Once you’ve played through the story campaign, Two Point Museum‘s Sandbox Mode lets you get completely creative. You’ll have to start from scratch with unlocks, but you’re free to explore and customize your Exhibits and themes however you like.
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With a surplus of customization options across several fleshed-out museums, you’ll be curating for quite some time.
If you’re looking for a real challenge, you can alter several difficulty settings. The Hardcore present allows for a tough, but not insurmountable start, where every decision really counts. If you want to try building a museum within the constraints of Hardcore Difficulty, keep these tips in mind to make sure that your finances stay above water.
1
Just Buy The Essentials First
Your starting budget on Hardcore is only $50,000. That might sound like a lot, but it will go very fast once you’ve hired staff, built necessary facilities, and sent your first few expeditions. You need to be frugal with your starting purchases, limiting yourself to a skeleton crew and bare-bones essentials like a Staff Room, Bathrooms, and a Gift Shop if you can afford one. At the end of your initial spend, you need to have money left over for Expeditions, which will cost $1,000-$5,000 each in the early game.
If you’re playing on Bungle Wasteland or Pebberley Heights, you’ll probably need to do some early construction as well, putting an additional strain on your finances.
2
Sell Exhibits Without Remorse
If you need extra cash, don’t be afraid to sell Exhibits. The best way to do this is to send Prehistory Experts to the Greasy Fields. It’s the cheapest Expedition in the game, and selling the fossils that you find will turn a tidy profit, which you can use to fund expansions or trips to places with more impressive artifacts to display.
Your museum will come under threat from organized crime guilds like the Boggymen and Golden Molers immediately, even when there’s very little to steal. That means you’re going to need good Security coverage, and probably more Guards than you might think given the small size of your initial collection.
Guild thieves attack in groups, and a Security Guard can only escort one offender from the premises at a time. If you have to, hire a new Guard specifically to apprehend extra henchmen… and be sure not to place any Exhibits too close to the bathroom doors.
Hardcore, by default, puts the crime danger at medium. If you want a continued onslaught from Two Point County’s worst villains, you can crank it all the way up to high – but don’t say we didn’t warn you!
4
The Gift Shop Is More Profitable Than Donations Early On
At nearly every other time in Two Point Museum, the majority of your income will be from donations. During the first several years of a Hardcore run, though, it’s all about that Gift Shop money, so your first major goal should be to get at least a small Gift Shop up and running.
There are a couple of reasons for this; first off, it takes a while to build up a collection that will really impress guests, which means that donations will only come in dribs and drabs. A Gift Shop, on the other hand, means that every guest is likely to spend at least another $75 or so, and probably more, more than doubling your revenue per guest.
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If you can only afford a basic Gift Shop, toys and trinkets are the best sellers overall; once you can expand, plushies and onesies sell slower but are very profitable when they do. If you have the option to sell the sponsored Cheezy Gubbins plushies, take it for guaranteed extra cash each month.
The other reason that Gift Shops are so important is that, on Hardcore difficulty, donation totals are reduced by one-fourth. That’s a lot of money that just goes up in smoke, so pushing souvenir sales helps make up the difference.
5
Start Building Custom Contraptions As Soon As Possible
Once you have the money for a Workshop – which you can probably manage after completing your first loaned exhibit from the Department of Culture – hire a Science Expert and send Expeditions to Bungle Burrows for materials. It’s time to start building Custom Contraptions!
The lower-tier Contraptions like the Spa Point are cheaper than most Expeditions (not counting the cost to go and get the Metal required), and they provide great Buzz for their cost. Once enough guests have viewed them, you can build the next tier version, selling the old one to fund it if necessary. If you’re making enough money by that point that you can also send out Expeditions while crafting, this doubles your rate of expansion without having to shell out the money for a second Helipad.
6
Buzz Over Knowledge
Buzz and Knowledge are both important, but for the first several years of your campaign, you’re going to be very limited in how much Knowledge you can realistically give guests. You can spam Info Stands, but each Exhibit is only going to contribute one point to each.
The Analysis Room costs a minimum of $30,000, so unless you want to risk an early loan it’s going to be a long time before you can start deconstructing artifacts. Until then, make sure that you have as much decoration as possible and consider lowering ticket prices to get the best reviews that you can from Buzz and Happiness.
Space Exhibits are some of the most impressive in the game, but many of them start with zero Knowledge instead of one, making this initial problem even worse. Be sure to mix them with other themes so that your Info Stands at least have something useful nearby.
Simulation
Strategy
Life Simulation
City Builder
- Released
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March 4, 2025
- ESRB
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Everyone // Mild Fantasy Violence, Comic Mischief
- Developer(s)
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Two Point Studios