Who knew being a book stockist was such a hard job?
Cozy gamers have been buzzing online while awaiting Tiny Bookshop‘s release ever since Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase boosted its visibility globally. It was so highly anticipated, so does the game live up to its pre-release excitement? For the majority of gamers, that answer would appear to be yes.
Tiny Bookshop’s premise is starting a little book wagon, book mobile, traveling library–however you wish to call it–you take it to a little port town and start a new entrepreneurial life peddling books to the locals. The town’s old bookshop owner has recently retired and she offers to help you learn the ropes. Bring your wagon to different locations and sell to what should be slightly different clientele based upon those locations. Townspeople shopping outside the local cafe may prefer classical literature, while college students may prefer buying escapism literature, even children’s and young adult books/manga.
While exploring the different venues in town, you become acquainted with an eclectic cast of characters. As you get to know them and help them on little quests, you build out your business. Buy more bookshelves, find different paint colors at the flea market and customize your wagon, adopt some pets, acquire some flair for the wagon, too. Most of the items you choose to decorate the wagon have boosts for sales of certain genres, and some plants need specific areas to flourish (some like the salty sea air, for example). It can get a bit tricky as you unlock more venues and try to customize your wagon build-out for each venue’s clientele.
Holiday shoppers cleared out a lot of inventory!
The stars of the game are the books, obviously. Balancing stock can be tricky. As you turn a profit, part of that needs to be reinvested in new stock. Most of this is purchased from classified ads in the town’s daily newspaper. You aren’t the only one buying from the classifieds, though, so if you need some horror books but you don’t have enough money on listing day for a bundle, you might miss out. More common bundles will be relisted the next day, almost always at a discount. Some books can be found lying around selling venues, too.
Your clients ask for book recommendations, and this is where the game started to lose me. They give vague requests, like give me a book that is more than 700 pages and I loved Call of the Wild but I’m never too old for children’s books. After hunting through your stacks, you suggest something and then they pull a “that isn’t about nature” grumble text and walk off dissatisfied. It’s great when you nail a recommendation, but it’s frustrating when you hand them something like The Lightning Thief but they claim it doesn’t have any romance. Uh yeah it does, let me show you the page number! After disappointing people in real life, disappointing people in a cozy game–something specifically played to escape the emotional barrage of everyday life–really sours the experience.
Countdown to New Year’s
Once I played through a year and a half and experienced the entire calendar’s events like the winter holidays, I didn’t find myself coming back to the game very much. And I’m absolutely in the minority based on continued online discussions. Others do find the recommendations frustrating, too, but most players are very content with spending hours redecorating and restocking their wagon and interacting with everyone. The cast of characters is enjoyable, but perhaps not very memorable. Or at least not memorable in a positive way (looking at you, hard-to-please, sharp-tongued college professor!). It’s only $20 so I say give it a try and see if it grabs you like it has with so many gamers who aren’t like me. I needed to go back to much more challenging games after this one.
Cozy gamers have been buzzing online while awaiting Tiny Bookshop‘s release ever since Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase boosted its visibility globally. It was so highly anticipated, so does the game live up to its pre-release excitement? For the majority of gamers,…
Who knew being a book stockist was such a hard job?
Cozy gamers have been buzzing online while awaiting Tiny Bookshop‘s release ever since Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase boosted its visibility globally. It was so highly anticipated, so does the game live up to its pre-release excitement? For the majority of gamers, that answer would appear to be yes.
Tiny Bookshop’s premise is starting a little book wagon, book mobile, traveling library–however you wish to call it–you take it to a little port town and start a new entrepreneurial life peddling books to the locals. The town’s old bookshop owner has recently retired and she offers to help you learn the ropes. Bring your wagon to different locations and sell to what should be slightly different clientele based upon those locations. Townspeople shopping outside the local cafe may prefer classical literature, while college students may prefer buying escapism literature, even children’s and young adult books/manga.
While exploring the different venues in town, you become acquainted with an eclectic cast of characters. As you get to know them and help them on little quests, you build out your business. Buy more bookshelves, find different paint colors at the flea market and customize your wagon, adopt some pets, acquire some flair for the wagon, too. Most of the items you choose to decorate the wagon have boosts for sales of certain genres, and some plants need specific areas to flourish (some like the salty sea air, for example). It can get a bit tricky as you unlock more venues and try to customize your wagon build-out for each venue’s clientele.
Holiday shoppers cleared out a lot of inventory!
The stars of the game are the books, obviously. Balancing stock can be tricky. As you turn a profit, part of that needs to be reinvested in new stock. Most of this is purchased from classified ads in the town’s daily newspaper. You aren’t the only one buying from the classifieds, though, so if you need some horror books but you don’t have enough money on listing day for a bundle, you might miss out. More common bundles will be relisted the next day, almost always at a discount. Some books can be found lying around selling venues, too.
Your clients ask for book recommendations, and this is where the game started to lose me. They give vague requests, like give me a book that is more than 700 pages and I loved Call of the Wild but I’m never too old for children’s books. After hunting through your stacks, you suggest something and then they pull a “that isn’t about nature” grumble text and walk off dissatisfied. It’s great when you nail a recommendation, but it’s frustrating when you hand them something like The Lightning Thief but they claim it doesn’t have any romance. Uh yeah it does, let me show you the page number! After disappointing people in real life, disappointing people in a cozy game–something specifically played to escape the emotional barrage of everyday life–really sours the experience.
Countdown to New Year’s
Once I played through a year and a half and experienced the entire calendar’s events like the winter holidays, I didn’t find myself coming back to the game very much. And I’m absolutely in the minority based on continued online discussions. Others do find the recommendations frustrating, too, but most players are very content with spending hours redecorating and restocking their wagon and interacting with everyone. The cast of characters is enjoyable, but perhaps not very memorable. Or at least not memorable in a positive way (looking at you, hard-to-please, sharp-tongued college professor!). It’s only $20 so I say give it a try and see if it grabs you like it has with so many gamers who aren’t like me. I needed to go back to much more challenging games after this one.
by Theresa Samons
