Tiny Bookshop tasks you with finding the perfect book for a voracious town ready to read whatever you throw at them.
“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”
“The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
“The transformation occurred at approximately 2:23 AM, Pacific Standard Time. As far as I could tell, anyone who was indoors when it happened died instantly.”
Just a sentence or two can instantly hook a reader into a new book. While certainly not obscure, those are from a few of my favorites. While I will admit that I have not kept up with reading as a hobby nearly as much as I would like, I have been an avid reader since grade school and will quickly settle in with a good story.
All too often, though, the problem for me is in finding out just what to read. Who do you ask and trust to steer you in the right direction? Enter the premise of “Tiny Bookshop.” You get the esteemed privilege of having an entire village of ravenous readers ready to ratify your recommendations. Will they be thrilled by the latest thriller, or will they be turned away by the mere cover?
Gameplay Overview
Tiny Bookshop—developed by Neoludic Games out of Cologne, Germany—sees you moving to the town of Bookstonbury with your bookshop trailer in tow, where you’re quickly brought up to speed on how to run your shop.
The primary gameplay loop works on a daily schedule where you have 28 days per season. No days off for you; you will be going to various locations around the city every day to sell your books and make your living. Fortunately, the town is full of pleasant people who are constantly looking for a new read.
The balance and design of your daily grind is excellent. The first thing you’ll need to do for each day is choose your location and whether to update your decorations for your shop. Far from superficial, different locations and decorations have an impact on your sales for the day. Each location has a few different types of books that will be more popular sellers, and the decorations for your shop can boost the chance of selling a certain type of book. This synergy is key to selling as many books as possible.
Next you’ll be selecting your books that will be for sale that day. Rather than deciding specific titles that you want to try to push, you fill your shelves based on the genre of the book: Crime, Drama, Classic, Fantasy, Fact, Kids, or Travel. While initially I was hoping for direct control of which books are brought in with your shop, it quickly became evident that such a level of choice would be overwhelming.
As the day progresses, most of your sales will happen automatically as customers choose their desired genre and check out automatically. And let me tell you, even if it is not something you directly control, it is satisfying to see a single customer stack up 10+ books in one transaction.
That said, throughout the day some of your customers will need a bit of a hand picking what to read. You’ll seldom be given a specific title that they want; rather, they’ll provide you with a brief description of what they’re looking for. Typically this will include the genre they want and potentially other examples of books that they have enjoyed. And this is the part where the game truly shines.
The books that you select at the start of the day are all you will have access to. This gives the recommendation puzzles an extra layer of consideration where, as your stock dwindles, the chance of you having the perfect recommendation drops, if not becoming outright impossible.
Don’t worry if you’re a lapsed reader like myself; you don’t need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of books in order to excel. That would be a tall order to expect of us players, especially with the hundreds of real-world books and a few dozen fake books that only exist in this game’s world. Instead, the game gives you all the information that you need to make a recommendation: a brief description of the book, relevant details that the customer may want such as page count, author’s name, publish date, and a “mature content” warning.
The puzzle elements of this system are always satisfying to make that perfect recommendation. My head spins just thinking of the number of classifications and descriptions that the developers needed to build for this library.
If that sounds like a lot to take in, well, that’s because it is. However, paradoxically, that’s also all there is to the game. The same pattern plays out over the game’s 100+ days with little variance. Digging into a game’s mechanics like this is my gaming bread and butter, and this loop, while satisfying, feels spread a bit thin, like too little butter over too much toast.
Similarly, the in-game economy is also forgiving. Initially it feels like there might require a solid amount of planning to ensure you never run out of books and have enough cash to get to your location for the day. In almost no time you’ll have a storeroom of hundreds of books. Plenty to keep you going without worry and to fund your purchases of every trinket and decoration you may want to optimize each day’s sales. I’m not even sure that there is a fail state for the game.
Now, that type of cozy, easy-going vibe may gel for you a lot more than it did for me. And I want to emphasize that despite my nitpicks, I had a great time running my little shop and finding the perfect recommendation. This is definitely a matter of the game absolutely nailing what it sets out to do; I just don’t personally fully align with that goal.
Story, Characters, and Setting
More than the gameplay elements, the story, and characters are where I wish there was more on offer here. Aside from the numerous nameless customers that enter your shop each day, there are a handful of recurring characters. Among your regulars, you’ll have some of the town’s old guard of longtime residents and a few younger ones finding their way through life. Unfortunately, there weren’t many strong story elements that stuck out, and everything resolved just a bit too easily and happily for me.
The guitarist finds his inspiration and overcomes his feeling of inadequacy rapidly and easily; the older woman goes through her surgery just fine even though she does not want to go to the hospital; there’s a lingering unease about the mega mart taking over small businesses that never really goes anywhere; and other similar stories you’ve heard before. The distinct lack of stakes or conflict gives everything a somewhat anodyne feeling. Stories happen more at you instead of with you; you’re just along for the ride.
This extends to the visuals and music. Visually, Tiny Bookshop is a delightful hand-painted world with soft colors and no harsh lines. It’s like going on a slightly dreamlike virtual vacation. The background music is similarly pleasant, appropriately soft, and unobtrusive. While I never wanted to turn the music off, I struggle to recall any of the tunes even shortly after wrapping up the game. Perfectly fits the overall vibe, but like me, you may be left wanting just a bit more.
Again, like the gameplay mechanics, that setting may be perfectly comforting to the right person. And I’m not claiming it’s a bad thing. If you want that low-stakes, chill experience, I am wholly confident this game will deliver for you in spades.
Conclusion – Tiny Bookshop
Just to re-emphasize—despite my personal nitpicks on some aspects of the game, Tiny Bookshop is an incredibly well-made game with lots of heart and a clear love of books. I’d recommend nearly anyone to give it a try based on the strength of the recommendation puzzles, even if the other elements may not hold your attention.
Reviewed on Xbox Series X. Also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Mobile, and PC via Steam, Mac and Linux.
A key was provided for the purposes of this review.
Developer: neoludic games
Publisher: Skystone Games, 2P Games
Release Date: Out now
Pros:
- Gameplay loop is satisfying
- Low-stakes, chill experience
- Uses real books and quotes
- Recommendation puzzles are clever
Cons
- Story elements are lacking
- Music could be more memorable
- In-game economy is too forgiving
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Great
