Tiny Bookshop Review

Best decision I ever made

Tiny Bookshop has been a game that I have been looking forward to ever since I saw the announcement for it…*checks dates* wow, two years ago. This was even a game I knew about before it was officially announced during a game showcase. It was a game I instantly knew I would enjoy. I like cozy games, I like sometimes being the one selling something, and I love books. Tiny Bookshop basically put all of those together in a cute little bow. After I played the demo, it helped me confirm that yes, I will love this game. The demo left me wanting more, but I patiently waited for when it would finally release. And man, when we got that release date I got so excited and it was so hard waiting once we were a couple days away. Now that I got my hands on Tiny Bookshop, how was it?

In Tiny Bookshop, you play as yourself. For whatever reason, you decided one day to pack everything up and leave everything behind to live a quiet life by the sea. It doesn’t look like you have much to your name other than your car and your trusty trailer which you outfitted to be a bookstore. A…tiny bookshop if you will (heh). You end up at a seaside town known as Bookstonbury to pursue this venture, this dream, of yours and man, you could not have picked a better place. Not just because the town has “book” in it, but because of the people.

If you had any worries about how the locals (aka Bookstonians) would react to someone new moving in, well it becomes immediately apparent that you had nothing to worry about. The people here are very welcoming and it turns out that you came at a perfect time. The first Bookstonian you meet, and first story character, is Tilde. She’s an old woman who used to run her own bookstore here. She’s retired now and her bookstore is closed, but she’s more than happy to see someone stepping up to take that mantle even if it’s someone new to town. She is very welcoming, becomes your first ever customer, and she even gives you some advice on how to sell books. Also, my headcannon is that the tutorials are actually Tilde telling you the information. It doesn’t take long for you to meet the other story characters that live here as well. There are eight story characters in total that you’ll meet and get to know over the course of the game. They’re all pretty unique and have some pre-established relationships with each other.

As you progress in Tiny Bookshop, you’ll not only find yourself slowly becoming part of the community, but also helping Bookstonbury and Bookstonians. Plus, you’ll be able to participate in the various events the town holds. You may have only come here to sell books, but before you know it, you’ll end up being a part of a lovely community that absolutely loves books and make some lovely friends. You’ll also see Bookstonbury change during your time here and I think it’s safe to say that Bookstonians are glad you ended up coming to their town too.

While it may seem at first glance that Tiny Bookshop is simple, it is not. This game is jam packed with content and, let me tell you, this game does not skimp out on its story. While there is a questline that you can technically call as the main quest since it takes you to the credits, Tiny Bookshop is actually made up of a lot of small storylines that you’ll get to experience during your time in Bookstonbury. These quests focus on the story characters, that specific location, or even both as sometimes it ties the two together. There is a lot you’ll be experiencing here story-wise and I honestly don’t want to spoil any of them. Rest assured though, they are all great. I loved all the various plotlines here and I loved all of the story characters. The characters here are all written so well, they’re all so lovely, and they were such a delight to get to know over the course of the game. I loved helping them and finding out what changes whether it’s with the character themselves or the location (yep, Bookstonbury changes according to your actions).

I also have to mention that Tiny Bookshop really nails it in the storytelling department. I honestly was not expecting much story, but it was such a pleasant surprise here. The writing style was very nice, everyone does have their unique voice, and Tiny Bookshop managed to find that tricky sweet spot for a game like this. It’s hard to explain as it’s more something you experience, but the writers managed to make the story flow really well with short, but sweet, conversations that mainly happen when your shop is open and they’re visiting you as a customer. Not only that, but it nails that feeling of moving to a new town. You’re hopeful and anxious at the same time, but you slowly get to know people around you, helping whenever you can, and slowly integrating into the community so much that suddenly no one can imagine you not being there. And without you noticing, the story characters end up being your friends. It might have just been me, but it felt so gradual and subtle, it really added to the whole vibe this game had.

So, yeah, all in all Tiny Bookshop nails it in the story department.

Now onto the gameplay! The gameplay here seems pretty simple on the surface, but diving into it reveals some depth to it. There is a lot that Tiny Bookshop offers, so it’s hard to really decide where to start, but I’ll do my best!

