The sequel to the super charming TOEM (2021) photography adventure game by Swedish indie team Something We Made. Five years to the month later and the sequel is here!
TOEM 2 offers an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it methodology, bringing more of the same loveliness back… now with added charm offensive! Seriously, it’s one of the most charming and uplifting games out there.
Take Some Ruddy Pictures in TOEM 2
The remarkable thing about TOEM 2 is the warm, lovely, fuzzy sense of charm overload kicks in after about 60 seconds of gameplay. It just ramps up from there, too, as you guide the protagonist on a photography adventure in a monochrome world.
Armed with a trusty camera, you head out and start snapping pictures of wildlife for your compendium. In and around that you meet oddball characters across various contained mini-stages, who you talk to and then they set you tasks.
Complete the tasks and you get a stamp for your notebook, which then opens up new levels to complete. Simple, addictive, and a joy to play. Behold the dev gameplay showcase!
Where it becomes so much fun is with the creative way you solve quests. You tend to stumble on solutions as you explore, so that’s rewarding. But then add into that the sense of humour with the general misfits you meet and their strange behaviour… it’s a win from us.
Then the lively, bustling little mini-areas your waltz through are teeming with life. See a bug? Take it’s picture! Add it to your compendium, but then you could also take that picture and add it into someone’s picture frame in a random home.
Such little touches grave TOEM 2 all over the place and the attention to detail beams out of the world and really draws you in.
And, yes, of course! After the fantabulous soundtrack to TOEM it’s only natural there’d be another lo-fi musical romp here. This time around, Launchable Socks and Jamal Green collaborate again for TOEM 2. It’s stuff like Bioluminescence and it’s all rather glorious.
There are about four hours of gameplay overall. We’ve seem some gamers online get snotty about that in their Steam reviews, but as we’ve stressed many times… this is an indie game! Indie games tend to be short, which is why they’re much cheaper than AAA games.
Frankly, the replayability of TOEM 2 is just so high anyway. Once we’d completed it, we wanted to jump right back in and give it another whirl (along with the 2021 original).
With the world in such a horrible place right now, for this thing to arrive and be so life-affirming is a glorious achievement. Even if you’re a non-gamer, it’s this type of thing you should be giving a whirl to restore some faith in humanity. TOEM 2 is glorious and we love it mighty much.
