I’ve always wondered about the appeal of workplace simulators. Would a truck driver really want to go home and boot up American Truck Simulator? Would a gas station clerk really wanna fill up tanks in Gas Station Simulator? But then I checked out the demo for Tiny Bookshop and, well, I get it now. There’s something calming about the rituals of a profession we enjoy when presented via a relaxing video game, and that’s exactly what Tiny Bookshop and its 30-minute demo offered me.
When most people think of a bookseller, they likely think of a young liberal arts grad chilling on a stool and reading a book in between ringing up the occasional customer. While that’s certainly true for many shops, my experience as a bookseller was certifiably not that. Working at and then managing a store in one of the busier parts of Manhattan, I hustled, often ringing out dozens of customers an hour and receiving hundreds, sometimes thousands, of books and merchandise items a day.
My life as a bookseller was not cozy, and that exhausting bookselling life is exactly what drew me to Neoludic Games’ Tiny Bookshop. It offered a relaxed, stress-free version of something that can actually be really fun at times — putting your favorite books in readers’ hands.
Tiny Bookshop casts you as a beginner bookseller and sends you to the small town of Bookstonbury — a coastal hamlet with a lighthouse straight out of Maine — to set up your mobile bookshop. It’s extremely idyllic and immediately cozy; the pastel color palette is easy on the eyes. A local resident, Tilde, introduces herself and then acts as something of a guide to help you get started bookselling.
You’ll sell books over three days in the demo, and people will buy them up (more so than in real life, in my experience). Various citizens of Bookstonbury wandered into my tiny bookshop, and I’m pretty sure they all bought a new book to bring home; I sold ten tomes my first day and 12 the next. I’m rich! Except — not really. Any revenue you accrue goes right back into the business for new stock or for decorations to make your Tiny Bookshop truly yours.
Some customers will grow antsy if you don’t help them right away. Thankfully, they can’t actually get snippy with me like tourists would in real life. Instead, they’re eager for a recommendation, and these scenarios present a dialogue-based puzzle. You’ll listen to what the customer wants and dislikes, and then offer them a suggestion, matching a title from your stock with their interests to ensure a sale. They’re simply solved, and, with a good recommendation, the customer will gleefully walk away with a new title to enjoy (and not leave it randomly on a table in a different section of the store).
Tiny Bookshop’s demo made me eager to get my hands on the full game, and it’s almost here. On Thursday, May 29, Neoludic Games announced Tiny Bookshop is out August 7 for Windows PC.
