Idle Museum Tycoon: Empire of Art & History Review

A Museum All Your Own

Finally, an idle game for art and history buffs!  Idle Museum Tycoon: Empire of Art & History by Pixodust Games lets players run their own museum. As the museum’s supervisor, players will build and upgrade new galleries while managing resources. Despite some flaws, the title overall is a fun distraction.

Galleries Galore

You start by building the renaissance gallery. You’ll unlock new galleries as you progress by earning enough funds. Each gallery has three types of upgrades. Upgrade galleries to create more intriguing exhibits and earn more money per visitor—gallery, waiting line and guide. Upgrading the waiting line allows more visitors to wait in line. Visitors become grumpy if they can’t wait in line for a gallery. To allow your tour guide to more shepherd more people through your galleries, upgrade your guide. This allows you to make more money per tour and keeps the wait line from filling up too much. The galleries themselves seem to have infinite upgrades. My renaissance gallery is already at level 1500 and can still has upgrades available.

Idle Museum Tycoon offers plenty of galleries for players to unlock, including everything from contemporary art to an herbarium featuring beautiful and exotic plants. It takes a while to unlock each gallery as they are increasingly expensive. However, players can nab extra cash by watching ads or taking a quiz. Quizzes are five questions per quiz and if you get them all right, you’ll get some gems as well. A new quiz is available every two hours. While the quizzes are kind of boring, completing them is an easy way to get some extra funds. The game features cute and vibrant graphics. However, you’ll want to mute your phone after a while as the music is extremely repetitive.

Pay and Play

Idle Museum Tycoon hides some of its best features behind paywalls. While it’s certainly possible to play the game without paying for in-app purchases, you’ll have to endure some tedious museum maintenance. As visitors roam your museum, they drop garbage on the floor, which thoroughly annoys any visitors who stumble upon it. You can click on the garbage to sweep it up, however, this can prove time-consuming as your visitors are constantly littering.  Thieves will also be drawn to your museum and will steal from your visitors. To catch these thieves, you’ll need to be on the lookout for visitors dressed in black and white stripes with a red circle around them. If you manage to catch one, you’ll get some bonus cash, however, you’ll have to be vigilant to catch them all.

Of course, you can permanently hire a janitor and security guard for 9.99 each. However, that seems like an exorbitant amount considering you can simply pick-up trash and catch thieves yourself. Alternatively, you can spend 40 gems, the game’s premium currency, to hire a janitor or security guard for an hour but considering how long it takes to accumulate that many gems it really isn’t worth it. Players can also purchase other permanent upgrades, such as removing ads, and increased earnings. While Idle Museum Tycoon doesn’t push in-app purchases on its players, for the most part, it sure does offer a lot of them with prices ranging from 2.99 to 99.99.

Verdict

Idle Museum Tycoon: Empire of Art & History is an entertaining idle game. The graphics are adorable and there are plenty of galleries to unlock and upgrade. However, the constant littering makes you feel like a full-time janitor rather than a museum supervisor. The in-app purchase cost for hiring a janitor and other employees is irksome. Luckily, the game runs smoothly enough without spending a dime. All in all, Idle Museum Tycoon: Empire of Art & History isn’t a masterpiece but it’s still worth taking a look at.