Free sequel Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is out today, inviting you to poke a pile of paintings for hidden things

A surprise short sequel to 2022 puzzle game about modern art has dropped: Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is out now on Steam, and it's free to boot. Where the first was a puzzle game, this one's a hidden object adventure about a skeleton collecting items for weirdos that live inside paintings.

Please, Touch the Artwork 2 is made by solo developer Thomas Waterzooi, who put it together in six months to celebrate Belgian painter James Ensor, who has been dead 75 years this year. Ensor's paintings and prints were important impressionist works that also influenced the surrealists—perfect fodder for a game to be both oddly engaging and patently beautiful.

It's a slow-paced, casual, relaxing, and quite silly hidden object game that'll also accidentally teach you some nice things about the foundations of  modern art on the side. It has nice optional hints if and when you get stuck.

The original Please, Touch the Artwork was a real pleasure back in 2022. The modern art-adjacent puzzle game evoked the classic Snake in order to make a fascinating and enjoyable game about colorful lines and shapes evocative of subway maps and of the famous, blocky paintings of Mondrian.

«Using the abstract art of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (you almost certainly know it even if you don't know his name), Waterzooi makes a layered homage to art history that taps into our innate attraction to crisp shapes and bright colors. The slappy-hand cursor also attracts cats,» said Alexis Ong, writing for PC Gamer at the time.

You can find Please, Touch the Artwork 2 on Steam. It's developed by Thomas Waterzooi and it's free.