I first heard about this game from David Brevik when he mentioned it in an interview. I then found the trailer and I wishlisted it. I bought it today and gave it a go, I really liked the atmosphere, the art, the chill music. It was on the second day in the game that I decided to return it though. I know it is something small and I will get flak for this but when I received the journal from the old lady there is a section about different characters you meet and in it there are pronouns and of course the journalist Fern had to be a he/they. This ruins the immersion for me. I hope other people will enjoy the game because sadly I won't be playing it.

I like it but the recommendations are broken. A customer just called Othello by Shakespeare "too recent"....? How? I like the art style, the dialogues are cute.

personally offended by customers not liking my book recommendations because wdym reading Jujutsu Kaisen hurts your brain? i get even more offended when customers reject The Little Prince. Like, how dare you say The Little Prince doesn't make you smarter? baby, that book is everything to me >:( p.s. shoutout to the devs for adding real and all kinds of books into the game <3

I knew this game was right up my alley even before I started browsing through positive reviews. However, when I encountered the negative reviews...I immediately decided to buy it. People complaining about "woke" ideas like "feminism" and "pronouns" and "themes?" There's something that gets my attention. I knew I had to sign myself up for the ride thanks to the poor snowflakes that didn't realize the books in the game were...books that exist in real life. Can you imagine something like the Silence of the Lambs having...THEMES?! Jokes aside, I have a couple of degrees in English Literature and a deep love for anything cozy, and this game is gorgeous. I'm super happy to pluck away at it every now and again, especially since there are plants involved.

Another game that has the "message" plastered everywhere.

I got into this game thinking, isnt it nice, a game with books. After over 20hrs, I decently enjoyed the game. But, the little things that bothered me became now obvious. It's not that I dont like diversity or such, but it gets "On the nose" after a while. As a librarian, you ought to meet people of all background and you kinda have to stay neutral and keep a variety of books to please all. This is not it. There's a very leftist message in this game where I kinda wanted a book game to be neutral and embrace the full spectrum of politics and such. It kinda bother me when some books are politicals like 1984 by Georges Orwell but it's not accepted when a recommandation asked for a political book. Seems only the "woke" topic fit that role. That's a good exemple where I understand what they done but they should be neutral and offer all the political spectrum equally. There's a very anti-consumerism message too. There's soo many authors that could be there and yet, the same current big names comes too often as if Fantasy is defined by C.S. Lewis, Tolkien or George R R Martin. Or Horror by King. There's no mention to any book regarding real world politics, or any wars beside some books where it's used as a background. In the end, it's as the game was made by and for ppl that are 30 years old, knows what was made on their time and only knows the classics of each genres before that time. Initially, I liked the fact that there were fictionnal books from the game universe, but seeing the lack of diversity in authors and genre, it becomes tiresome after a while. I want to finish my playthrough but honestly it's a chore and I might not since I dont enjoy being politically messaged. But since it's 1.0, I guess that's where they want to go. If they ever take a neutral position in this, I might play again if an upcoming update talk to me, It's also very repetitive at the moment and need some serious content to get off the feeling that this should be a early access game. 4/10 A very low mixed Review.

The demo is misleading. There is no real room for creativity when recommending books to customers. For example, a customer asked for a political book and I suggested Storm of Swords, which can be interpreted as highly political, yet the customer insisted it had no political theme. This feels too similar to frustrating real-life customer service interactions, and I don't need to play a game for that.

Unfortunately has the developer's social politics littered throughout with descriptions using words like misogynist, patriarchy, anti-fat, transphobic, and many others pertaining to race, sex, and sexuality. Why a simple little book-selling game feels the need to insert real world topics of that nature is beyond me. While I am not surprised, it is disappointing. I won't give it a bad review on that alone, the dog makes up for it.

someone asked for a recommendation and their prompt was that they LOOOOOVVVEEE animals so i suggested animal farm and they loved it

Incredibly slow and tedious in some ways. Very repetitive, lacking a lot of substance. Exactly what was promised, hardly anymore than that. Played for 6 hours almost and not very happy. Not worth the price point, would refund this if i could but sadly i cant. However if you enjoy grinding and selling books by all means go ahead.

Lovely game for book lovers. However, they should definitely fix book recommendations of the game. I read those titles in real life, I know what they contain. Then a customer comes and claims that there is no romance in Saga, no political discussion in Guards! Guards!, a manga is not a comic book, and Lord of the Flies is not scary? I cannot even defend my recommendations and tell them Lord of the Flies gives me anxiety still. I should simply say "sorry"... Ignoring this issue, this can be the best cozy game of the year.

I've seen enough, Game of the Year

I can't read but neither can my customers

Meh. And there's nothing quite like being rudely told by a child that the book you selected isn't the genre that it obviously is. Indeed, no one says, 'Oh, that's not quite right' - they go straight to 'what, are you some kind of fucking idiot or something for choosing that?' Without the swearing, of course, because it's cosy. I wanted to like it, but sorry - not everything is for everyone, as the customers clearly know.

