30 Cozy Games for Book Lovers
- Ellie
- 15 hours ago
- 16 min read
After spending my entire childhood reading, I kind of dropped off it during university. But last year I really got back into it and it was all because of Tiny Bookshop. So I thought it woud be fitting to put together a list of 30 book-themed games for anyone like me who loves books and gaming and wants something that combines our two favourite hobbies together.
Plus, while they’re all book-themed games, there are a lot of genres here so hopefully there’s something for everyone!
And as always there's a video version with trailers here:
Tiny Bookshop
Of course we have to start with the aforementioned Tiny Bookshop. In this relaxing management sim you leave the city behind and open up a mobile bookshop by the sea. It’s a vibe and you spend every day stocking your little bookshop with books from a variety of genres and choose different locations around town to set up.
Each location has a unique mix of customers with different genre tastes, so you need to tailor your little store depending on where you’re going. You can also decorate your shop to get bonuses, befriend the townsfolk, help them with quests and learn their stories, as well as taking part in festivals around this small picturesque town.
Where you go each day, which items you bring, and the way that you interact with the people around you all shape the course of the town’s stories – and your own.
When I say Tiny Bookshop got me back into reading, it’s because it has this unique recommendation feature. Every book you put in your store corresponds with a real life book, and your customers will ask for recommendations and you’ll be able to read the descriptions of them all. I kid you not, I added so many books to my tbr and I got so distracted reading that I didn’t actually finish this game… Maybe this is my sign to go back! If you want to try it too, Tiny Bookshop is available on PC, Mac, Switch, and Xbox Series X|S.
Storyteller
Let’s continue with games that are available to play right now with Storyteller. Rather than selling books, in Storyteller you’re writing your own books - kind of!
In each level, you’re presented with a blank canvas and must create your own comic-style strips to fit the story.
The gameplay is so smooth with you able to easily drag and drop the characters in and out of the panels to change the story. Each level has a goal for you to complete, but lets you decide how the stories are told, including who dies and who survives, and there are even additional challenges to really test your brain.
Storyteller is available on PC, Mac, Switch, Android and iOS.
Book Bound
Book Bound is a cozy simulation game where you build and run your own bookshop. Buy shelves, order in books, and decorate to your heart's content - just make sure you’ve got everything your customers want in stock.
This game has a lot of cool shop management perks, like genres selling better when grouped on the same shelf, advertising and you can even write, publish, and sell your own novels!
The reviews for Book Bound are mostly positive so it might be worth taking a read through them before buying, but it’s available to play on PC!
Bookshop Simulator
And there’s another bookshop management sim up next, but this one has a 95% Overwhelmingly Positive rating!
In Bookshop Simulator, you’re also running your own bookshop. But the gameplay is more similar to games like Supermarket Simulator or TCG Card Shop Simulator. You’ll need to buy inventory to stock your shelves and I love that the devs have gone fully-in on funny names for all of their books. But you won’t just have books in stock, there’s also comics, board games, and sweet treats to fill out your store, which you can of course decorate and customise with rugs, plants and more.
There’s a lot more packed into Bookshop Simulator too like magical books, a shop cat, and multiple locations to unlock. Bookshop Simulator is available to play on PC in Early Access although it is launching into 1.0 on the 20th July.
Prose & Codes
We’ve done a lot of bookshop management games, so let’s branch out into some other genres starting with Prose & Codes!
This one is a puzzle game, where the dev has taken famous quotes from books throughout history and turned them into ciphers for you to solve. There are 7 or 8 different genres, like horror, mystery, and romance, and each one has around 50 ciphers to solve in it.
Then once you’ve solved the puzzle you can see what the book is and even read it if you want to. Prose & Codes is a great way to discover new books and it's a great brain-teaser with lots of small bite-sized puzzles to complete if you’re short on time.
Prose & Codes is available to play on PC and Mac.
Split Fiction
Looking for something a bit more action-packed to play with your Player 2? Then might I suggest Split Fiction.
This is a co-op adventure you play as two strangers, who get stuck in a simulation. There they get to live through every story idea they’ve ever come up with, which may sound like a dream come true but can sometimes have disastrous results.
As one character is a science fiction author and the other is focused on fantasy, you’ll find yourself jumping between the two genres often with you raising pet dragons in one simulation and trying to escape an exploding star in another.
