Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library Review (PC)

I’d hate to feed you a little white lie and tell you that I grinned from ear to ear when I was handed thousands of arcane textbooks and told to chronicle them in an orderly fashion. If anything, I was mortified. A library, unapologetically devoted to sprawled out books and lost magical heirlooms, illuminating a daunting task that, frankly, I simply didn’t want to do. But, after so many shelves and after countless volumes, that same task eventually began to swivel my mood. At first, it was a chore that I couldn’t escape from—a spot of labor that had little to no reward. But then the small but seemingly powerful upgrades began to take hold, and before long that monotonous chore became a job that I wanted to pursue. A turbulent process, and yet, Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library had me by the spine. It just took a thousand books to realize it.

Picture this: you awaken to an arcane library that has seen much, much better days. Three thousand books, all containing vast volumes and information of an almost otherworldly sort, flesh out the floor space and the far quarters of the building. Nothing is where it should be, and no two volumes are in chronological order. It’s just you, an enormous library, and a simple task of returning books to their rightful place. And if you think this sounds like a bit of a nightmare, eh — it is and it isn’t.

In a similar fashion as, say, A Game About Digging a Hole, you begin your journey with little more than an itchy hand to guide you on your quest for knowledge. However, as you begin to make progress, you unlock tools (or abilities, in this case) to boost your efficiency and productivity. A simple sorting, stacking and filing method becomes a well-oiled process, and before long the job begins to feel like less of a burden and more of a satisfying challenge. The books find their place in the world, and the Principal—the watchful eye who frequently checks your organization skills—hands you a score that corresponds with your progress.

Librarian is a bit like PowerWash Simulator, in that it takes just ten seconds to figure out whether or not it’s a game that will keep you mindlessly distracted for the long haul, or force you to question your spending habits as you desperately search for a refund. Sure enough, there are numerous ways to cook the books and tipple the tide in your favor here, but you have to stick around long enough to unearth the shortcuts. Till then, you have a rather daunting task to tackle, and an even bigger quota to fill. I wasn’t lying when I said that there were over three thousand books to find and sort.

While the initial stages of the book-stowing process are, and unsurprisingly so, a little dull and backed by a whole lot of legwork, Librarian does balance out its monotonous nature with some rich magical infusions. As the curator of arcane knowledge and volumes, you have the power to unleash abilities that further aid your quest. For example, you can summon volumes in their entirety with the snap of a button, or highlight missing books among the rubble with a quick spell. You can also use a prompt to automatically stack and organize entire sections on a shelving unit. The only downside is, you need to earn your stripes before the powers befall you. More books equals more abilities, and so on and so forth. It’s a simple concept, yet one that, like a good encyclopedic guide, has a whole lot of weight to it.

Librarian is, above all, an incremental experience that tends to get a bit better with each passing hour. If not for its magical themes and arcane elements, then I’d say that it doesn’t get better at all. But it’s the little bits and pieces that make Librarian stand out on the shelf here—the enchanting wisps and the vibrant colors, the warm atmosphere and the acoustics that radiate from the far corners of the room to the chandeliers. The scoring system, too, adds a little extra weight to the overall experience, with a sense that you need to fulfill your quota in order to unlock greater abilities. It isn’t a mentally taxing experience by any means, though it does give you something to work towards and, more importantly, a reason to stick around for the long haul.

If you’re a bit of a bookworm who enjoys combing over the spine of a lofty volume and analyzing covers, genres, and contents, then it’s highly likely that you’ll find enough here to keep your eyes in the binder for a number of hours. With topics that stretch from travel guides to otherworldly events, arcane encyclopedias to fantastical romance novels, Librarian ensures that you always have a new book to read. Well, not read, but locate and tuck away on a shelf. And with a little over three thousand of ‘em to find, you clearly have more than enough here to justify the cost of your annual library membership — and then some.

Librarian plays as well as it should, with fluid book-grappling mechanics and an elegant interface that’s as equally non-intrusive as it is a delight to navigate. With little to no technical flaws to dampen its appeal, the game performs to an excellent standard. Perhaps I was lucky, or maybe, it really was an airtight ordeal that had no bad demons to exacerbate its problems. Either way, Librarian kept me hooked throughout, and at no point did it spoil an otherwise wonderful experience with anything particularly nasty, or at least, nothing that would crease the pages of its world.

Verdict

Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library indexes itself among the arcane shelves as a weighty encyclopedia of incremental pleasures that can, and probably will be a best-selling read for the average bookworm. With an enormous bouquet of magical novels to organize and a simple yet satisfying hook to utilize and flaunt, there is, albeit niche, a brilliant time-squandering chore core experience here. It might not appeal to everyone in the room, but to those who enjoy drawn-out jobs with frequent breaks and the occasional upgrade, it might just make for a good substitute for your regular bookshelf. It’s magical, it’s ambient, and above all, it’s a lot of fun to play. Who’d have thought?