There was a moment about 30 mins into Tiny Bookshop that made it clear this was a notable entry into the cosy genre. The jaunty seaside music and gentle visuals had already drawn me in, but when a customer approached me for a book recommendation and I saw actual, real life titles on my shelves, I couldn’t help but grin. I can recommend A Song of Ice and Fire, or multiple Roald Dahl classics to my patrons? Oh yes, I like this very much.
In Tiny Bookshop you’ve quit the rat race, packed up your life into your car and ventured to the delightful town of Bookstonbury with the goal of, unsurprisingly, starting a tiny bookshop. It’s a very laidback take on the shop management genre, but doesn’t sacrifice depth in the pursuit of this. The supporting cast of citizens are lovely, and you’ll quickly be interacting with people from all walks of life as you make friends, earn regular customers and help them through tough times, whether you’re providing inspiration for a new song or just feeding a local dog.
Each morning you’ll wake up and check out the local paper to see what weather conditions are like for the day, see if there are any events happening or take a look at the classifieds, which is where you can pick up boxes of pre-loved books or knick-knacks for your shop. You’ll choose a spot to set up shop for the day, guided by the events calendar or the tasks you’re tackling around town, like helping your musician friend at the weekly supermarket sale event (and capitalising on all the extra footfall at the same time).
Before you go you’ll get a chance to dive into the customisable elements of Tiny Bookshop, which are a fantastic way to add more depth to bookselling. Despite its diminutive size, your pull-along bookshop has loads of options for customising it. You can choose the colour of the shop itself or the shelves inside, and you can decorate the exterior walls and floor around the shop with the various things you’ve bought from the classifieds or directly from local residents.
There are stats to everything, and if you’re that way inclined then you could probably min/max your shop and become the Waterstones of Bookstonbury. For everyone else, it’s a nice way to add a 2% chance to sell kids books, or add a coffee maker to your shop as an additional revenue stream. I wasn’t expecting there to be quite as much as there is to the shop customisation, and it’s easy to spend a lot of time tinkering with your shop to get it just right for you.
You’ll also be stocking the shelves yourself, letting you choose how many books from each genre you take with you. Again, there’s more to this than meets the eye as lots of factors impact how much you’ll be selling. Your current buffs, local events and even the weather can affect what people want from you, and I spent more than a few sessions down at the waterfront with full shelves of travel books, knowing that the sailors there snap them right up. Taking all this into account and filling your shelves accordingly is the best way to avoid selling out of a particular genre halfway through the day.
For book lovers, the game really is a delight. Customers pop in and out, buying things of their own accord but occasionally people want a recommendation. This is where you step in and rifle through your shelves looking for something that matches the brief. They may want a classic play that’s got some darker elements to it, so if you give them Hamlet then they’ll happily browse for another 15 seconds with an enhanced chance to buy more. Give them The Maze Runner and they’ll (rightly) leave in a bad mood.
It’s a great mechanic, not just because it makes bookselling an active process, but also purely for the fact these are real titles and you’ll get a feel for them by reading about them and seeing how customers react to your recommendations, much like a real bookseller would. It’s also a good way to pick up recommendations for yourself, and I’ve added a few interesting books to my Goodreads wishlist after reading about them in Tiny Bookshop.
While there’s plenty to do in the game, the pacing can sometimes be a bit of a barrier. Even for a cosy game it can be on the slower end of the scale, and money can be hard to scrape together which means you’ll often need to grind to afford the more alluring items. It’s nowhere near being a dealbreaker, and for most people this will be expected of the genre, but it’s worth highlighting.
The soft visuals in Tiny Bookshop are relaxing while still ensuring each environment is packed with detail. Even areas that don’t sound particularly enthralling, like the local Megamart car park, are full of little things to look at or interact with, from dinging bike bells or honking each of the seagulls nesting by the store sign. The music is very nice in places, particular around the waterfront where the music clearly conveys the feeling of being at the seaside. In other areas it’s more non-descript though, and while it’s never bad, it’s sometimes just “there”.
If you’re a bookworm then Tiny Bookshops core concept will immediately grab you and the fact it uses real books will delight you even further. It’s gentle, relaxing and as deep as you want it to be. If you can look past the slow pace and occasionally grindy nature, you’ll love your time in Bookstonbury and potentially come away with a few additions to your own reading wishlist too.