A surprisingly underused game mechanic so beloved; stepping through portraits into a painted world, as featured in Super Mario 64, Rayman Legends, and even in bits of Persona 5 and The Witcher 3 DLC. Paintings are perhaps the most tactile medium of a universe separate from our own, as it is more tangible than television or video games, and it is a way to see and feel the inner minds of the artists behind it all. Visual art is essential to humanity, which is why we are so obsessed with its inclusion in everything.
Solo developer Thomas Waterzooi from Meynen Studios, with the support of the Flemish Government itself, created Please, Touch The Artwork 2. This title is a surreal explorative, point-and-click “Where’s Waldo?” type of game, created in celebration of Belgian painter and printmaker James Ensor’s 75th anniversary following his death.
Please, Touch The Artwork 2 came out on January 17th, 2024, and is completely free to download. It can be played on the Nintendo Switch, PC, Steam, and mobile on Android and iOS.
The Intrigue
James Ensor was well-known for his surreal and expressionist works in the late 1800s to early 1900s. His paintings feature bright and bizarre yet macabre tones, with both carnival and religious themes. He specialized in portraits, still life, and satirical pieces.
In Please, Touch The Artwork 2, you play as a skeleton in a suit. In my interpretation, the playable character seems to be an undead version of Ensor himself, reminiscing and roaming around his own paintings. Players hop from scene to scene in a world full of watery strokes, wandering caricatures, and added touches of game animation. The animation makes Ensor’s paintings truly feel alive.
There is an art thief on the loose taking out chunks of each painting. You follow the thief – which is a masked figure featured in Ensor’s The Intrigue (1890) – all the way to the end of the game, while patching up the holes he left behind. The figure is based on the husband of Ensor’s sister, who was a Chinese art dealer that apparently caused quite the scandal in the artist’s hometown.
Aside from this main yet mild plot point, Please, Touch The Artwork 2 is ultimately a point-and-click puzzle game. Random people or animals from the paintings will have a thought bubble over their heads. When you approach them, they will request for you to find x amount of a specific object, perhaps paintbrushes, cigarettes, or fruit. You find all these hidden objects and bring it back to the requester in order to progress to the next set of scenes. There are five game chapters total, all featuring unique galleries dependent on Ensor’s artistic phase of life.
Attributes of the Studio
The player walks left and right on a 2D plane, yet the environment is in 3D, giving each of Ensor’s paintings immaculate depth to them. You point at and click hidden objects with this skeletal hand, and then bring them back to the character that wants or needs that item. The game starts off simply, as objects are pronounced and noticeable. As the game progresses, the hidden objects become more blended into their environments, making the search significantly harder.
Once you find all the items you need within a scene, a passageway will unfold so you can progress. This may be something as simple as a staircase or unlocked door, or perhaps something more . . . morbid . . . like giving a goose all these cigarettes to which he chokes on smoke and drops dead, so that you can climb down his neck into the next scene. Quite brutal.
There is a small, automatic hint system that will tell you if the object you are looking for is currently in the scene you are in. It will not tell you where or how many, though. Ultimately, Please, Touch The Artwork 2 features loads of backtracking, but nothing is too far way from you and the game itself is less than 2 hours long. Players can also zoom in closer to get better looks at the environment, and you may choose to turn on more obvious hints when stuck.
Make sure to patch up all the holes the art thief left behind as well. They are very mild puzzles that require dragging the cursor around alongside a tiny bit of geometrical understanding.
Ensor at the Easel
The in-game art is an expansive replica of James Ensor’s real portfolio, so ultimately it is quite beautiful and phenomenal. The scenes are watery, expressive, colorful, and borderline chaotic. The first chapter is more muted, misty, and based on industrial landscapes of the European 1800s like Ensor’s early works. As you move forward, the paintings begin to become more bold and colorful, filled with carnival masks and bones. You are truly walking through portraits, a feeling beyond words, including impressive pieces like The Rower (1883), Flowers and Vegetables (1896), and Skeletons Warming Themselves (1889).
The visual design is amazing yet becomes quite uncanny paired with the audio. There is a mix of somewhat comfy atmospheric sounds yet maddening chatter, which sometimes sounds like you are walking through an art gallery, and other times it feels like the skeletons and masks are mumbling at you. Otherwise, the game includes classical pieces like Claude Debussy’s Reverie and Clair de Lune, and even some of Ensor’s musical works such as Flirt De Marionettes in the main menu and Complainte et Berceuse in the epilogue.
Out of all the scenes, I think Attributes of the Studio (1889) perturbed me the most, with all the floating faces and the more difficult hidden objects segment. It freaked me out . . . in a good way.
Final thoughts
Please, Touch The Artwork 2 is an unrelated sequel to the first game of the same name, but quite a leap away from the original’s abstract, geometric look. Waterzooi entered a more lurid territory that proved to be more immersive and fascinating. The game is short and a tad repetitive, but that can be forgiven due to its length and intent of celebrating James Ensor. I appreciate that Waterzooi doesn’t shy way from the sinister themes, yet it does manage to avoid Ensor’s more satirical religious works, which is understandable. Therefor the game can reach a wider audience.
As it is free to play, and Waterzooi put so much thought and love into it, I highly recommend this game. It is also a brilliantly interactive way to discover Ensor’s visual and musical works, and serves as a gateway into appreciating modern expressionism.
Look out for Waterzooi’s upcoming Please, Watch The Artwork, which is seemingly a cross between his first two games and Observation Duty.
