Tiny Bookshop gave me the moment every book lover lives for: recommending the perfect book to a friend and them instantly loving it

In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2025, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks each day throughout the rest of the month. You can find them all here. (Image credit: Neoludic Games) (Image credit: Neoludic Games) (Image credit: Neoludic Games) (Image credit: Neoludic Games) We've all done it: excitedly told a friend that they should read a book (or play a game, watch a movie, etc) that you think they will like. Then you wait. You wait for weeks. You don't pester them about it because you don't want them to associate your overeagerness to share your favorite thing with the thing itself, sullying the experience. If you're lucky, you earn one of life's most unconditionally joyful victories when they bring it up months later and say: "That thing you told me about? I loved it!" Tiny Bookshop, a cozy management game about stocking and recommending books, is the triple-shot serotonin of that experience-pure validation and mutual enjoyment day in and out-and I'm still going back for more. (Image credit: Neoludic Games) In Tiny Bookshop I am the new proprietor of a tiny mobile shed hitched to a hatchback. Out of it I'm selling books in the quaint seaside town Bookstonbury, where the wind has blown me. Each day I stock my shelves with books from seven genres (classics, crime, drama, fact, fantasy, kids, and travel) then choose a spot around town to throw down the hatch. The waterfront plaza, the university campus, a local cafe, even the supermarket car lot. Customers amble on in, shopping my shelves with each genre's sale chance buffed by my decor choices. A little buoy hanging from my shop's eaves grants a boost to my chance to sell travel books while a decorative skull improves crime novel sales but decreases kids book chances. Between the daily shop grind, Tiny Bookshop also has a small cast of characters with little quests and evolving stories to chase as I expand my mobile book shop operation over my seasons in Bookstonbury. (Image credit: Neoludic Games) What takes Tiny Bookshop from a nice shop sim to a book-lover's true calling is that throughout the day customers will ask my help choosing a book. Book people love recommending books. It's basically the entire backbone of Booktok and Booktube and the full gaggle of interconnected book people forums on Reddit. I get to flex that rec cred when my customers come in wanting a classic book written by a woman, a coming-of-age fantasy, or maybe a short crime novel featuring a detective. I've got to pick apart what each customer is asking for and the relative importance of each part of their request. They may be "in the mood for" a thriller, but that part's not make-or-break, though something written this century is an absolute must. When I go to surf my shelves for choices I find that they're populated...

Preview: ~500 words