Day 97 - Please, Touch the Art 2
Point and Click, Puzzle, Short and Free ·
Skeeter’s Take:
Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is what you get if you crossed a fine arts gallery with a Slylock Fox comic strip:
Take on the role of Mr. Bones (Real Name: Baron James Ensor) as he walks from painting to painting and helps the miserable inhabitants find missing items.
Please, Touch the Artwork incorporates all the riveting gameplay you’d come to expect of a “Point and click” adventure (Namely: pointing and clicking), and then will occasionally throw a “Spot the Differences” or “Find this hidden item” mini-game at you.
For example, here is a fisherman who needs help draining his boat. Apparently he needs 5 buckets to do it, because using one bucket 5 times just doesn’t seem all that practical.
If you find all 5 of this guy’s stupid buckets, he drains his boat and gives you a ride.
Very cool! Thanks Boat guy.
He takes you to the next painting that appears to be broken:
You can repair this with another mini-game and it will give you access to the missing portion of the painting. It’s simple, but I like the meta use of the “art work” here. These small attention to details really add up to create a cohesive experience with style, and having style is very chic.
Another example is this “Spot the Difference” game that is actually more reminiscent of a Where’s Waldo page than anything:
The above artwork is especially delightful and weird. Here are some of my favorite characters I managed to pick out:
I ran around a while helping people collect sticks, buckets, and wine glasses. The slightly wiggling artstyle really was cool, but I wasn’t really enjoying myself. I really enjoyed this lady, however:
I really like the style and direction of this game. It oozes personality and there is clearly a lot of time and love put into everything. Even the puzzle elements are well implemented. I just don’t really enjoy point and click adventures all that much. This is a personal bias I am accounting for with this review, but it’s important to know where I’m coming from for the next part.
After I finished the Prologue, I launched up the next chapter of Art. I was met with a beautiful, scenic portrait of some rooftops. The smoke from their chimney’s wiggled slightly. I was beginning to enjoy my moment of peace when I noticed Ostrich Mary Poppins up on the roof with me. I chat her up, and she proceeds to ask me to find her 109 cats (ok it was only 20, but still) for her.
This is when I tapped out. No thank you. That doesn’t sound fun. I think I could get the gist of the game from the prologue without having to suffer slowly squinting my eyes at my screen and back tracking over and over again to make sure I didn’t miss the one fucking cat on that screen.
Again, I think taking a game where the primary “gameplay” consists of looking really closely at your screen and choosing to set a backdrop of fine art behind it is kind of genius. It almost forces the player to slow down and really appreciate what they are seeing, and maybe take in some details they certainly would have missed. I sure as shit wouldn’t have found the 3 well endowed individuals I showed you above if I wasn’t also searching for 8 differences in that picture. It’s very well done and while this is not something I personally want to keep playing, I think I can safely recommend it to people who are into this kind of stuff.
Recommend: Yes. I was bored after a level, but you probably won’t be! Very cool visual style and “art” direction. Also, I didn’t mention it, but I love that the skeleton the player controls is uncolored and in a very different artstyle than everything else. It makes him stand out, and gives him a very clear “outsider” feel to everything, which is perfect for a character that is inserting himself into fancy art. It’s a good game. It’s not a game for me.
Replay Percentage Chance: Chance: 80% - I would absolutely do more levels at a later date if Sam feels inclined.
Time Played: 35 minutes
Sam’s Take:
Please, Touch The Artwork 2 is by far the best hidden object game I’ve ever played. I’m unfortunately not well read on Belgian expressionist painters, but apparently these paintings are modified works of James Ensor. For fear of shorting other involved artists, I do not know if every painting is a modified Ensor, or if some of them are original pieces, I just know the game is dedicated to the 75th anniversary of his passing, and my initial google search turned up many images used within the game. Sorry, the daily review grind isn’t super conducive to thorough research:
Skeeter has already explained the conceit of the game, but I would like to bring some attention to the hint system. There’s a little lightbulb next to each object you’re collecting at the top of the screen that lets you know if any objects exist in the current painting.
You can click on it to get the exact location if you’re super stuck, but I like that it also works as a lighter hint system even if you don’t click on it (since it goes out if you’ve found all relevant objects in this current screen). This is a very forgiving hidden object game who’s goal seems to lean towards appreciating the art rather than the actual task of clicking on buckets.
There’s even some funny little sight-gags, like when I walked in on an old lady sleeping, and she woke, gasped at my skeletal face, then immediately died.
I, like Skeeter, am not super into hidden object puzzles, and even one as good as this isn’t really going to sway me on that, but it’s the type of game that makes this review project fun to do. I would normally never play a hidden object game, but because of the daily format, we tried something new and found a lot to like about it. Did it convince me to go out and find more hidden object games, no. BUT if you are a hidden object fan, or have one in your life, this one is free, charming, and mega rad.
For real, don’t let us not being super into the genre deter you, if this game sounds like something you might enjoy, please go try it out. If I may be so pretentious as to quote my own review of Heaven Will Be Mine, “I wish all games I didn’t like had this much stuff that I liked”.
Recommend: I recommend finding the 8 other Pink Aliens hidden in this review (this was Skeeter’s idea, give him a prize please).
Replay Percentage Chance: I promise all the Pink Alien stuff is getting explained soon
Time Played: VERY SOON
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