Art is captivating, and daring, and can bring about a swirling of death-defying emotion. Just look at the Mona Lisa, it’s stunning, truly a magnificent work of art that speaks volumes on beauty, patience and the human form. You wouldn’t dare touch the painting, which is strongly forbidden as you risk ruining a vital piece of our arts and culture. But then again … Maybe you should. Who knows what will happen, and the game for today’s review, Please, Touch the Artwork 2, dares you to voyeur, explore, and go to places you didn’t know were even there.
What is Please, Touch the Artwork 2? 
This is the long-awaited sequel to the solo-developed indie title by Thomas Waterzooi. Please, Touch the Artwork is described as a “hand-painted puzzler” featuring hidden objects, mystery and surrealistic exploration. You play as a dandy Skelton painting who’s embarking on an other-worldly venture home through beautiful works of art. You will collect items for the painting’s quirky inhabitants, make repairs to damaged works of art, and partake in solving mellow puzzles.
It's not meant to be an ultra-challenging, brain-melting exercise in prolific puzzle solving, but rather a wholesome journey of discovery, experimentation and putting back together what is fractured. To the “point”, this is a quirky point-and-click adventure through and through, where you discover and collect key items, solve puzzles, and venture through a stunning world made up of fantastic works of art.
The artistic touch
Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is truly an aesthetically pleasing game which balances a stellar presentation and wonderous visual style. The idea of transversing through paintings is not entirely new but hasn’t been done so effortlessly, or in the most engaging manner. I only recall that mission in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where you find a cursed painting and enter it to find a missing person. It was a neat idea, with just an overlay that any Photoshop CS2 had at the time.
But here, Please, Touch the Artwork 2 presents a grand scope of beautiful artwork that you can explore, and engage with in meaningful and dynamic ways. And these are real-world paintings within the game, painted by renowned Belgian painter James Enzor. Making there a real-world connection, especially if you’re an art lover. There is a good variation of paintings, each telling a different tale, and adding a rich density to the world-building. I never saw the same layout, scenery or scenario twice, but all of them connected so organically to each other, that it felt like a proper consistent adventure.
I found it incredibly amusing how the interactive elements are implemented with each painting, taking literal elements of each work of art and using them in a cutely intelligent manner.
It’s just a simple, wholesomely pleasing game where there’s no stress, you can take your time, and the game world is quite original and remarkable. Making itself so distinctive and distancing from typical and repetitive open-world games. And the music is beautifully charming, and sets the mood perfectly, just enhancing the ultra-chill atmosphere.
And I can’t believe how good this looked and how smoothly the exploration, animations and the blending of gameplay and real-life art came to be. Thomas Waterzooi has done a truly amazing job at bringing life to these paintings, in such a creative, respectable, and highly intelligent manner.
I will acknowledge that there are some accessibility features which could be added. For the settings, they’re basic but fine overall. You can turn off the skeleton hand (which I don’t get why, it’s so cool!), and turn off distressing sounds (noises which can be a little startling). But there isn’t anything much else, no vision impairment mode, or even to make the Skelton hand left-handed. But these are small gripes, as the hint system is rather good at helping those stuck on a scene or two. Regarding visual keys and clues, there are plenty of them, both organically and straight to the point (i.e. hint system) to help anyone caught in a tough spot during their time with the game.
A Boney adventurer’s quest home through the art world
Gameplay-wise, Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is incredibly simple yet quite satisfying, providing you enjoy a good puzzler. The core gameplay loop is venturing around, and collecting missing items, then bringing those back to a person of interest, in an iconic painting. But what lies in-between is often a nice blend of one-off set puzzles, and reoccurring fixer-uppers that get more challenging with each passing chapter.
The fixer-upper puzzles were quite nice, where you must apply tape across tears on the back of a painting, without double-crossing any lines. It’s simple but can get the better of you easily, and the challenge does ramp up rather nicely. Other puzzles such as a spot on the difference between two paintings, and a piano-playing segment, all came together brilliantly, adding some refreshing moments in between the searching and exploring.
It's all about puzzles, exploration, and fixing up paintings, which all tie into the story, which is a good narrative about art, life and the undying love of art. There are a lot of questions to be asked, and a deep sense of meaning to Please, Touch the Artwork 2 as it subtly presents some interesting questions on how humans connect with art. But above all the cool concepts, quirky interactions, and neat dynamics are a super chilled journey that anyone can get into and love.
Now the length of Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is rather short, which can be good or bad depending on your taste. I would have loved to see and play more, and maybe see a more complex puzzle or two. But it’s also a sweet, right-to-the-point kind of game which never outstayed its welcome. And what it does within the short 2-hour timeframe, it did it so right!
Overall?Please, Touch the Artwork 2 brings forth a meaningful journey through a legacy of artistic achievement, with the most entertaining, and joyful point-and-click puzzle gameplay. The interactive world of art is simply stunning, due to how much each painting comes to life in many instances of hilarity, prolific gravitas, and visual melody. I loved my time wandering through each scene, discovering items, meeting weirdly charismatic characters, and solving an array of quirky puzzles that I could play over again and again, even knowing the full answer to them.
While the length is a little short, what it does right within that amount of time, it does so phenomenally. And the biggest bonus, this game is 100% free! Go and play it now, go, go, and stop listening to me. I urge you to download, take in the beautiful art, and get to know yourself and your inner art-loving skeleton a little better.
+++ Immensely beautiful, with stunning visual design, great works of art and breaths of life through fluent animations and interactions.
++ Simple, yet great point-and-click gameplay, with some fantastic puzzles.
++ Utterly charming, quirky and downright lovable.
++ It’s Free!
-- Could have been a little longer.
- Maybe a few extra accessibility features.
A Steam copy of Please, Touch the Artwork 2 was kindly provided by the publisher for this review.