Tiny Bookshop

I do love my cozy games. When I played the demo of Tiny Bookshop, I knew that I need the game. I finally bought it and 100% it. So was it good? Definitely. May it overstay its welcome? Maybe.

You play the owner of a tiny bookshop you can drive around in a small town at the sea. Everyday is the same: decorate your shop, choose your books to sell and be on you merry way. You can choose different locations in town, from the pier to the local café to the hospital. You will open your shop and basically…. wait. Sometimes people will ask for recommandations. You can browse your books, the majority of them actual real books, from Nimona to Sherlock Holmes to Games of Thrones, and recommend them. Your decorations have stats, some will increase the amount of recommandations per day, etc. This is basically your gameplay loop. You can see how this can get repetitive pretty quick.

To mix things up, there are different things you can do: collecting stamps and memories. Stamps are linked to events to specific locations. It can go from “sell 15 fantasy books” to “help collect X amount of money to help the local theater guy build his stage”. You’ll meet a bunch of unique characters, from Fern the journalist, to Klaus the local metalhead who wants his music group to become big. You gain memories by doing their request and helping them out. There are also 4 major plotlines that happen. From the “killing” of the local cheap super market mascott to finding out more about the founder of the town. There is also a calender with different events happening along the year, such as the local christmas market.

The recommandations can be very funny. I still don’t know what the person who told me he needed “cold hard facts” but it had to be “poetic” actually wanted.

All in all, it is a great game to chill. If you play too much of it though, the gameplay gets old fast. It is a tiny game from a tiny developper. You can neve go wrong. And as far as I know, they want to update the game too.