I guess the best place to start is where the game starts: selling books! After looking around the location, poking some interactable elements (and maybe picking up overworld items that appeared), and talking to a story character hanging out; your work day officially starts when you open up the windows and door to your trailer turned tiny bookshop. Instead of having a clock showing you how many work hours you have left, how long you’re working is determined by whether or not you have customers. As the day progresses, customers will come in to browse your bookshelves. If they find a book they want, they’ll buy it and then look for another. Customers actually don’t have a limit to how many books they’ll buy, and their purchases are shown as a stack of books as they’re still browsing, but whether or not they find what they want. So what determines that? Well, each genre actually has a sell chance, which determines the possibility on your customer finding a book they want to buy. There is a cap to this (78% by the way), but the base percentage is based on how many books of that genre are stocked and the various effects from the location, events, weather, story characters in the bookshop, and your decorations will add or subtract from that base. This also means that as the day progresses, the sell chance also lowers as customers buy books. This is a very interesting and effective way of gamifying this and I loved it. Plus, it lets the game not get as tiring as quick.

Don’t worry, you’re not just sitting there watching customers browse your shelves. If a customer doesn’t find a book they want, they have a chance of calling for your help. If you click on their speech bubble before the timer runs out, they’ll ask you to recommend a book to them based on what they’re looking for. You’ll get a couple aspects they want and maybe have a genre attached to it. All you have to do is find them a book that best matches it or matches what you think they’re looking for the most as sometimes you can’t fulfill all of the wants the customer wants in a book. To do that, you browse your own shelves and you’ll actually get to see the books that you have for sale. Ranging from real books you can actually buy and read yourself to books that only exist in this game; you’ll be able to see the book title, who wrote it and when it was published, how many pages, and a short blurb about the book. All this is used to help you pick as what the customer wants as requests are based on these things. Like, for example, a customer may be looking for a book to get into a new hobby that’s under 300 pages. After choosing a book based on what your customer wants, they’ll then tell you what they think. They’ll buy the book, continue browsing, and you’ll get a little inspiration boost for a short time if you make a perfect or a surprise recommendation, but will stop if you make a bad recommendation. Luckily, this isn’t time so you can take your time picking a book out for them, you don’t get penalized if they don’t like the book you recommended (or just plain don’t have a book that fits what they’re looking for), and the game doesn’t keep track of previous books you recommended for the story characters. Just look out for when they mention a previous book they liked. There were a handful of times I failed a recommendation because the book I picked out for them was one they told me they already read haha. You do have a set amount of recommendation requests that’ll happen and you can increase or decrease this if you want to. Or you can just ignore it.

The day ends once the last customer exits your bookshop and you close your bookshop up (and drive to wherever you live here). How long you’re selling books for is entirely dependent on a couple factors. Like, your last customer(s) may be having really good RNG in finding a book they like or a certain event may be increasing your customer count. Of course, this also means that the opposite happens and it can be lower than normal. It also did feel like your base customer count does increase gradually, but that could just be me. Nonetheless, you’ll get into the hang of things in no time.

Selling isn’t the only aspect to the gameplay, of course. There is prep that goes into the day before you open up your shop. At the start of each day, you’ll get the daily Bookstonbury Review, or the newspaper. This lets you see a couple things. You’ll be able to read the news column to read up on what recently happened or, if nothing happened, to see how well you did in sales; see the weather for that day and the next; see the day you’re on; see a weekly event overview; and look at the classifieds where you can buy more books or items for your shop. You have to keep up your stock of books and the classifieds are where you’ll be replenishing it the majority of the time. You buy books by the box and while sometimes you’ll know what genre you’ll get based on the description (and the color of the outline), there are boxes that are a mix of a couple genres or all of them. These change out every day or every other day as they can get discounted. However, the item listings are seasonal listings and they don’t change unless you buy an item or the season changes. This can be a bit annoying as some things, like quest items or bookshelves, appear here and it can take a while for them to be listed, but it does give you enough time to get the money for items you really want. You have to manage your money after all and it’s best to have the money for daily expenses and books first and then buy items.

Talking about daily expenses and items, you can decorate your bookshop! You’ll be able to change the color of the inside and outside of the bookshop and certain items with paint and place items as decorations. You do start with a couple different colors and items at the start and you’ll be able to find more, be gifted them, or buy more from the newspaper or from characters when they’re selling things like at the flea market. There are a wide variety of items here, they all have different effects, and your tiny bookshop has a limited number of item spots. Aside from how bookshelves obviously lets you place more books in your shop to sell, the items you can decorate your shop have different effects. Some of them do only have positive effects, like slightly increasing the sale chance of a genre, but most do have a trade off in the form of small downside to them to help balance it out. Like this where daily expenses come in as some items require upkeep. Daily expenses plus the parking fee of a location are added to create the travel cost to the various locations in Bookstonbury.