This game is INCREDIBLE. I don't have to water crops or go fishing or do things I pretend I like doing in real life. I can just sell books by the sea, befriend some villagers, chill with some cozy lofi vibes and oh yeah, there's a dog. And a cat. I was worried this game would be too simple but the dev team found ways to keep the content and gameplay engaging as soon as selling books starts feeling a tad repetitive. Honestly, no notes 14/10 game.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, and I did for most of my playthrough. Unfortunately, I dropped it like hot garbage after about half a dozen baffling and frustrating user experiences from disappearing decorations that must be chased down or may permanently just be lost, customers who lie to my face and get mad at me for fulfilling what they asked for (both a named character and NPC requests), and broken quests that are both timed and area specific in ways no other ones are. A lot of people like this, if you don't care that you're called a failure and forced into losing things you did correctly, you may too. I can't let it go when it keeps knocking me down and any fix would require another 4 hours put into it, but my problems are already unlikely to be fixed.

I can't stop myself. The game is amazing from the art to the music even down to the mechanics. The game has lofi to match the cozy feel, and the game is adaptable without changing the core value of the game. It picks you up and gives you a big hug by a cozy fire and a good book. What more could you ask for. I have been watching this game for some time and the day the game released my husband had already bought it for me and had it installed before I got home. I think he was hoping I would stop talking about it, but I can't. I find myself waking up early before work and pulling all nighters just to play more. Most games like this you beat in 8 hours but here I am going on 19+ hours and I still have so much to do but with no pressure to focus on one thing or another. The game is amazing and the discord community matches the cozy vibes. I even asked about a potential glitch and the developer reached out and look into it with in an hour. You can tell the team has such a passion. I know who my game of the year vote goes to!

Get your tea and blanket ready to spend some cozy time in charming Bookstonbury! No time-pressure, just fun. It's so obvious how much love and care the devs put into it, so many great details :) Every morning, you load up your tiny shop with secondhand books that you can buy from the ads in the newspaper. You decorate it (items have an effect on book sales, customers etc.), and choose a location to go to. There's things to discover/interact with in the locations, people to get to know, stories that unfold and of course you sell books and recommend books to some customers. The books in the game are mostly real books, only a few made-up ones are added. This game has been very addicting for me. Just one more day! I think it's the perfect game for book-loving gamers. It also reminded me of some books that I've wanted to read for ages, but still haven't... There's absolutely no time pressure in anything. By default, to start the recommendation process there is a certain time period (can be adjusted in the settings), but there's also a setting to automatically accept recommendation requests. Also, if you don't accept one, it has no consequences. I was lucky to be one of the last playtesters, so I got to play the game with very little bugs. (That's why I have so many hours played already.) I needed about 25 hours to get to the credits, 40 hours total to finish everything story-related and the Steam achievements. You can continue to play as long as you want afterwards.

crazy how a game like this is pushing feminism down your throat subconsciously. This game is way too political for what it is, also christian men are evil and woman are good, thats like half of these books

One of the most pointless games I've ever "played". Played is in "" because I seem to have to just watch the day pass and give the odd recommendation. A game-play loop without gaming. Never thought I'd dislike a game about books and bookshops, but alas.

This game is making my To Read list longer than it already is

Nice cozy game with a cute design. For me it's 3 on a scale 1-5, but I'm leaning towards negative feedback. But let's take it step by step. Pros: - art and design. I think it'll be hard for anybody tho argue the cute little details you can use to customize your shop and that's what I was doing the majority of the time - cozy, niche game that I will always support as I'm a bit fan of this genre in general. Additional plus for the topic - books! Could be quite educational Cons: - I'm a big literature fan and the book recommendations system is completely off. Requests related to politics , philosophy, historical are completely off. I read 99% of all books available in the game aside from Travel and Fact groups and I tell you - if you really know what these books are about, just forget it... I ended up making a list for myself of "hardcoded" books that always work in such cases. However, it took some trial and error at first. If you make a game about the literature at least do a proper tagging imho... - game artificially stops you from a fast progress. More than half of the missions cannot be completed in the same day. You need to wait for the next day and catch a specific character or be in a specific place dozens of times - political agenda... Why I can't find a game without one? I'm totally fine with it being done nicely and integrated well in the plot. But here... Don't want to give away to much spoilers but if you suggest woke books you get the best score most of the time. So feel free to use this hack :) I'd recommend this game for kids but not like that... Overall I'd pay less, and also if the LGBTQ agenda was flagged before I'd appreciate it, so I don't have to explain my grandmother why I recommended this game for my lil' niece (trust me, not a pleasant discussion)

the epitome of cozy gaming. Fantastic even for those who don't read lots of books. But if you do, you can squeeze even more enjoyment out of this since they use real books!! I don't read a lot but even I recognized many just from pop culture osmosis. On the meta-gamey side, it's so fun to recommend a book for the sale bonuses and watch various items increase sales of different genres. Watching the customer's stack of purchased books go higher and higher is such a great feeling.

I was hoping to really enjoy this game but unfortunately the recommendation system has spoilt it for me, and I won't be playing it again until this is fixed. A customer asked for something with a political message on two occasions, on one I offered George Orwell and on the other a book all about going against societal norms. I used to work in politics and both of these are very much on brand. Very strange.

I can't stop playing this game long enough to leave a review that does justice. I absolutely adore this game.