Tiny Bookshop Review (Xbox): Not A True Page Turner

Taking two popular game genres and combining them, Tiny Bookshop smashes together a cozy vibe with a light business management sim. A promising premise when I started my small bookseller journey, this casual experience lets you discover this seaside community while learning about its quirky residents. 

However, after a few hours into my play time, I started to feel the grind of the day in and day out, selling the same books, slowly progressing on the menial objectives I had left to do. I did enjoy most of my time with Tiny Bookshop, but my frustrations would have been lightened if its runtime were closer to a short story rather than an epic.

Gameplay as Tiny as the Bookshop

Tiny Bookshop has you packing up, moving to a new town, and running, you guessed it, a tiny bookshop to make ends meet. You’ll start by choosing a location to set up at, with different venues unlocking as you progress. Each location is unique in aesthetic, the characters who frequent it, and even what books sell best there. Next, you’ll select what type of books to sell, ranging from mysteries to dramas and even kids’ titles. Then, as you open, customers walk through and purchase your inventory until a few minutes run by and the day ends. 

My biggest issue with Tiny Bookshop is that is the entire loop. There are times when customers ask for a recommendation, allowing you to browse real book titles to match up with exactly what they want, but after a few hours, I stopped seeing anything new there either. The game switches up the management aspect, having you buy boxes of used books to stock inventory, checking the newspaper for town happenings, or adding decorations to your shop to provide bonuses. All well and good, but after interacting with that for a few minutes, it’s back to the book grind, and for a 15-plus hour play time to reach the credits, I wanted more spice.

Friends Made Along The Way

The cozy aspects of Tiny Bookshop do throw a bit of a change up at the shallow gameplay, with characters to meet and grow closer to, and a journal acting as a checklist of tasks to complete. The cast of characters is charming and brings the cozy energy that a particular audience will fall in love with. Some of my personal favorites were the local newspaper writer and an elderly former bookstore owner watching your back. Witnessing these familiar faces show up to gawk at the cruise ship in the harbor, or talk about how nervous they are for the new school year, was a little delight whenever one popped up. 

The journal serves as a way to track each location’s objectives, earning stamps as you advance plotlines. It’s a great device full of valuable information, important dates, and progress markers for the entire game, and I appreciated it for giving me direction when the gameplay started to stagnate.  Learning about characters’ wants and needs while implanting myself in the tight-knit community, and experiencing their day-to-day was charming. It’s not a deep, moving narrative with crazy twists and turns, but a simple slice of life story that leaves you with a smile.

Final Verdict

Tiny Bookshop is an interesting idea of a game, mixing a basic business manager with the cozy game aesthetic you enjoy passively with a cup of coffee. That’s all well and good, but that formula went stale long before its 15-plus hour runtime ended. It wasn’t a dreadful experience, as the game is more than charming enough to hold my attention, but it was an experience that took too long reaching its final page.

Tiny Bookshop was reviewed on Xbox with a code provided by Neoludic Games. It is also available on PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

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