Tiny Bookshop Review: The Cozy Genre, Perfected

I love my days in the titular Tiny Bookshop, a small wooden trailer that tags along behind my beat-up car. This is a new start, for both of us. 

I’ve put a lot of love and care into my small business. I’ve painted the outside a fresh bright teal for summer; I’ve made sure all the plants inside are safe for children and pets; I’ve organized the kids’ books to be in an easily accessible bin at the beach, and the crime novels on the top shelf. I sort through the classifieds every day and the weekly flea market, looking for literary fiction and sci-fi adventures. When the season gets colder, I’ll make a pot of coffee and sell cuppas.

Rain or shine, I do two things every day: I help customers find a book they’ll love, and I tell the stray dog I’ve adopted that he’s a good boy.

Oh, right, it’s all imagined… but you know what? I love playing pretend.

Fantasy

In September 2023, a close friend and I stayed at a fabulous Airbnb on the southern coast of Scotland where visitors live in a flat upstairs and run a used bookshop below. (I highly recommend it! It’s called The Open Book, and the village has an interesting history, too — learn how Wigtown became the national book town.)

Running a real-life bookshop was fun, but difficult. Some people came in to browse, not to buy anything — I could see the profits leaving with them. Others wanted really specific titles, and I had nothing satisfactorily similar to offer. A few customers wanted to chat for a long time; others were a bit rude. It was all worth it, though, for the high of when someone found a book they weren’t even expecting, especially if it was something that I or my friend had suggested.

It was a special experience that also made me realize how much harder a bookshop would be to run for real, and not just for fun for a week. Sure, I still keep the dream in my back pocket, but I’m not running toward it at full speed. But as of August 7, I’m in luck, thanks to a brand new indie game.

Tiny Bookshop fulfills every reader’s fantasy of being an independent bookshop owner. The game is the ideal blend of relaxing and stimulating and, in my opinion, it has perfected the cozy games genre which itself has become deeply oversaturated.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Tiny Bookshop since it showed up in a 2023 Wholesome Direct. Last week, developer Neoludic Games and publishers Skystone Games and 2P Games were able to share this creation with the world.

Classic

Tiny Bookshop fulfills the brief and then some. You can decorate your shop, yes, but each item comes with different attributes that can change the vibe of your shop! This, combined with balancing the (financial) books and your choice of pop-up locations, provides a solid but not impossible management challenge.

There is routine to each day, but it’s never the same. You never know who will come into your shop, what you’ll find nearby, or what books will sell. There’s a satisfying overall narrative, too; you’ll meet and befriend townspeople who will give you quests. I loved finding niche historical books for Klaus, a local musician who wanted inspiration, trying to find the courage for his band to have their first ever concert. Fellow newcomer Fern, an awkward but intrepid young journalist, always made me smile when he found a new book. It feels like you’re making a tangible impact on the little, vaguely European, appropriately named town of Bookstonbury.

The pacing of Tiny Bookshop is just right. Each day lasts about five minutes, making it easy to play in quick sprints or long marathon sessions. That’s on the micro-level, but the meta moves along, too. There are seven days in a week; there are four weeks in a season; there are four seasons.

Only a few quests must be finished by the end of a season; most have no expiration date. This allows for a gentle, self-paced experience that makes it accessible for people new to gaming; it also gives you a lot of mileage if you’re used to optimizing. For example, I had a feeling early on that if I could get access to the Fisherman’s Market, I could buy a fish that I could then feed to the stray dog. So, I prioritized those quests until I had successfully befriended my sweet baby boy just a few days after meeting him.

The aesthetics are suitably adorable — pastel colors, blocky but sweet design, joyful animation. Gentle music and appropriate sound effects further set the scene. It’s the video game equivalent of drinking a cup of hot cocoa. Vibe-wise, it reminds me of the vibrantly playful Ooblets, or like Stardew Valley if it was less stressful. But what makes the game work is something very unique.

Thriller

What I admire most about Tiny Bookshop is that it is clearly made by people who actually read books.

