The Grand Book Archive: Tidy Up
Here comes another sorting game... The Grand Book Archive!
You are invited to help restoring The Grand Book Archive, a timeless haven preserving the books of human history. Your job is to sort the books from the year 1000BC to 1100BC. 2,990 archaic books are waiting to be shelved to their new home. Use your observation and magical spells to organize the collection as quickly as possible.
Got tired of Sorting? Upgrade!
The game combines satisfying book sorting with diverse incremental progression. Complete shelves to earn coins, which you can spend on powerful spells and upgrades that make your sorting faster and more efficient over time.
Each completed run unlocks permanent meta-progression, giving you new ways to improve your abilities and make future runs more efficient. Increase the number of bots working alongside you, multiply the coins you earn, or unlock unique triggers that let you fill multiple shelves at once. With every upgrade, you’ll become faster, more powerful, and one step closer to becoming the ultimate archivist.
NOTES:
If you can't finish the game due to a book missing, simply exit and re-enter the game, and the game will load any missing book.
If you finish the game with no skills and upgrades, there will be 299 unused gold coins remaining, corresponding to 299 shelves.
The game auto saves every minute. Save and exit to save latest progress.
AI Disclosure:
Localization for the demo was done with AI (Chinese and Japanese). The completed game will be replaced with human translation. No AI was used for art and assets.
[incrementaldb_verification: inbluegames]
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Development log
- Demo Update 1.0.29 days ago
- Demo Update 1.0.113 days ago
Comments
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91 minutes, 44 seconds is my fastest time so far; I've only done two full runs! I think I can get to sub-45 pretty soon
I shelve books at my local library for fun and I had a blast with this game. I did about half of the shelves without any skills/spells whatsoever.
I really enjoyed how some of the titles seemed like they could go in multiple different categories. It gave the game a little puzzle feel and made it feel more realistic/familiar.
The sorting system also made me think about the flaws in our real world sorting system. It's a hot button issue in the library world. But like, what things get put into mythology vs religion? There are people today whose religions get sorted into myth. The Dewey Decimal System sorts women's work separately from jobs.
Outside of social issues the practical issues are plentiful. Should a book about growing flax for weaving be in fiber craft or agriculture?
Anyway, I'm not sure how much of that was intentionally referenced, but I thought it was a very fun and interesting game!
Sat down to try it out. Immediately spent an hour and a half purely concentrating on it. This game is like crack, only books
Very satisfying! Just a few little things that I feel would improve gameplay:
- The UI covers the book stacks so I couldn't see all my books at the end
- It doesn't seem I can put books in new stacks when I remove all the books. This affected the upgrade when buying more auto-sort stacks.
- I personally found the ability to scroll around with the mouse a little disorienting. I'd prefer just to use the arrowkeys to move around. Maybe this could be toggleable?
Overall great! Can't wait to see where this goes
This is such a delightful, relaxing time! I didn't realize how long I'd been sorting books until I was halfway through and glanced at the clock haha. Some notes, though, in no particular order, since you're still working on the game and planning for a Steam release (already wishlisted!!!)--
- It would be cuter if the first letter of the book were the letter it gets sorted into (i.e. Agricultural Techniques would be A: Farming), or if you gave the books authors with the appropriate letter (to make it feel more like sorting real books). That said, that may make localizing to different languages more difficult and it's not a big deal!
- Some of the categories/titles are a bit tricky (e.g. does "Measurements for Engineers" go in math or engineering?) and inconsistent (e.g. some of the measurement books go in mathematics, some don't). Also, some of the categories overlap a lottttt--does the planting book go in plants or agriculture? No, it goes in calendar haha. This isn't too much of an issue because the game tells you if it's in the wrong place but is a little irritating in an otherwise very smooth, chill game. I think you could go two directions with it: 1) less obvious titles (but still more consistency in the rules), so it's a puzzle to figure out where they should go, or 2) more obvious, straightforward titles for a more zen vibe.
- I was a little disappointed to discover when starting over (wanted to do a no-spells run!) that the book appearances and titles aren't randomized. I expected they would be because the art doesn't really seem to go with the books (the baking bread book is a tree, the stick insect-looking book is about tigers, I think? etc.), and they don't appear to be arranged in any particular way on the shelves. I guess there's potential to get *really fast* if you memorize the books, but I think there's generally more replayability if each replay you get to rediscover where each book needs to go. What ended up happening as-is is that on playthrough two I ended up sorting the prettier, more distinct books first because I remembered where they went, and was left with a slog of the grey/black/blue gradient/stripe/etc. books in the second half. Not as much fun.