It’s definitely more action-packed than the other games on this list, but it’s so much fun and I definitely relate to the idea of having so many wacky book ideas floating around in my mind. Split Fiction is available to play on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2.
Little Corners
Kind of adjacent to reading books, sticker crafts have really been taking off recently and now someone’s turned it into a game! Little Corners is a super cute and creative decorating game, where you peel stickers from a collection of sticker sheets and place and stack them to create a cute scene.
I love how creative this is and it solves the issue I have with Unpacking-likes where I never know what’s coming up next and I always have to move my items around to make room for whatever unexpected things comes out of the box.
Also the art is amazing! Little Corners is available on PC.
Beacon Pines
Cute but creepy adventure Beacon Pines is up next!
In this story rich visual novel, you play as Luka who accidentally stumbles across something strange going on at an abandoned warehouse near his town. With his best friend, Rolo, he decides to investigate the mystery and work out what’s going on.
One of the coolest things about Beacon Pines is that it's played out across the pages of a storybook. When you make a choice, that forms a branch on the tree, that you can go back and change if you want to try another option. I really enjoyed exploring the mysterious world of Beacon Pines, which is available on PC, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.
Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts
This next game is also a bit different because rather than selling or reading books, you’re creating them!
In Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts, you run an illuminated manuscript workshop where you design pages and pages of medieval text using a range of illustrations. In Story Mode you will be commissioned by various patrons and will need to keep them happy by fulfilling all their requests, but there are also extra wishes that you can complete for some extra fun.
Any gold you earn from your commissions can be used to buy decorations for your workshop. Or if you’d rather just decorate pages with no restrictions, then there’s also a sandbox mode available in Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts, which is available on PC.
LIBRITOPIA
We’ve had a lot of bookshop sims so far, but what about a library sim?
With a collection filled with classic novels from Shakespeare to Jane Austen and Jules Verne, you need to help your eager readers who don’t really know what they want. Learn what they want, make sure they get their preferred books, and keep the shelves fully stacked, while also managing late returns, repairing books, and more!
You can play LIBRITOPIA in single player or multiplayer and there’s two modes: relaxed mode with no time limits or angry customers, and survival mode, with more pressure and chaos! LIBRITOPIA is available to play on PC.
Lost Words: Beyond the Page
Next up is another adventure played out across the pages of a book and this one looks beautiful! Discover a diary belonging to a young girl called Izzy who finds herself in a fantasy world.
One of the huge selling points for me for this game, is that the narrative is written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of fantasy writer Terry Pratchett. That combined with the beautiful watercolour artwork has completely captured my attention and it’s even fully voice acted!
Use the character’s words to solve puzzles and progress the story, with the words you use altering how the story will unfold.
Lost Words: Beyond the Page is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.
Epistory - Typing Chronicles
In this next game, an author has lost all their inspiration and your job as their muse is to try and help her write her next book. Start with a blank page and type your way through the story, gaining more points and EXP by stringing together longer sentences.
While the game will start simply to help you learn the ropes, the further you advance from the beginning, the more enemies, abilities, and terrains you’ll encounter. It also apparently has adaptive difficulty to help cater to players of all typing ability.
Epistory - Typing Chronicles is available on PC, Mac, Linux, and Nintendo Switch.
Writer's Rush
Speaking of author’s writing novels in game, this next game is an author simulator that challenges you to write quicker and better than your rivals.
Decide whether you want to write a book, screenplay, fairy tale, or more, select your genre, and choose from a range of different plots, twists, and endings. With your writing finished, submit it to be published and wait to see the reviews from your fans and the press come pouring in. Then use that information to plan your next step.
Writer's Rush is currently available on PC.
The Plucky Squire
Discover the magical adventures of Jot and his friends in The Plucky Squire, a whimsical adventure about storybook characters, who discover that there’s a three-dimensional world beyond the pages of their storybook!
What should have been a miracle discovery, soon turns sour when the malevolent Humgrump realises he's the villain! After skipping to the end and discovering he’s destined to lose his battle against the forces of good, he takes matters into his own hands and kicks the heroic Jot out of its pages to change the story forever.
Can you restore the book’s happy ending and save your friends? Head out on an adventure that’ll take you between 2D and 3D worlds in this charming game that’s available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
The Librarian
Liz's library is threatened and she needs to go investigate it in this next game. But she finds herself trapped in a fantasy world full of supernatural creatures with a mystery to get to the bottom of.
