I knew I'd be spending a good chunk of my time in Two Point Museum decorating, but nothing could have prepared me for how invested I'd become in carefully curating every floor tile, wall panel, and set dressing item to make the exhibitions I plucked from faraway lands really pop. Sure, it's a management sim first and foremost, but after several hours perfecting each poster, vending machine, and info board, I realised just how good a job the game was doing at scratching the itch in my rabid Sims build/buy sicko brain.
It's funny, because I didn't expect the museum theme to grab my attention at all. I like a museum, sure, but I wasn't certain how much fun Two Point Studios could have playing around with the concept. Turns out, a whole darn lot. I started off in a rather grounded museum mostly dedicated to prehistoric exhibitions—think big ol' dinosaur skeletons, smaller fossils, and even some frozen goodies I could eventually send out my designated experts to go and retrieve.
It was a good way to ease me into all of the mechanics, maintaining a balance of well-decorated, well-informed, and well-fed while trying to rake in the big bucks with half a dozen donation stands scattered around. The initial pool of decor is pretty small, with a handful of generic and specific prehistoric themed items for me to chuck around the place. Despite not having a lot of tools to work with initially, I was still jazzed to be able to decorate every nook and cranny, carving out spaces for future exhibits and lining any empty area I could with vending machines and different coloured benches.
Once I'd tinkered around in there for a while, I was sent off to run two slightly different institutes: One centered around aquariums and deep-sea artifacts, and another that literally let me build live-in exhibitions for ghosts and ghouls. I spent most of my time with the former, where I was mostly going out hunting for fish rather than digging up old bones like my previous museum.
Things started to lean a little heavy into the RNG as I was repeatedly dredging up an entire ocean—each fish has their own quality rating, along with an additional bonus requirement that gives your aquarium more points if its met, like being paired with another type of fish or being in a tank that has (or doesn't have) certain decorations. I also quickly realised that I was going to need a freakin' huge fish tank for some of the point requirements, which regrettably messed with my meticulously designed layout.
Thankfully, it's mostly easy to rip up parts of the venue and plonk down new bits in order to hit challenges or make visitors happier. The only thing I wish Two Point Museum had was an ability to pick up and move a selection of walls or items—I had built some museum walls slightly off center, and couldn't find a way to move them without demolishing the whole thing and starting again.
The Wailon Lodge was by far where I had the most fun during the preview, though. Crafting rooms for ghosts milling around (or Polterguests as they're referred to) with furniture they want and then letting a bunch of humans gawk at them like a car crash was something I hadn't expected to be doing going in.
I'd assumed I'd mostly be venturing out for strange and cursed items like porcelain dolls and old phones—which, I might add, I still got to do—but having literal living exhibitions to look after was that classic Two Point surrealism I should've absolutely anticipated. It also gifted me with tons of delightfully spooky decor items, which I will absolutely be using with utmost thematic inappropriateness in my subsequent museums when the full game releases in March.
Ultimately, that was what I enjoyed the most during my time with the preview. I paid some loose attention to the challenges but I mostly focused on decorating, and for the most part everything else seemed to follow nicely. I'm sure I'll need to pay a little more attention to optimise my profits and make everyone a wee bit happier, but I loved being able to let my inner interior designer loose and create some really cool-looking venues.
