Tiny Bookshop

Everyone's been talking about the new computer game - Tiny Bookshop - and it was a fairly obvious choice for me to try out. I quickly got obsessed with kitting out my little mobile bookshop trailer, and really enjoying stocking the shelves and making recommendations based on customer requests. I also liked all the different characters in the town, as well as figuring out how to complete the various tasks related to their different plots. My favourite aspect was passing all the tests to become part of the business owners' group in the town. I was a bit concerned by the lack of health and safety rules in my tiny bookshop, since I regularly had upwards of 15 people crammed in there at a time!

But, while there's a lot to love about Tiny Bookshop, it's not without its issues. The main one for me was that there just weren't enough unique books to fill the game time. I wouldn't have minded a few repeats here and there, but I was selling the same books over and over again well before the end of my first year of game time - and I think it would be pretty hard to complete every aspect of the plot in less than two years, especially when playing through for the first time.

It doesn't feel as if it would have been that hard to load the game memory and inventory stocks with five times more books - but maybe I'm wrong about that.

It also got a bit frustrating towards the end because the few tasks I still had to complete were season-specific, so I would have had to play through more than one season with no plot (so just many, many days of repetitive bookselling) to be able to get to their start points. And, worst of all, one of the main character plot points had a bug where I couldn't complete it, even after achieving all the requirements for it.

So, part way into my third year of game time, I decided to stop playing. I had, to be fair, finished the main plot and gone through the credits sequence of officially 'finishing' the game - but I still had quite a few location and character tasks left to do and it would have been nice to complete it all.

Mostly, though, a really fun game with an excellent concept and largely great execution. Just needs more books!!

Strange Antiquities

Strange Horticulture is my favourite video game I've played in the last few years - and, a month or so ago, I played through it a second time with Dave, letting him make the important decisions and thus getting a very different ending to the first time I played it. It was really fun to work through it together, since I'd forgotten nearly all of the puzzles by that time so it was largely new to me again.

So, I was tremendously excited to hear that a sequel was in the works - Strange Antiquities, which came out earlier this month. We started playing it on the day of release and finished it today, 11 days later. We played until after midnight three nights in a row this week, which goes to show how much fun we had with it.

Like in Strange Horticulture, you play someone running an esoteric shop in a town called Undermere. Where the first game was all about plants, this one is all about artefacts - statues, totems, boxes and pendants. Initially, individual customers come into the shop and ask for specific items or for advice on solving a particular problem. Then, you have to consult your book of descriptions and match one to an artefact on the shelves to provide the right item. A central plot of doom and destruction starts to emerge as the game goes on, and there are seven or so decision points where you can send the story in different directions.

I love the aesthetic of the game, and also the gameplay. There's so much variety in the objects and the puzzles, the latter of which are rarely so difficult as to annoy me.

The makers obviously got feedback on the first game, because there are multiple improvements here. There are several different ways in which to identify objects, so that aspect is more interesting and involving. There is more than one map - and they are much easier to navigate than in the first game. The magnifying glass works better and is easier to use, so there's a lot less peering at tiny things on the screen. There's also a better hint system, with staggered clues to lead you to the more difficult answers, if you want to spend less time scratching your head. And the cat is more involved...

All the things I loved about Strange Horticulture are also present and correct, including a fair few of the characters we grew to know and love the first time around.

I did have a couple of gripes, though. As with the first game, there really aren't enough decision points to make playing through the game multiple times to get more of the nine possible endings feel worthwhile, as 90% of each play through will be exactly the same every time. That said, I am planning on starting a new game as soon as I finish this review, because I do want to see at least one other ending and there are seven chances to go a different route.

And, while most of the puzzles were clever enough to feel satisfying when we figured them out, but not so difficult as to be annoying - that did change over time, with a couple of the bigger puzzles seeming very counter-intuitive, and the clues in the book becoming less and less clear. I also found the mini-game you have to play every time you get too many things wrong in a row a bit tedious.

But, overall, a compelling, exciting, fun, satisfying, beautiful game - I hope the series continues!

[Edit to say: It took me three hours to speed-run straight through the game a second time to get a different ending - first time through Steam says it took Dave and me 14 hours total. Our Strange Horticulture play-throughs took about 9 hours each.]