- Noticed a bug on my no-spells playthrough--some of the books share the same exact title and location? I'll comment a screenshot under this.
- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE rework the UI so it doesn't overlap with the books. It was so so annoying to have to hide the UI to see the books at the bottom left, and even more annoying to have to hide the UI to click on the VISIBLE books that were behind the invisible coin boxes. You could move the book box to the top of the screen, or just squish it a bit to make it fit, and move the coins to the top or to where the book box is right now. Alternatively (but less good), you could add a keyboard button toggle, or move the toggle ui button to one of the bottom corners (which is where the player's eyes and mouse are going to be when they need to toggle the UI).
- Visuals could use some reworking--they're not terribly cohesive right now. The books are fine (very chaotic and some look a lot better than others), but they don't look like they exist in the same space as the shelves. The level of detail and lack of a cohesive palette makes it feel off. Also, using a more fitting font would be great!
- The gif of the butterflies on the page is so charming, but then all my robots were just kinda bland robots. Made me not want to get the robots honestly haha. The spell icons could be more interesting, too. I had a hard time remembering which did what because they looked so samey.
I had a great time with this--all the best as you keep working on and polishing this towards a full release! I can't wait to see where you go with this delight! :)
Completed in about 2 hours, found it absorbing yet slightly tedious but I finished it with the help of the bots. Very little interaction otherwise because I have no idea what the skill tree does and therefore cannot look forward to any of them and will most likely move onto something else before I remember it exists. Unfortunately the nature of the sorting/incremental game is that the user wants the dopamine hit and I can't get that without knowing I'm working towards something.
I gave up on sorting books by anything other than cover appearance for efficiency and because the strain of looking at the little titles/categories was inefficient.
The sorting spell doesn't seem to do anything; nothing was sorted and it didn't feel like it did anything. Neither did the auto-fill button; I didn't realize it even did anything until I was already at the bottom of the pile and could visually see a cue that it was doing something. Because it said that it would auto fill from inventory or a shelf, I filled an adjacent shelf with related books to see if it would trigger once another shelf was filled and it did not. It looks like it only does something once it's upgraded and that is all. Probably wrong but I lost interest in working towards it immediately.
One thing that stood out as a problem was some of the books didn't seem to know what the difference between mythology and religion was. I see kingdom, bunch of books, assume fantasy landscape, therefore books on a temple or about gods should be in the religion section, yes? No, they're myth. I do not know the local lore of the area, so how would I know that? Bit of guessing there.
Hi, thanks for the feedback! The upgrade descriptions/cost/stats should appear when you hover above the upgrade buttons. Did it not appear for you? (also may I ask if you happen to play on a Mac?)
reallly fun!! wish the upgrades told me what they did because I didn't know what they did and I didn't want a few of them.
Hi! The upgrade descriptions should appear when you hover above the upgrade buttons. Did it not appear for you? (also may I ask if you happen to play on a Mac?)
I did play it on Mac and none of teh cover options came up on anything unless I clicked on it 😢
I loved this game!! Super fun and relaxing. Did it in 124:56.
peak
really fun! I really really like it! HOWEVER i would love a slower or more controlled scroll speed, with how fast it goes right now it makes me a little nauseous and it's hard to see, especially when zoomed in. also, it's frustrating that when I'm going to check the title of a book in my inventory it triggers the (fast!) scrolling, which makes me dart my mouse away, which removes the title label, which means i have to put my mouse back, which makes it scroll, which, again, makes me nauseous.
If you go into the game settings, there's an option to turn off mouse panning so that you can just use WASD or the arrow keys instead :)
oh i know! i prefer mouse scrolling though, and would like to be able to use it :)
i luvv these types of games, but my head started to hurt whenever the camera panned right very fast. maybe it's just me hihi! great game thoo :))
how do u guys remove a book from a shelf without a mouse and playing on a mac? (it told me to right click but i cant right click on mac)
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh35853/mac
Does this work perhaps? (I don't have a mac so not sure)
it didnt work but this one worked on me "click or tap the trackpad using two fingers at the same time"
Super fun, loved this game, I only upgraded my inventory, I didn't want to use any of the spells or robots. Would love more content! Wishlisted it on steam, more levels would be awesome! I'd totally buy content if there were more levels. Maybe large sections of an even grander library? Maybe an even bigger pile of books?