So the decoration aspect gives you another layer to think about as you have to weigh the pros and cons of having that item decorating your store. Plus, you might want to decorate your store so you have effects that pair well with that location. And if you manage everything well, you’ll be able to put up any decoration you want without having to worry in no time.

Every day at Bookstonbury you’ll choose a location you want to open your bookshop at. You only start with one location, the Waterfront, at first but the other locations do gradually become unlocked as you’re told about them by the story characters and as you progress. While each location does have a travel cost, as long as you’re managing your money and books and things you’ll be fine. The most important aspect, however, is that each location actually has their own genre preferences. Yep, you have to select what you have for sale based on the customers you’ll get. Depending on the location, the different book genres will sell the best, just okay, or not at all, so you have to adjust what you have on your shelves (and possibly your decorations). You won’t know what genre sells the most before going there though, so you have to figure that one out yourself. Before you actually head out to that location, you’ll be able to stock your shelves, redecorate your bookshop, and refer to your journal if needed. The journal, by the way, hosts all the useful information that you can refer to. Like the genres you sold the most of in a location, a little blurb about the location, and even what event that happens there. Once you got your shelves stocked with books and have your bookshop the way you like, you’ll then travel to the location and the gameplay loop starts over again.

There is one thing I didn’t mention and that’s the story characters and stamps. The story characters come to talk to you when your tiny bookshop is open as, after all, they’re customers too. It can just be a quick little chat or to start/end a quest. Most quests do have you selling books, but some do have you visiting an area, decorating your bookshop with certain item effects/vibes, or delivering something. I swear I’m making it sound more boring than it actually is. There are actually two categories of quests. There are quests tied to a location, which grants you Stamps, and there are ones tied to the story characters, which grants you Memories (represented with photos). The journal tracks your progress and each Stamp and Memory has their own design and blurb to go with them. You not only help the story characters and the town itself through these quests, but cause changes to reflect what you did and what happened.

Last thing, I swear, I can’t not mention the calendar system as the game doesn’t just count how many days you’ve been in Bookstonbury. Tiny Bookshop features seasons and events that help not only flesh out this town, but make it more believable. Each season is basically a month, consisting of 28 days, and each season has their own unique aspects to them to set them all apart. The obvious is the weather as each season has their own weather patterns. Like Winter brings snow, Spring is the rainy month, and Summer is the perfect time to have fun in the sun. This is pretty important as not only does the weather have an effect on your sales, but certain events don’t happen in certain weather conditions. Talking about events, there are a lot here that really help make this game feel like you’re living in a real town. These can be events that affect the whole town or only affect certain locations and have different effects on your sales. Like Bookstonbury has a tourist season, kids go to the beach for their summer break, the town has weekly or biweekly flea markets, and the college has admission and finals weeks. In addition, some locations are unlocked when you reach a new season, certain quests/stamps can only be done in a certain season, and some quests have a chance to trigger during certain seasons. As you progress through the game, you’ll also find some events ending or being added, which is cool and adds to the feeling of you making a difference with how you’re helping people and the town. The journal has a seasonal calendar so you can see a full overview and each season ends on a big event that is kind of like a holiday. After all, you gotta end off the season on a good note and welcome in the next.

In terms of aspects of the game that are purely optional, there are a few obvious things here. Like, you don’t have to buy every paint can or decoration. There are also some aspects of the game that aren’t tracked; like there’s one that only counts the first three you get* and there’s a side activity during an event that isn’t tracked anywhere. You can, also, keep playing even if you did hit the credits; which does open you up to challenging yourself to see how many books you can sell in a day or see if you can top your highest earning (you’d think these would be the same, but some decorations make it not). Or you can set a goal for how many total books you want to sell in each location if you want.

In terms of quests, though, it’s hard to say. Technically you don’t need to do every quest to be able to hit the credits, but at the same time you probably will be doing all of them anyway. I know I personally did and the only reason why I did the quest that leads you to the credits without having all the other stamps is because the two stamps I had left could only be done in the Summer and I was a couple days off. And I didn’t want to hear Tilde coming to me to remind me to do the quest every in-game day.

