Tiny Bookshop — a cosy, wish-fulfilment addition for your game library

We’re officially in that time of year — that accelerating drive to get everything done before the festive season break — when people start holding up a mirror to their life.

Worn out by routine, you may find yourself fantasising about a quieter, more fulfilling alternative for soul and body. Giving up your rat-race existence to teach yoga in Bali. Casting aside Excel formulae to found an artists’ retreat in the countryside. Escaping from the big city to a coastal town to deal in second-hand books.

Indie game release Tiny Bookshop, from German developers neoludic games, is here to help you live out that last scenario — at least through a screen.

In this (mostly) relaxed management sim with a narrative element, you move to the fictional Bookstonbury-by-the-Sea early one summer. There, you open the titular tiny bookshop, a trailer that you set up daily at key spots around the history-soaked settlement, and get to know the idiosyncratic locals — like introverted reporter Fern and hard-to-please business association head Maryam — as the seasons pass.

The management part of Tiny Bookshop takes place on several fronts simultaneously.

With a daily newspaper to guide you in terms of weather and local events, like the weekly market, you choose your location, factoring in the expenses of getting there and setting up shop.

Before unshuttering your store, you need to stock your shelves with genres that have high sales potential — escapist fiction is popular at the beach, for example, while non-fiction does well at the university — and decorate your set-up with items that will boost certain sales and effects, typically with a trade-off in another area.

You may want to display a moody Gothic candelabra to buff Classic purchases, but the flame element adds considerable danger, which won’t go down well at the risk-adverse hospital.

Dig deep

It needs to be noted that the casual Tiny Bookshop is never punishing to players, but you can dig deep into the metrics if you really want, tweaking your store’s decor every day to optimise sales in a particular place.

This is an advised requirement for one of the game’s more challenging tasks, as you try to befriend the population by helping them overcome their insecurities and bigger problems. That said, if you just want to make your trailer look Halloween- or Christmas-ready as the seasons roll in — do it for the “vibes” as the game encourages — that’s fine too.

Management tasks continue once every workday is done in Tiny Bookshop. You’ll need to use your profits wisely, turning to the local paper again to bargain-hunt boxes of pre-loved books and other things that can make your shop more appealing. The Classifieds aren’t the only way to expand your inventory, though. Happy townsfolk may gift you items, or you can buy from fellow local businesses.

While there are many independent games that are one-and-done experiences, easy to complete in one to two sittings, that isn’t the case with Tiny Bookshop. Finishing its primary storyline (though you’re encouraged to keep playing beyond this point) can take you anywhere between 20 and 30 hours, especially if you strive to tick off every location achievement and character ask in your journal.

On that note, Tiny Bookshop is best enjoyed in multiple shorter sessions than gaming marathons. Play for too long in a single sitting and it’s easy to fatigue, as the gameplay is a bit repetitive.

Many locations lack interactivity, meaning, with nothing to click on and uncover, you just sit there, watching as Bookstonians enter and leave your store. Admittedly, you feel a surge of satisfaction, bolstered by the gratifying, tactile sound effects and cheerful score, when a day goes especially well.

However, there could have been more elements hidden in the environments to add further richness to the game world, or the latter could properly evolve over time, especially when you visit them dozens of times over. Completing certain missions is also not instantaneous, forcing you to annoyingly return to the same location the next day, or hunt down the relevant character in town, before you can tick off the task.

All this said, Tiny Bookshop has one further element that hasn’t been discussed yet, and may help to explain why it was the Games for Impact award winner at this year’s gamescom show, in Cologne. In addition to its matter-of-fact inclusion of LGBT themes and other socio-political topics, the entire game is an ode to the uplifting power and pleasure of reading.

While there are those titles you play with a pen and notebook on hand to keep track of puzzles, in the case of Tiny Bookshop, you’ll probably be writing down something different: book titles to wish-list.

Along with in-game made-up tomes, Tiny Bookshop features real-life reads. It’s not just classics that appear either. For every Canterbury Tales or Crime and Punishment, there’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder or A Court of Thorns and Roses. Manga, the works of Bill Bryson and obscure books like Edith Wharton’s Italian Villas and Their Gardens make an appearance. As an enjoyable bonus, Tiny Bookshop players are guaranteed to discover intriguing reads alongside the game characters.

On that note, during the daily running of your shop, Bookstonians will regularly ask for recommendations. They’ll rattle off their wants and interests (sometimes contradictory), and you have to trawl your shelves to meet their requirements.

It’s this gameplay element — deciphering the whims of consumers — that will keep you engaged, and rewarded both cerebrally and emotionally.

Playing seamlessly even on older computer systems, and actually best experienced with keyboard and mouse over controller, Tiny Bookshop is appreciably accessible. On multiple levels, it’s a prime example of how sophisticated and polished a so-called cosy game can be. DM

Tiny Bookshop is available now on PC and Nintendo Switch. This review was first published on PFangirl.