Will there be a version to play on android?
I've been testing it lately but can't promise... but we'll see!
loved every single part of this game !! ended up barely spending my coins bc i wanted to do by myself (jst spend my coins on inventory) such a relaxing game to play while listening music
it took me 4hrs. very fun, it took me ages because im really slow but it was great i loved it!!
Finished in 71:44. Getting the "Self-completion shelf" upgrade seems to be the most important upgrade early on.
a little over an hour.
very satisfying, right up my alley. Can't wait to see where it goes
85:56 first time. Took a while to get started, but not too bad.
120 minutes! Very satisfying and fun to complete.
114! This was a pretty good take on the sorting games that are becoming popular nowadays :3
2th playthrough finished the game in 93 min :D
Really fun game, at first I thought I wouldn stick around much but ended up staying until the end. Finished at 77,29 with everything maxed out.
128 minutes, it was fun:)
both the inventory and the coins blocks you from picking up the books beneath them
there's a hide ui button
finished the game at 190 min. Was at first only looking for books with the same letter, looking to complete a row because i thourght it was faster to find those kinds of books.
took 120 min. in order to get the first upgrade. Might be able to be done faster, but i suggest you make the first upgrade free.
Genuine curiosity, how did it take you that long? most of the books have clear identifiable features, you should be targeting specific books to fill shelve
was only looking for books of the same letter
112min maxed bots and spells and waited
this game was really fun !!
if i can give my 2cents tho
the UI over the book feel kinda awful... could be worth to have it on a panel on the left and upgrade on the right (framing the library window) this would really REALLY improve the overall UX, considering the width isn't that important in the game
also bots are too powerful
in the end i'm kinda curious about how the game will feel in the final version ? the game already feel like it reach max potential... but guess we'll see when the full game will release !
As the daughter of a retired librarian, this was intensely satisfying. Thank you.
61:12 was my best
edit: 57:54
231 minuets, no robot upgrades, I have few thoughts:
1) Not that important but it would be nice to have volume controls
2) QoL where you can hold to pickup/place books
3) Not being able to move camera with mouse when using middle button on shelfs labes was.. annoying
Other than that great game
Volume controls are under settings from the title screen.
Oh i see, but still in-game options could be cool too
I think that the sort stack is a bit underpowered, since usually there aren't many of the same book in one stack anyway with how many stacks there are, and you should maybe get an additional sorted stack for every time you buy that upgrade (ie sort leftmost stack the first time, then the second and third stacks, etc)
Also, it would be nice to be able to drop books in your inventory back into the stacks, since sometimes you just click on the wrong book and don't want to find where it goes.
A bot that auto sorts stacks could be cool too.
Hi! Thanks for the feedback. BTW were you able to check the tutorial before playing the game? I realized a lot of people didn't know that you can actually drop the books back into the stack with mouse right click. It's kinda explained in the tutorial but I guess it's not very clear.
I did see the tutorial, somehow I missed the right click to drop books into stack. I think it is a bit unintuitive though - it seems that you need to right click on a book in the stack, in order to put the book you are holding on top of it, but right clicking above a stack should drop the book on top of the stack, and right clicking in between two books should insert between them (at the moment, doing either of those results in nothing)
i ended up completing the game with no upgrades other than the amount of books i could hold and i had a fantastic time! i'm sure my experience is out of the ordinary but it was a fun, relaxing, repetitive project that took me about a half a day, spread out over multiple sessions.
i agree with a comment below that most of the upgrades feel like "would you like to play the game less", but i don't have any ideas for how that could be improved
ido also agree that having similar-looking books be related subjest or something instead of completely random would be nice
i enjoyed the game, but seeing as i played in a way likely not intended i dont know how valuable my opinion is ^^;
I wanted to comment that I did exactly that too. What's more, I did not sort books in stacks at all because I only realized i can drop books on stacks when I was almost done. :D
idk if this is a bug or smth, but i'm trying to put away books for K: Songs of the Ancient Kings and they don't go into ANY of the K slots
nvm it was apparently poetry???
nice game
Amazing game. Just did my first run at 107.46 and it was solid. Very relaxing and I focused most of my points into shelf bonuses and bots.
Beautiful game! For my second play through I did the first shelf by hand, and then let the robots do all the work. Finished in 136:44
Hello, First i love this game.
Would it be possible to have it in French.
Otherwise Maybe share in git project with an i18n so that people can do their own translation into the language they want. You could use it for the steam version later.
Thanks you for develop this game.