I absolutely loved the gameplay here. The gameplay loop here is simple, but fun. There are just some games that I didn’t know I wanted until I see it and a game where you run a mobile bookshop was one of them. It also was pretty satisfying watching customers come in, buying books, successfully recommending a book, seeing how much I successfully earned, and slowly watch as I become an absolute book selling beast. I also loved being able to see the stack of books your customers bought and then being like “oh my gosh this guy is buying so many books” and then remember I can’t judge cause that…that was me at one point haha. Oh and looking at a huge stack of books a customer is buying and going “that must be a record” even though half the time I’m not able to count how many books are in the stack before they place them in their bag. It also definitely helps that you aren’t penalized for not successfully recommending a book, which would have turned something that is just annoying for a couple seconds to a really annoying mechanic since you can easily not have a book someone is asking for. The coziness really makes it easy to not sweat that kind of stuff and it really helps the enjoyment here.

While I do like cozy games, I’m someone that needs some difficulty and goals and Tiny Bookshop does that in spades. This could have easily been a game that was really simple and easy, like it first seems, but it exceeds your expectations. The different effects you’ll be dealing with and how each location (and story character) has book genres they prefer really bring in that slight difficulty. You also most likely will run into situations where you’re low on a genre, putting another layer to your decision on where you want to go that day, and manage your money as you juggle daily expenses + travel, buying books to stock your shelves, and buying items you want. As while your trailer itself doesn’t upgrade, you do get access to a ton of different items to decorate your trailer all giving different effects. You can just decorate your bookshop however you want, I know I did, but you can outfit it based on where you’re going, the season, or an event. I loved decorating here by the way. Not to mention how packed it is with stamps, or quests, which give you a lot of goals to work towards. They all may just be going to a location, selling books, talking to characters, and exchanging items on paper (now that I think about it…some questlines have the same outline), but while playing they all felt different. I think that’s thanks to the help of the writing, the stories tied to them, and how you’ll have multiple quests going at the same time (and most likely at different points). Plus, it’s obvious everything would be tied to selling books. I was also pleasantly surprised with how this game has events (both small ones like weekly flea markets to big ones like holidays) and how Bookstonbury changes as you progress. There is so much to do here and Tiny Bookshop also somehow makes it not feel so overwhelming. Probably thanks to the game not having pressure aside from some seasonal-based events and quests, letting you take your time, and pacing everything out well as you won’t have access to everything right out the gate. It also definitely helped that none of the stamps/quests here seems to be missable. There’s no time limited quests* and you can take your time getting around to starting the questline, progressing it, and finishing it. Even if it means needing to wait a whole year so you’re in the right season.

All in all, the gameplay here ended up being so fun, hitting that “one more day” addiction, and gives you a lot of freedom in how you want to play. This is such a delight and it honestly made me so happy playing.

I wouldn’t say Tiny Bookshop has negatives, but rather just some annoyances. These didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the game, but were just annoying or didn’t quite fit. Some of them are spoiler-y, but I’ll have them in the spoilers box. Starting out, I will say that Tiny Bookshop’s gameplay loop is naturally repetitive, but I honestly didn’t feel that for the vast majority of my playthrough. The amount of content in this game really helps, though, and I only felt it at the end of long play sessions and at the very end of my playthough since the last quest I had only happens in the Summer and I was at the latter half of Winter. Recommending books can also be a bit annoying when you think the book you gave them fit what they wanted or you thought they put more value on one aspect of their request. It’s not a big deal, as you’re not penalized, but it can be a bit annoying. Though, the developer has been tweaking book recommendations since launch based on feedback. Plus, you can say it does add a bit of realism haha. There were also some books I didn’t personally agree with the genre they were under, there were definitely books I wished were included in the game, and some types really needed more books. I also really wished there was a romance (/Love) genre here. Half so we can get a nice even genre number, a genre I can color as pink, and because there are so many people that ask for books with romance. The items you get from characters are also automatically placed in your bookshop and while I didn’t mind it, it did annoy me towards the end. Especially when it replaced the one spot I had a table with three items on it. I do understand why they’re automatically placed, especially for quest related items, but man did you really have to put it where I had my table? I did also wish you could see the effects you’ll be dealing with before going to a location, but it’s fine. And on that, there were some item stats where the effects of them are too vague. Some stats are obviously just used to classify the item, but what does Warm do? What does distracting objects affect? The newspaper can also be a bit annoying when you’re low on a genre but none of the book listings seem to hold them and if you’re waiting for a certain item for a quest.