At its heart, The Librarian is a short point and click detective game with lots of exploration, but it does have the horror tag so may not be as cozy as some of the other games on this list. The Librarian is available on PC.
Shelf by Shelf
Our penultimate released game is another job simulator where you run a book shop. But I’ve put Shelf by Shelf near the end of this section because it is currently sitting on mixed reviews with a 64% rating.
There are some positive reviews praising the store organisation and decorating, the simple and repetitive tasks and the fact that it uses real books with real descriptions. However the negative reviews call it limited in scope with not much to do, so keep that in mind for Shelf by Shelf.
Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!
As we come to the end of the book-themed games you can play now, there's one last game I want to mention but it won't be for everyone as they do use generative AI.
Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! has recently taken the cozy gaming space by storm as you clean up a messy library. Pick up the scattered books and return them to their proper place as you organise a massive collection of novels ranging from romance to magic and travelogues.
There are 3,072 books to organise in total so it will take a while to tidy up everything. But the game rewards you for the books you've correctly stacked by blessing you with magical abilities that you can use to speed up the process.
Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! is out now on PC.
Let’s move on to upcoming book games, starting with the one I’m looking forward to the most: Bookbinding!
Bookbinding
In Bookbinding you work as a bookbinder who takes in old books and gives them a new lease of life. You’ll get to decorate them, choosing the colours and design that suits your customer’s preferences, or your can pick the ones you want if that’s what you want to do instead!
But as you play through the game, an old friend will appear and soon you’ll be tangled up in a murder with your choices dictating the outcome of the game…
Bookbinding is due to launch on PC on the 24th July, so there’s not long to wait at all and I do have gameplay up for it on my channel if you want to see what it’s like!
Black Cat Book Club
Our next game is perfect for fans of idle games and desktop companions! Black Cat Book Club shows a magical tower that contains a library and sits on your home screen.
The library's only resident is a cat, who is slowly reading their way through all of the books in the library and learning magic! Over time they'll unlock new spells that upgrades their reading speed, ability to focus, experience earned, and more.
Like all good desktop games, you can also customise the library and the cat itself to make them match your style. Plus you can also customise the size and appearance of the library window to fit it in around your other programs.
Black Cat Book Club is due to launch in August on PC.
Idle Bookstore
There’s another idle game up next, where you build and run a tiny bookshop alone or with your friends!
Start with a small shop and only a few books on your shelf. Then get a part time job writing books, which you can sell to expand your store, hire staff, and buy decorations.
Sell books written by you and your friends in your bookstore, improving their reputation while also improving your store. There’s no fixed release date for Idle Bookstore yet, but it is due to launch in Q3 2026.
Book Nook
From the creators of Camper Van: Make it Home comes a book-adjacent game that looks so satisfying!
Book nooks have become a huge thing in the book community and in this game we can build them from scratch! Pop each piece of the book nook out of cardboard, work out how they go together, and slot them into place to create cute furnishings that you can combine to create your finished diorama before adding personality with books, plants, ornaments, and small details.
With each finished nook, you'll unlock part of the story from the memories of the builder. Book Nook looks very satisfying and it'll be launching later this year on PC, but there's a demo out now if you can't wait to try it out.
Oomi's Nook
This next game was also called Book Nook until recently, but it’s just been renamed to Oomi’s Nook.
Much like the last game, you’ll be building little dioramas. But this one will be built from over 8000 stickers created by 20 artists. There are 100 different stages to build from a Summer villa with a pool, to a cozy mountain kitchen and more.
Plus there is an adorable family of pink monsters called the Oomi to find hidden in every scene. I’m so impressed by how detailed some of these scenes are and love that they used a range of artists so different scenes have different vibes.
But it is worth noting that they have used AI to partially localise the text into other languages ahead of Oomi’s Nook’s launch later this year.
Fractured Library
After getting lost in a freak storm, you stumble across a mysterious library and head inside to get out of the weather. But this is no ordinary library. It’s an enchanted library and despite her best efforts, the librarian Hazel is struggling to keep the magic under control.
Explore the library and the many magical worlds contained within its walls, all in search of fragments of a shattered crystal that can help restore balance to this world. There’s no combat, no time limits, and no stress, just a magical world to explore in Fractured Library, which is due to launch in 2026.
