Another Summer Game Fest has come and gone (Nintendo’s stream was this morning and I’m about to read up on that in a minute), which means I’m downloading demos for games that I either received press releases about or just happened to catch during one of several focused streams this past weekend. But on Saturday night, when I was going through the Wholesome Games emails to grab demos, I stumbled upon something you rarely see on Steam: two games with the same name and pretty similar vibes!
Book Nook – Cozy Sticker Book Game
The first image that popped up when I searched for Book Nook was full of soft pastel colours and radiated kawaii. Now, this was not the more subdued brown I associated with the title, as per the display image on the Wholesome Games website. I thought maybe it was an older title image not yet swapped over after the stream. Loading up the full store page I discovered this version of Book Nook was actually a cozy sticker placement game!
The first level I played was the Study. In this tutorial level, you learn the ins and outs of placing, removing, and layering your stickers in the correct order. I immediately noticed that when I dragged a sticker to the correct spot in the book there was a noticeable stop. Now, this happens regardless of whether or not the sticker is on the correct “layer”. For instance, if you place the books onto the page before the bookshelf sticker is applied, it will let you stick it but you’ll have to remove those books to get the bookshelf down first.
After building the Study, I decided to try one of the later levels. The Bathroom was broken up into three floors, each one its own section, making it slightly more challenging but still felt natural and relaxing, if that makes sense. The visual placement guide on the lefthand side of the screen was extremely helpful when I was dealing with some of the smaller stickers and trying to figure out the layering.
Another cool thing about this Book Nook is that you can turn on Relaxed Difficulty. If you turn this on, you don’t need to worry about sticker layering. This is a nice accessibility tool and I’m glad it’s here. Not sure if or how this might affect any achievements should the developer add them into the final release.
Stumbling onto this demo was such a blessing. It’s so incredibly cozy and chill, and I’m super excited to get my hands on the final version. I know I’ll be playing the hell out of it.
Book Nook – Diorama Kit Builder
This Book Nook is the one I was looking for from my Wholesome email. The concept: building those snap and place dioramas that once flooded the tables at my local Kinokuniya. (I have three unopened ones in a pile at the moment.) In the demo, you punch out the pieces and work in sections to build the final scene.
There was only one diorama to build in this demo. That said, it was a pretty intricate one to assemble. Starting off with smaller elements like the potted plan in the image below, things were going great. I built a chair, walls for the shop. Everything was starting to take shape and it was mostly enjoyable.
Working on the larger pieces is where I started to get a little frustrated. At this point, I wanted more from the mouse controls. Some of the holes and pieces were extremely small or not as noticeable as I would have liked. I tried to drag the front door forward and lined it up with the frame several times, but the door wouldn’t click into place. Instead, it would tilt back or completely push back in perspective. I eventually spotted that I needed to have my hand icon grasp the joint piece and drag that along the edge until it clicked into place.
While the demo does not have any accessibility features, I am hoping that they consider adding one for placing pieces. You can use the reference cards as freely as you like, but when some of those holes are so super tiny… It would be much better if the Book Nook developer tweaked some of the controls or gave you a way to highlight the connection points. Just food for thought.
If I had to pick one of these two Book Nook games to purchase first, I’m leaning toward the sticker book game. Both definitely qualify as cozy games; the vibes, the music, the take your time approach to building are solid. But the kawaii Book Nook demo won me over with better controls and gave me more rooms (six in total) to create.
(If the devs are reading this, please consider releasing your games together in a bundle. I think that would be fabulous!)