New Game+ The coziest game of 2025 lets you run a Tiny Bookshop

As David Wildemann, co-founder of Neoludic Games put it, describing Tiny Bookshop is easy. It’s all in the name.

Without even so much as seeing a frame, you know the gist. There’s a Tiny Bookshop and it’s your job to run it.

Lining the shelves with engrossing sci-fi novels, chatting away to regular customers, it’s all there to immerse you in the four walls littered with hundreds of stories.

Oh, and your humble shop is on wheels too, so you can change location regularly, if you like. Want to work near the beach on Tuesdays? Sure thing. Rather nestle next to a cafe on Fridays to wind down the work week? Go right ahead. The choice is all yours. How you prefer to run your little bookshop is entirely for you to decide.

Of course, you can ‘fail’ at the simulation side of it, to a degree – it’s not meant to be challenging, though shops need to turn a profit after all – but for the most part, it’s purely about soaking up the atmosphere while living out the cozy fantasy.

Delightful visuals paired with elegant sound design, rich yet simplified mechanics, and calm yet captivating narratives all combine to make Tiny Bookshop an inscrutably comforting experience. When you boot up the game, you’re taken somewhere else.

It all became even more enchanting when speaking with Wildemann and learning of its genesis.

What the devs say about it

A life-affirming trip to New Zealand

Based out of Cologne, Germany, Wildemann carried out part of his studies overseas. After a year in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia, he grew “burnt out” by the mix of couch surfing, studying, and general lack of funds. For a time, his future in the game development space looked hazy at best.

An impromptu trip to New Zealand, however, lit a fire that burned brighter than ever.

“After finishing studies in Melbourne, I spent two months in New Zealand, just sort of calming down,” Wildemann told me.

“We went to Christchurch and found the Custard Square Bookshop. It was just a little wagon with used books. Every book cost the same amount.

“An older gentleman was sat outside reading a newspaper. I was just looking at that scene and thought, ‘I want to do this. I want to quit everything and make this my life.

“This idea grew with me from 2019. Even when the pandemic hit, it became more alluring still.”

Cozy to the core

The aesthetic is one thing, but Tiny Bookshop goes a step further in its aspirational coziness. It’s not just the look and feel, but the actual moment-to-moment that’s been calculated in such a way as to ensure the player is scarcely overwhelmed like Wildemann was all those years prior in Melbourne.

“Whenever I was unsure with a design decision, I went back to that picture in my mind, of the older gentleman in Christchurch.

“You make these decisions, like what books to stock, but then you can lean back and you don’t have to interfere, the bookshop sort of runs itself. That was a big part of my design intention.”

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The books you stock and how they’re presented is entirely your call.

Threading the narrative needle

Throughout your time in the cozy little bookshop on wheels, you’ll come across all manner of locals. The friendlier you become, the more they’ll open up. Through this dialogue-driven structure, you’re able to learn all about the town charmingly called Bookstonbury.

But as we learned, the game’s story holds far more importance than just disseminating information. Here, it’s the primary force propelling you forward one day at a time.

“The goal of the narrative was to give players a feeling of progress without this scale you usually have in management sims, where you hire new employees or upgrade to the next big thing.

“We forcefully didn’t want that, which meant we needed to give the players another marker of progress. We landed on items you collect and friends you make. So, we needed characters to come up to you and give the things you do meaning.

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The conversations you have, and the recommendations you give, can change the course of your Tiny Bookshop’s future.

“We added these characters as your ‘regulars,’ the people that come by your bookshop often. It sort of grew from there. Then we thought, what if they gave you little tasks? You can do their tasks, and then they have their own story.

“One might talk about being in a band, then after 15 hours, you may get to see them perform. I think that’s a really fun way to play with the fantasy, these people having lives away from your Bookshop.”

Taking a breath

Finally gearing up for launch after sitting with the idea for six years, it’s been a stressful period for Wildemann. He even quit drinking coffee cold turkey as late-night heart palpitations were becoming a bit too regular.

But of course, should the game be received well, there’s plenty more he and the rest of the dev team are hoping to achieve in the months to come.

“We’d love to continue supporting the game. We have a list of features that we call our 1.1 list.

“One idea is to let players add books to their collection, sort of through mod support. We have this on our mind, but we couldn’t make it work in time for the 1.0 release.

“We definitely want to add things and react to the feedback when the game comes out.

“One thing a lot of people have noted is romance, so maybe we’ll add romance books in DLC or a bigger update, but we’ll see.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people that they want a Switch port. We’re looking into it, but we can’t say anything for certain yet. Mobile would be very interesting too, but we’re just very unfamiliar. We don’t want to add ads to the game or in-app purchases. So, we need to make the value proposition work for people on mobile.”

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Acquiring new books and customizing your shop is an endless delight.

Tiny Bookshop launches on PC on August 7, 2025. You can wishlist the game here now and check out the early demo.

For more New Game+ previews, check here to catch up on our latest features.