An early access code was provided, thanks to the Plan of Attack.
LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator is another weird simulation game in a long line of weird simulation games. If you have played any of these, you know what I’m talking about. Things like Internet Cafe Simulator, Goat Simulator, Tavern Manager Simulator, and even STONKS 9800. Simulation games where instead of being worried about realism, it’s more concerned with fun and funny moments.
What is LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator Like to Play?
As you may have guessed from the introductory paragraph above, it’s weird. You begin with a tiny library, a handful of books, and a couple of bookshelves. From there, you need to continually upgrade your building and your shelving and put away all the new books you acquire. All while making sure to keep your patrons happy, find their books, and check them out in a reasonable amount of time.
If you don’t, the patrons will take a book and hit you hard enough to knock you down, making it harder to serve anyone else waiting in line on time.
LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator is incredibly goofy. Patrons make silly noises, can’t find books that are literally right in front of them, and you can get beat up for not finding a book on time. It doesn’t take itself too seriously as you try to survive as many days as you can. If you make too many people upset, you will have to close up your library and start over from day 1.
Got Some Progress in the Books
The way you progress through LIBRITOPIA is by levelling up, which unlocks new furniture, expansions, and helpers, and gives you more and more patrons each day. You will acquire new books, and you will need to find places to put all those books so you can find them easily; it will be harder every day to keep track of all the ones you have in store. As more and more people fly into the doors, it gets harder and harder to keep all of them happy, which is why your helpers are so important.
There is a lot of progressions, a lot of things to unlock, and a lot of items you can earn by becoming the perfect librarian in LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator, which was enough to light up the dopamine centre of my brain. Every day, I got a little closer to becoming the ultimate librarian, and I got more and more books to put away and sort.
The Pros of LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator
LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator is quick to pick up and hard to put down. You get to revamp your library, sort books, check books out for customers, and even drink coffee to zoom around. But I think the most fun thing is that you have the power to shush people if their phones are ringing. It’s kind of cathartic to tell rude people in the library to be quiet.
The game is fast-paced and a little stressful. Everything you do is timed, and people start to get very angry very quickly if you take too long to do anything. Most of your patrons will pick out a book and then walk to the checkout themselves, but sometimes they ask for help finding a book. You have a little “Can I Help You?” sign where people can stand when they want you to find a book for them.
They will give you the title, the author, or the genre they are looking for, and you can give them anything that matches that info. You have a pretty limited time to do it in, which makes finding a book by a specific author really stressful when you have 100 books to manage.
The Cons of LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator
LIBRITOPIA is still obviously in Early Access. It has a lot of work ahead of it, and a lot of things about it I’m not a huge fan of myself. To start with, there was one bug I ran into; sometimes, a person in the “Can I Help You?” spot will ask for a book, then another patron will go pick it up. It’s pretty frustrating that something like that could happen, but it was pretty rare.
Another thing I didn’t particularly love about this Early Access title was the lack of freedom. You have a very limited amount of furniture you unlock. If there is a specific type of shelving you like, too bad; you only get one of those. I couldn’t decorate, change the colors of book covers or furniture. I was really hoping there would be a lot more creative freedom in making my own library. I think LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator could benefit from having a more sandbox mindset, letting me get as many shelves as I want.
I think my biggest gripe was about the limited amount of time I had to move furniture and put away books. At the beginning of the day, you have a couple of minutes to sort out your AM chores, then you have a couple more minutes at the end of the day to clean up. I feel like one of those should be a little less limited; I want to be able to take my time and get everything the way I want it before the day starts.
There were some other odds and ends that could use some updating, in my opinion, before 1.0 launch; these include:
The only location with music is the office, and you restart the office song every time you walk into it. I would love it if there was a radio you could listen to and change the channel of, or if there was no music at all.
I’m sad that you can interact with anything in the office. It would be a fun space to decorate.
There’s a guy that stands in front of your library every day, just hanging out on the other side of the fence, looking at you. I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but it’s just creepy.
It takes a long time to unlock self-sorting shelving, I guess, because I’ve never seen it!
When the game delivers new books to you, you can find them out back on the ground in the parking lot. The books will get all dirty; why would you do such a thing?
The sound design is all over the place. The footsteps are SO LOUD and don’t match up with the patrons’ footfalls. The people all look haunted.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator is fine, but it could use a little work. For $7 USD, it’s a fun little goofy time where people can beat you up for not getting their books fast enough. But there are a lot of places for improvement and growth.
I could see this becoming a really fun game in the future. I like sorting books, and I like shushing people who are being too loud in my library-topia. It feels a little bit unfinished, and it lacks a lot of polish, but I think LIBRITOPIA: Librarian Simulator could become a really fun game in the future.
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