This is equally true for the newly announced Two Point Museum, where, as the title suggests, players are tasked with creating and managing a museum of historical artifacts. But, being a Two Point game, things aren’t as simple as they might first seem. Think Night At The Museum, but with a quirky, sarcastic British twist.
Designing a museum, decorating the exhibits, adding gift shops filled with knick-knacks, providing restaurants, and seeking donations. All the obvious boxes have been checked, but these alone would be trivial. Because of course, here in the world of Two Point County, exhibits are not just a handful of bones, but opportunities for discovery, as well as potential disasters.
But with all the possibilities that management simulation games set in the bizarre fictional world of Two Point County offer, why settle for a museum?
“We have a list of all these different ideas that we’re considering for future games,” design director Ben Huskins tells me as I sit down to play a short demo of Two Point Museum. “The thing that really got us excited about Museum when we first started talking about it was this idea of building these collections of these amazing artifacts… How do I find these amazing things and display them in my museum? That immediately sparked a lot of ideas for us.”
“All the exhibits are really meaningful and have a lot of gameplay built into them, which gave us a lot of flexibility,” adds executive producer Jo Koehler. “We’re seeing more of the previous games where people are building their own museums, they feel really unique because as soon as we got beyond the gameplay, we really got into how can we make these museums look and feel amazing and incredible?”
Two Point Museum starts with the basics of placing and decorating items, as well as hiring staff, but soon branches out. First, crafting is no longer limited by rooms like in previous games. Dividing walls can now be used to provide structure, and crafting is much freer than before, with new options for floors and walls, arches, decorative objects, and images that focus on lighting each space.
Additionally, Two Point is branching out further with expeditions. Exhibits aren't simply purchased from a menu like hospital or school supplies would be; instead, they must be excavated during travels across a gradually-unraveling world map and brought back to each museum's helipad. Experts are hired to not only keep the exhibits in tip-top condition, but also fly out on adventures at player request and bring back exciting new items to display. A giant crate lifts up and opens to reveal your latest prize—it's like a fossil gacha machine.
Of course, this could lead to both disaster and joy. An expert returned from a trip sick and left muddy footprints on the pristine floors of my museum. Two Point hinted that even more tragic events could happen. Experts could even perish in their absence.
Expeditions are a key way the studio is advancing the gameplay from previous games, featuring exploration and discovery not typically seen in the sim genre. It adds an extra layer of adventure and storytelling, but also strategy, Huskins explains, as players will have to choose wisely which experts to send on expeditions and which to leave behind in the museum.
This demo focused exclusively on the prehistoric exhibits (the “starter pack,” Huskins says), which required digging into the Bone Belt. However, even these exhibits might not be what you’d expect. Yes, there are dinosaurs, like the Sharpontops and Tugowaurus, but also a caveman preserved in ice who threatens to come back to life, a fossilized adventurer from the future (thanks to time travel, of course), and a giant prehistoric stone computer. There’s even a fossilized floppy disk, because our childhoods are museum-worthy these days. The dinosaurs, in particular, are collected in parts, with multiple fossils needed to complete the set. It’s a bit like Animal Crossing, as is the collection where players can complete the entire set of items from each exhibit set. I doubt the café has a pigeon serving customers, though.
What other themes are coming? Two Point is obviously keeping tight-lipped, though I did spot some aquarium structures in the game’s trailer.
“We have some things that are grounded in reality,” Huskins says, “so obviously we look at what are the types of things that people would expect to see in a museum, because we always want that foundation. But then we have those things that are a little more outside the box that make sense in the world of Two Point County.”
He points to previous games and the implications of the lore for clues about what might be yet to come. “It’s about getting that variety, both in terms of what these cool exhibits look like and how they behave and how the player interacts with them.”
Personally, I hope for an art gallery where you're tasked with preventing soup-throwing vandals and robberies. “Stay tuned,” Huskins suggests.
The Two Point Museum has something far scarier than dinosaurs: children. Visitors will come in groups, including annoying children who will run amok without proper entertainment. I noticed one climbing on one of my prized fossils, but sadly I was unable to scare it away. Later, the game will introduce school trips, and players will be able to plan tours to show off their prized possessions.
Including children is another way the studio is expanding the genre, along with other new types of visitors. Key to their “edutainment” is the workshop, which will allow players to create interactive displays, whether it’s a dinosaur climbing frame or something, and prevent them from causing a nuisance. School field trips will also be added.
A big goal of the game, of course, is to generate money. Each exhibit is given a Buzz score based on how exciting and well-decorated it is; this in turn creates awe in visitors, who are then more likely to donate to a nearby cashier stand. Just make sure there are enough security guards to prevent anything from being stolen.
But the game is also about education, Huskins explains, in that players know a certain amount of the artifacts and exhibits, but not everything. “Some of them are a little more mysterious when you first find them,” he says, “so there’s this side of the game of you as the museum director trying to find out more about these exhibits. Then you’re able to analyze your exhibits, which increases your knowledge of them, which means you can write more about them at the information booths, and then guests learn more about those things and then they’ll give you better reviews.”
It all plays out with controls, UI, visuals, and humor that are familiar to anyone who’s played a previous Two Point game. “The dinosaur bones were surrounded by dinosaurs,” an announcer informed visitors at one point, which made me laugh. There are lots of little details to admire: cute animations of tourists in flowered shirts taking photos, donating, and learning, or even parents feeding their children.
“We always want to learn from our previous games,” Koehler says. “We spent a lot of time testing and iterating, working with our players to make sure the controls made sense to people. We didn’t want to reinvent what works for everyone… but I think it allowed us to get to the core mechanics and systems more quickly. The last thing you want to do is make something unnatural for our players.”
Two Point Museum will offer expanded customization tools and more creative freedom, largely because space requirements are no longer an obstacle. More objectives will also be offered after reaching a three-star rank on any level, to keep players going longer and provide incentives to return to previously completed levels.
It is clear that the Two Point Museum is as meticulous in its execution as it is delightfully entertaining. Even after a brief demonstration, it left me wide-eyed with wonder as to what might happen next. And isn’t that the joy of museums and discovery?
In fact, it all comes back to that depth of creativity in the studio. “It’s a very open process,” Huskins says. “Everyone on the team is interested in contributing ideas. There are artists, designers, programmers, producers, everyone contributing.
“That's where you get that variety of different things and a little bit of off-the-wall humor. Everyone has a different sense of humor in the studio, so we put it all in a melting pot.”
He continues, talking about the systems' interaction: “We spend a lot of time talking about these things and trying to apply a little bit of Occam's razor and say 'Do we need this? Aren't we just overcomplicating the game if we add this? Could we merge these two ideas together and this will be a more succinct system that gives us the depth that we want?'” From there, the team is careful to gradually ease players into tutorials, ensuring the systems work from the beginning until hours later.
“Some of our players are extremely casual cozy players, but we also have some very hardcore management sim players who really take it to the max and play with a certain style,” Koehler adds. “We try to tick all the boxes for everyone, it’s a lot of testing. And we don’t always get it right, but we keep iterating until it feels right.”
Indeed, just as Two Point Campus replicated Two Point Hospital, Two Point Museum appears to be doing the same. Fans of the studio’s past work will not be disappointed.