Shelf by Shelf: Bookstore Simulator

This is definitely a cozy, chill game, but there is just... not much to do? Customer interactions are painfully slow, the decoration options are pretty limited, and you buy random boxes of books only to keep getting the same ones over and over again. There is also very little sorting or management to keep you engaged as well, super sad cus i love that part the most lol. It is not a terrible game? But also just cant recommend it. It feels like it's missing a lot of content.. After one hour i was already bored sadly.

[i]Shelf by Shelf[/i] is a cozy management game where you run a small bookshop. You purchase books and decorative items, unpack them from their boxes, and arrange everything on shelves however you like—alphabetically, by genre, by color, or whatever system suits you. The unboxing process itself reminded me of a lot of [i]Unpacking[/i], where you pull out the items from a big box one by one and try to find new homes for them all around the room. It’s satisfying to see how your little shop slowly fills up as you invest in new shelves and decorations across the two available rooms. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3708216191 Organizing is a secondary activity, though. The core gameplay remains fulfilling customer orders by finding the right book for their tastes. When you don't have exactly what someone wants, which happens rather often, especially in the early game when funds are tight, you can offer a substitute. This is where the game gets a bit fiddly. Matching the type of the book (science fiction, novels, detective, philosophy, stories, or history) alone isn't enough; the fit needs to be closer than that, yet the rules are never clearly explained. Each boo…

This is a pretty short game which was worth it on sale, but doesn't have a lot of content. There's no story, and you don't get to know your customers: the fun is mostly in arranging books on the shelf in whatever way makes sense to you, and knowing what to recommend if you don't have the book the customer wants. My guess is that the people having trouble with making money don't really know the books well, which is fair; e.g. some of the mysteries are reasonably niche; I knew them because I know classic mysteries well, that's all. I completed all achievements within 10 days -- 7 days, really, apart from the one where you need to reach day 10. It definitely helps to have a good general knowledge of literature. If you're looking for something with more story and more options, I'd definitely suggest Tiny Bookshop, but this was fun enough for a short game.

Start out pretty slow, but overall a very fun and chill game. Perfect to play when you feel overwhelmed by things. Everything from the gameplay to the graphic is simple & streamlined, and you don't feel forced to get this one upgrade or get this decoration to maximize stats. Very low stake management game!

The game was definitely cozy and cute, but there really wasn't much else to do after about an hour. Everything about the game felt unnecessarily slow and sort of felt like you were slogging through the in-game day just to barely make any money anyway. Cute idea, but it's not worth the money for the amount of content you get.

It's definitely a chill game, but there's not much to actually do, and this genre is usually a favourite of mine. The customer interactions are slow, there's not much sorting or decorating to do, and it feels like a bit of a slog to make monetary progress, which actually doesn't really amount to anything in the end. The game is good at what it is though, so I'll probably check out the devs other games