How you progress in the various quests are mainly obvious, but in the beginning it can feel a bit uncertain due to how character conversations work here. Since there is so much to do in the game, it can take a couple days for you to get that conversation you need to progress to the next step as it might give you other dialogue. Like you need to give a character this item, but they might talk about something else that they’re involved in before they initiate the dialogue where they take it. Luckily, there are no time sensitive quests here (aside from maybe one, but I’m not entirely sure) so the RNG won’t mess you up here. I did also have one inconsistency, which I’ll put under spoilers since it’s in Year 2. I did also wish there was a bit more variation between Year 1 and Year 2 dialogue for the big events. With how jam packed with content Tiny Bookshop is, you are basically guaranteed to at least go through Year 2. While some lines do get added or changed, it does feel like a bit of an oversight to have most of the dialogue be the same. Especially for the New Years event.

To tie everything up, the visuals and sound in Tiny Bookshop were great. While the character models will either be a like it or dislike it, and can be a bit inconsistent, I did like the design of all the characters. All the story characters have a unique look to them both in their character portrait and in their character model. You’ll definitely know when it’s them visiting even before they walk in and their character effect icon pops up on the side of your screen. And on top of that, the various different NPC customers also dress according to their type. Embarrassingly enough I didn’t notice this until the very end of my playthrough, but the color of their clothes even correlates with the genre they like! I swear I didn’t get the tooltip in the beginning of my playthrough and Tilde only told me because I was just letting the game run and the game thought I was having trouble haha. Anyway, back on topic, the environmental design is gorgeous and top notch. The character/NPC models may disappoint you, but the design of the town itself won’t. Each location is gorgeous, detailed, and easily hits the vibe that the location would have. They are all distinct and look so good. It’s even better that the locations go through changes, with the big changes being tied to the questline tied to that location and the slight changes based on the season, event(s) that happen there, and weather. Some elements are even interactable. I also loved all of the Stamps designs and the various different items you’ll get to decorate your bookshop. I did have a handful that I loved and I always had equipped, but for the other spots I had a hard time choosing what to put up as all of them were so pretty.

The music here also fits the cozy vibe the game was going for and puts you at ease. Though, I probably won’t play this when you’re tired as it can make you sleepy. The various sound effects here were also great. When you’re selling books, they’re clear whether it’s someone buying a book or asking for a recommendation. There isn’t voice acting here, but each character does have a sound effect for each line they say to give you a feel on how their voice would sound. Which is a nice touch. There is one aspect that is voiced, which I won’t spoil so it can be a surprise like it was for me, but that was good too. The locations also have their own ambience and the interactable items do have a nice sound to them. I personally liked the birds, followed by the dog and cat you’ll get through story events. There’s even some small details here with some decorations that I noticed. Equipping windchimes adds some soft windchime sound to the ambience and you can get a wall mounted bell that rings whenever someone enters your bookshop.

Verdict

I absolutely loved Tiny Bookshop. I knew I would love it based on its premise and after playing the demo, but man I ended up loving it way more than I thought. So much that I went to do absolutely everything I could do in the game, including things that the game doesn’t technically track. It greatly exceeded my expectations. Tiny Bookshop is what I’d describe as a game you think is a shallow puddle, which you’d gladly play in, but once you jump in it surprises you with how deep it is (and for this analogy, I’d definitely say it’s deep enough to fully submerge you). I went into the game fully expecting a simple, cozy game where you sell books and was met with a game that was jam packed with content. I know I said that a lot during my review, but it’s true and it was such a pleasant surprise. It arguably got me even more hooked to the game as I liked all of the characters and wanted to see absolutely everything the game had to offer. While there were some annoyances here and there, Tiny Bookshop is a solid cozy management sim that had a really fun gameplay loop, surprising amount of depth, and great writing.

I can’t recommend Tiny Bookshop enough. If you’re a fan of cozy games or you think you’d like Tiny Bookshop or both, it is definitely worth it. The demo is still up, and looks like it’ll stay up, so you can even try it to see if you’d like the gameplay loop before buying.