Two Point Museum is free on Steam this weekend and Xbox too, if you have Game Pass

On the design side, Museum takes Campus‘ expansive approach to decorating and makes it even deeper. There’s an almost overwhelming suite of items, prints, flooring styles, murals, decals, and themed objects to spruce your space up with, and while most exhibits have requirements to fully max out their “buzz” potential, you’re free to place and design however you want. And there’s some absolutely fantastic designs floating around on the internet if you need layout inspiration.

Campaign mode teaches you the basics of how to manage your space and people effectively, along with more advanced techniques like breeding your own fish in a marine museum or using the power of science to cloud guest judgment and make them less likely to point out flaws. You’ll start with a prehistory museum before gradually moving on to others — a haunted hotel where you bring ghosts back from the netherworld, an aquarium with ties to a sunken continent, a mysterious research outpost visited by aliens, just to name a few.

Image: Two Point Studios/Sega

As you expand, you can start mixing exhibit types, too. Maybe the prehistory museum needs some fish and a selection of ancient botany exhibits. The frozen finds section could do with a weird glowing frozen tree, too, or perhaps that’d be better in the space section with the cheese displays. The more exhibits you have, the more types of guests you can attract, which is where layout strategy starts to matter. A museum with a gift shop tucked away in the corner is far less likely to see good profits than one with a gift shop front and center, sporting trinkets and plushies relevant to the types of guest visiting and what they’re seeing. You can really dig deep into the management aspect if you want to min-max.

This isn’t even getting into admin things, like:

• Building interactive exhibits
• Maintaining appropriate museum security
• Putting on your best face for visiting VIPs
• Making sure guests have access to water and food
• Placing map stands in the right places to keep people from getting frustrated and leaving
• Running marketing campaigns
• Acquiring new exhibits for research purposes

It’s a lot to wrangle, but Two Point Museum eases you into everything so it feels like second nature by the time you’re ready to hit sandbox mode. It’s a supremely chill game and an excellent way to spend a weekend.

Two Point Studios is running a sale until June 25 where Two Point Museum is discounted to $20 on Steam if you wanted to buy it after the free weekend. Save data will carry over to the full game, whether you buy it during the sale or after.