Sega and Two Point Studios made Two Point Museum's newest DLC, Rides and Relics, free to start last week for anyone who owns the base game ahead of the expansion's full launch on Oct. 8. Normally, a campaign's first stage eases you into that museum's peculiarities and keeps the big stuff for later. The Arty Facts DLC's first stage, for example, teaches you the basics of creating and displaying paintings without even getting into live performance, emotions, auctions, and training models.
I imagine Rides and Relics' later stages will grow more complex as well, but I'm impressed by just how much there is in this initial campaign and how well it utilizes nostalgia. Most of it so far is built on the old Theme Park's ideas, but rather than reproducing something familiar and calling it a day, Two Point's using nostalgia as a starting point for making something new. You get a new ride, plunk it in the park, and make a queue for it, but queue size and placement matter.
Make it too short, and not enough people end up on the ride. That's a problem, since every ride has a fee. "That's extortion!" you might say, and it probably is.
Though in the absence of receiving donations like you do for normal exhibits, it's essential extortion. Besides, no one's forcing them to pay. Anyway, guests will get bored and leave if you make the queue too long, which means no money, and they are less likely to stay in the museum-park, which means even less money.
Rides confer the "thrilled" status on guests, which works with happiness to increase how long they stay, but a body can only take so many thrills. One thing I vividly remember from Theme Park is vomit. A cacophony of puking always filled the toilet blocks, and the sound was quite distinct.
Two Point remembers vomit, too. When guests are over-thrilled, they're more likely to hurl, and that ruins their day. The idea is to balance thrills with tamer activities, like traditional exhibits mixed in with your rides, though you can also install perks that make rides less likely to harm your guests in various ways.
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