When a customer asks for a book recommendation, they will give broad strokes of what they want. Players will look through what they happened to stock on their shelf that day and try to find something that works. You are given some basic details: author, publication year, page length, genre, and a brief description. You can make do with this, but players are rewarded for what they know about these books from outside of the game.

Someone wants a book with a twist? It’s up to you to either read between the lines of the description or know from your own experience which ones will surprise. Want a tear-jerking horror novel? Without having read Beloved by Toni Morrison, you might not know how scary it is from the game’s quick description. Someone wants a character-driven graphic novel? I remember loving Nimona by ND Stevenson and was excited to hand it over. Choices like this abound. I was absolutely delighted whenever I recognized a title (there are some made-up ones to round out categories, but they’re indicated as such).

When someone takes a recommendation you’ve given them, they exclaim enthusiastically and do a little dance and sparkles appear on the screen. It feels amazing, especially when I’m suggesting a book that I’ve really loved in real-life, imagining how happy it’ll make the reader. And what’s more, I’m learning about books I didn’t know about that now I want to read, too.

Tiny Bookshop fulfills every reader’s fantasy of being an independent bookshop owner. It is the ideal blend of relaxing and stimulating and, in my opinion, it has perfected the cozy genre.

When you’re filling your stock for the day, you can choose how many of each genre you want, but you can’t pick the specific titles. It makes the daily gameplay a bit more challenging, especially since so many genres have sub-genres; for example, Fantasy also includes Sci-Fi. When a local encouraged me to recommend more plays to shoppers at the local lighthouse, I couldn’t choose to fill my inventory with them — plays are scattered across Drama and Classics — and so it was up to random chance if I opened the day with enough to sell.

However, I don’t see this as as a bug or design flaw, but a feature. I like that I don’t know what I’ll have to give. It feels representative of real-life used bookselling — you never know what’s going to be in that used box of vintage titles or what you’ll have in stock.

Horror

Even if you have something you think is just right, that doesn’t mean you’ll make the sale.

One customer asked for something “old” and “set in history,” so I gave them Hamlet, but they dismissed, complaining it wasn’t in the past. I don’t know about you, but I don’t hear a lot about modern day Danish princes trying to decide if they’re going to murder their uncle or not. Another asked for “gore galore” but declined when I gave them Dracula.

Even when customers dismissed my recommendations, I was never really mad — there’s no penalty, and again, some customers are just really picky! This felt like real life; people say they want one thing, but what they actually want can be something else entirely.

I have very few negative things to say about Tiny Bookshop. I didn’t experience any bugs, and even in this text-heavy game, I only noticed one typo. My game did crash a few times on my first recommendation of a day, but the game auto-saves upon starting a day, so while this was a little annoying, it wasn’t a big problem. The font is a little small on the Nintendo Switch. That’s really it.

All in all, Tiny Bookshop is a success.

Final Thoughts: Bestseller’s List

I think we’re looking at a new indie classic. I’m not alone; in just a week, Tiny Bookshop has gotten over 1,000 reviews on Steam and is listed as “Overwhelmingly Positive.”

Tiny Bookshop is Neulodic’s first game, and I honestly can’t believe it. It feels like a master class in cozy gaming, but even then, saying that feels reductive. This is a great game, period. The only gamers who wouldn’t like this are people who A) hate books, B) hate reading, C) prefer to be stressed out all the time while playing video games, and/or D) just don’t want to be happy.

If you love cozy games, then play Tiny Bookshop. If you’ve always been curious about cozy games, then play Tiny Bookshop. If you need something good to believe in, then play Tiny Bookshop.

Just like a great book, I can’t wait to recommend this game to everyone I know, including my mom.

Score: 9.8/10

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Tiny Bookshop, developed by Neulodic Games and published by Skystone Games and 2P Games, released on August 7, 2025 for PC, macOS, and Nintendo Switch 1 & 2. MSRP: $19.99. Version reviewed: Nintendo Switch 1.

Disclaimer: A review code was provided by the publisher.