Hermes Library
Become a librarian at the famous Hermes Library, housed at the most famous university in Europa. Spend your days working at the front desk, helping students, faculty and alumni to check out and return books. But make sure to check their cards to make sure they’ve returned it on time.
It’s essentially a Papers Please-like set in a library, but things quickly take a twist as you start discovering messages hidden in books hinting at the mystery behind the strange incidents occurring around campus. Can you help the detective and reporter get to the bottom of what’s going on?
Hermes Library is due to launch on PC in 2026.
Missi
Solve puzzles together with a cute white mouse searching a fantasy world for medicinal herbs for her sick son. Try to trick the Mushroom Spider and the Crow King, bring a dragon statue to life, brew potions with a swamp witch, and immerse yourself in a fairy-tale adventure in this atmospheric 2D point & click game.
Missi feels like reading the pages of a children’s book with a beautiful hand-drawn watercolour style making up every scene and it’ll be launching later this year.
Between the Shelves
There’s yet another bookshop management game up next, but all of your customers come from the pages of books!
If you’re an avid bookworm, you’ll probably recognise many of the customers who visit your store, if you expand it enough to attract them of course. Some of the rare characters will unlock themed items and powerful upgrades for your store.
Set up a thriving bookstore, decorating it with lots of shelves, cozy reading spaces, and you can even add additional income streams like a coffee shop, and more in Between the Shelves, which is launching in Q1 2027.
The Hidden Library
What would you do if you discovered a hidden library?
In this dark academia-inspired point-and-click adventure you play as a young girl who discovers her late grandfather’s hidden library. It’s filled with banned books and you find yourself absorbed in the world, getting to know the characters that are enclosed within the pages.
Each level of the game is inspired by a banned book or genre, and the more you read, the more you discover about forbidden Soviet-era literature. But the library doesn’t just hide forgotten books. There are clues hidden between the shelves, clues about your family history from letters to photographs, all hinting at the dangerous secrets your grandpa was trying to protect.
The Hidden Library is marked as Coming Soon on Steam.
Monk Took Book
If, like me, you're opposed to playing games that use generative AI and want an alternative to Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! then you may like the look of this next game (and you can play it with your friends)!
Monk Took Book is another library organisation game, but rather than cleaning up a messy library, you're tasked with organising it. Every morning you'll receive a pile of new books that you'll need to shelve away. But there's no set place for them, so you'll need to decide how to categorise them by colour, symbol, or something else.
Come evening, the library scribes will call upon you and request a specific tome that you need to find and deliver to them. In return they'll bless you with a new skill upgrade to help you do your job better!
However that's not all - this game also has a darker turn with you needing to defend your library from vermin, spirits, and more. There's no confirmed release date for Monk Took Book, but there is a demo available if you want to try it out.
Library of Lyria
After coming across a destroyed library hidden deep in an enchanted forest, you decide to restore it in Library of Lyria. This simulation game blends farming, management, and sandbox gameplay as you restore the Library of Lyria to its former glory.
You can rebuild the library over time, but you also need books! Explore the mystical land of Lyria, searching for powerful tomes, rare recipes, and more to fill your library.
Library of Lyria looks quite early in development and it’s planning to come to Early Access at some point, but they have disclosed on the Steam page that they won’t be using any AI in the development of the game, so that’s great!
Wonder Library
There’s another magical library up next, but this one looks breath-taking and it’s filled with picture books. Experience a mystical world where the characters from your favourite books come to life, letting you create a unique story with them.
Travel to the Forest of Meditation, Meadow of Fortune, Witch's Cabin, Mountain of Freedom, and more in Wonder Library, which also doesn’t have a release date and is marked as coming soon.
My Cozy Bookshop
Our final game is called My Cozy Bookshop!
When your grandma decides to retire to a tropical island to finally finish writing her book, she hands the family bookshop over to you, but you’ve got no idea what you’re doing. Also this is no ordinary bookshop, as alongside fiction novels, you’ll also be selling spell books, potions, and rare books that you can source from forgotten ruins.
Can you turn the bookshop around and make your grandma proud, whenever My Cozy Bookshop releases?
Those are all the book-themed games I was able to find, so I hope you’ve discovered something new to try!
But if you know some other book-themed games then please drop them in the comments so that I and everyone else can check them out.