the little odds + endsexperience the joy of running your own cozy small business: create stickers, pack orders and hear your customers' stories. time to build the cutest shop on the internet! game title: sticky business developed by: spellgarden games published by: assemble entertainment game trailer: watch the trailer release date: july 17th 2023 genre: simulation, relaxing, simple platform(s): steam player(s): single-player for fans of: unpacking, potion craft, a little to the left the vibe check
game features
#1 | was the story memorable or the game concept unique?In Sticky Business, you get to open the online sticker shop of your dreams which is especially exciting as someone who is kind of obsessed with planners and bullet journaling! You start by naming your shop and creating your very first sticker using the library of cute pixely images that can be combined in limitless ways. Once you are happy with the sticker design, it’s time to list it on your online shop. Stickers can be listed as active, inactive or deleted from your online shop screen. The sticker designs you make can even be saved directly to your computer so you can print them out to actually use on your water bottle, laptop, or notebook! After printing out enough stickers to stock your shop, it’s time to pack customer orders! You’ll be able to choose the packing materials for each order to suit your preferred brand aesthetic and have the option to throw in a sweet treat or some extra stickers to increase your customer’s overall satisfaction. #2 | did I feel immersed in the game world?Owning an online sticker shop was something that I dreamt about doing back in 2016, so having the chance to live out that fantasy in a game has been really cool! Just like the real world, every action performed in this game takes up time in your day. This includes things like dropping orders off at the post office, printing sticker sheets, and creating new stickers. I never felt rushed by the normal day-night cycle setting, but players do have the option to set the game speed to a more relaxed pace at any time. There is an upgrade shop with a surprising number of sticker assets, shop upgrades, colorful packing materials, and sweet treats to pop into each order. The online shop screen allows the player to view all of the stickers they have created and modify the shop’s product line. You start with space to sell 5 unique sticker designs, but more product slots can be purchased if you save up enough money. You won’t be able to play around in the sticker creator until you have a free spot in your shop, so buying these product slots is essential! Being able to check and customize the shop website, create unique sticker designs, optimize each sticker sheet before printing, and select the exact packaging used for each customer order really puts the player in the shoes of a small online business owner. Personally, most of my play time was spent on the creative side of things: designing stickers. Running the business was never particularly stressful, although it is possible to mess up customer orders if you aren’t paying close enough attention. #3 | did interacting with the characters make me feel something?You’ll accumulate more customers as you continue to dazzle them with your cute sticker designs and outstanding customer service. Sometimes you’ll get little notes from a customer that will slowly unveil their backstory the more orders they place. Some of these notes were surprisingly emotional and some made me laugh. Certain customers can be unlocked by creating stickers that fit certain themes and listing them in your shop, which forced me to create some designs that were outside my usual creative comfort zone. You can increase a customer’s satisfaction with their order by tossing additional stickers or treats in the box. This will help you unlock upgrades more quickly, so I recommend throwing at least one extra surprise in every order that you pack! #4 | was there enough content to justify the price?Sticky Business retails for $9.99 on steam. I enjoyed my time playing but I just couldn’t stay focused for more than an hour or so since most days in the game look the same: design, print, pack, repeat. A typical play session for me lasted 20-30 minutes where I would make a few stickers and pack up a few day’s worth of orders until I got bored of the grind. This is a game where you would likely just know by looking at it whether it’s your thing or not, so I would trust your gut on whether to buy it outright or wait around for a sale. #5 | did I genuinely enjoy playing this game?As I mentioned, the days start to blend together as you play since printing stickers and packing orders gets pretty redundant. Collecting steam achievements and wanting to unlock everything in the upgrade shop has been my main motivation to continue playing. I really enjoy goofing around in the sticker creator but it does take me awhile to create sticker designs I love since I can be a bit of a perfectionist in creative sandbox games. Similar to Stardew Valley, you can’t save your progress in Sticky Business until you wrap up the in-game day. It was a bummer to find out that I had to play 80% of a day over again simply because I had to up and leave a gaming session and there wasn’t any autosave feature running in the background Sticky Business has always appealed to me as someone who has been very into the planner + bullet journal scene for years. I was truly impressed with how easy it was to create aesthetically-pleasing stickers using the premade elements that the game provides. my game rating: ⭐⭐⭐what I enjoyed
what I didn't enjoy
Sticky Business is a cute, laid-back simulation game that really is unlike anything that I have played before. If this game sounds interesting to you, please support the game developer(s) and add this game to your steam wishlist!
If you’ve already played this game, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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