Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! Review – Simply Spellbinding

Video games seem to have that magic touch where they take a boring and mundane task in real life and somehow making it much more interesting, as well as relaxing. One of these mundane tasks is cleaning and tidying up, like a lot of simulation games nowadays. One of these new games adds a few original twists to this genre: magic and a library. That game is Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! 

At first, the prospect of tidying away over 3,000 books in a large library may seem daunting – and like it’ll take forever – but once you get into the swing of things, not only will you become more efficient in your tidying-up efforts, but you’ll also find yourself becoming magically immersed and relaxed in this truly unique gaming experience. That is the magic of Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!

Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! is now available on Steam for $5.99.

Story – Trapped in a Trashed Magical Library

Like the concept, the set up for Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! is simple. At a magical library, a fairy has caused complete mischief, throwing all the books about – and this is no joke. When you first load the game, it looks like a tornado has hit the place, with books absolutely everywhere.

The principal of the University of Celesthall, where the library is located, is furious about the mess. They order you, the librarian, to tidy away all the books in their correct places – and you’re not allowed to leave until you’ve finished the job. This isn’t an exaggeration either. You are literally trapped until every last book has been returned to the shelves.

A Reason to Tidy Up

Although a straightforward concept where you tidy away books in a library didn’t necessarily need a story, it was definitely appreciated here. Faced with a massive mess of books, you quickly learn why the place is in such a state, as well as giving you a clear motive to just get on with the job already.

This is all explained in a furious letter left by the university’s principal, who lays down the law clearly. They do at least warn you that the job in hand is going to be long, hard work, and you soon discover that they are right.

They also give you a good reason to do the job properly: by promising pizza! You obviously can’t eat it in real life, but it’s the thought that counts, and it’s enough to get you focused on the job in hand.

Gameplay – So Many Books to Tidy Away

Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! has one clear goal: clear away all the books onto the shelves and you’re free to leave the library. Sounds easy, right? Well, it is, but the problem is there’s exactly 3,072 books to tidy away – and you have to sort though every single one!

Fortunately, as you progress in your efforts, you can get a helping hand to make the job faster, easier, and more efficient. 

A Place for Every Book

Your task is simple: put away all 3,000+ books in the enormous library – but you can’t just put the books in any old place! (Technically, you can, and there’s even a special achievement for this!) You have to put all the books back in the correct places around the library based on three things: their category, title, and volume.

Organized By Category…

Altogether, Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! has 31 different categories for all the books in the library. These include categories such as Monsters, Magic Spells, Illusion Magic, Alchemy, Warriors, Jurisprudence, Romance Novels, History, Management, and Archery, just to name a few. Every book matches one of these categories. 

To work out what book goes in which category, clues are indicated by two factors: the title of the book, but also its appearance. As you get more into the job and go through more books, you’ll notice a pattern emerging with the type of books. For example, the books about Curses are all black with red writing, and the spell books all have gemstones decorating the cover.

…and Volume

It’s not just the categories you have to watch out for. All the books are grouped by volume. Most of them have volumes 1 to 10, but some are also grouped by 3 or 5 books per title, each series fitting along one shelf. All the volumes for one book series share the same name and cover appearance, the only difference is their volume number.

As you clear away more books, you’ll find yourself having to match these books up together on the same shelf, and in the precise numerical order, or they won’t count towards 100% completion.

As you sort through more books, you’ll notice how books in the same category look similar in appearance.

No Right or Wrong Way of Doing the Job

In effect, all this makes Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! a puzzle game, as you have to figure out where all the books go based on their category, titles, and volumes. Instead of this being a big tedious chore, it becomes an addictive and relaxing challenge. You can easily lose several hours into sorting through all the books.

The beauty of this game is that there’s not really a right or wrong way to play it. So long as every book is put away, you can do it however you like. You can be as fast or as slow as you want, use magic or not, collect up books randomly or by category or title. It’s entirely up to you.

Growing More Efficient

Putting away over 3,000 books is surely going to take forever? Depending on your chosen playstyle, it can certainly take a very long time. However, if you want to get the job done more swiftly, you’ll need to get efficient. You might find yourself getting subconsciously better, faster, and more organized as time goes on.

Maps of the Library’s Layout

Naturally, when you first start, you have no idea what goes where. Fortunately, there are two maps on the wall that layout exactly where all the categories are located. The library is made up of two floors, each with different categories on each designated bookcase, marked by a number (based on the floor) and then a letter.

As you get more into the game and put more books away, you’ll probably memorize the category locations without needing to check the layout maps so often, if at all.

The layout maps are always there and are especially useful.

A Few Flaws in the Library Layout and Category System

This system with the categories labelled by numbers and letters generally works very well. However, later on in the game, as noted when using the pile-by-order ability, a flaw was spotted that could affect efficiency. Instead of the letters being ordered clockwise around the shelves, as it would seem logical, they seemed to zigzag across the level. This was especially problematic if you were on the top floor, where you have to run right around the landing to get to the other side.

Sticking to the subject of layout issues, another was spotted. Although you have a simple flight of stairs that connects the two floors, there could have been more staircases along the top floor instead of just the one, so you didn’t have to run all the way to the one staircase at the top end of the room to swap floors.

Apart from the flawed layout of the library, you can still learn to be efficient – not just naturally, but thanks to some magical upgrades. As we’ll discuss in more detail below, these upgrades are the key to helping you finish the job faster. 

With the Help of Magic – and Some Hidden Keys

One key detail about Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! is that it is a magic library, which means you get to use some “magic” to help you out. To unlock these abilities, you need to complete a certain number of rows of books to earn points. You can then use these points to level up your magic abilities, which are directly for helping you to sort out the books.

Five Main Abilities to Unlock and Level Up

There are five major magic abilities to unlock and level up as you fill the shelves. They include organizing the pile of books in your hand by order of category and volume, highlighting where the current book in your hand needs to go, highlighting where the same series of books are scattered around, automatically gathering up the same series of books, and automatically putting books on the shelves.

These five abilities are very useful to have, especially if you’re stuck or want to get the job done faster and more efficiently. However, each ability has to be triggered by you, only lasts a short period of time, and has a cooldown period. By leveling up your abilities, you can extend the ability’s length as well as shorten the cooldown period so you can use them more frequently.

The personal preferred abilities were pile sorting and category highlighting. Although the library’s layout was flawed at times, which meant the ordering could be as well, it did at least make it much easier to put everything away when the books were piled in order. The category highlighting ability was incredibly useful for getting stuck figuring out where a book went. However, you still have to put it on the right shelf, so it doesn’t entirely spoon-feed you.

Abilities and their upgrades are “purchased” from a personal handbook.

Keys Unlocking Even More Abilities

Unlocking abilities isn’t the only bit of magic available in Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! Hidden around the library are four keys that unlock four chests. Unlocking these chests grants you a special new ability, such as a sprint button, jump button, and extending how many books you can carry at once (from the default 10 to the max. possible 15). These abilities were also extremely useful to get – and you’ll definitely want to unlock them ASAP.

However, you need to locate the keys hidden around the library, and they’re quite tricky to find, especially when you’ve got over 3,000 books everywhere! Finding the keys was definitely worth it though and provided an extra hand in vastly improving speed and efficiency.

Graphics & Audio – Taken to a Whimsical World of Magic and Books

Naturally, the entirety of Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! is all set in the University of Celesthall’s library, and thanks to the wonderful graphics, it feels like a real place you’re walking around. You can feel the hard wooden floors beneath your feet, manoeuvre between the wooden tables on the ground floor, and tramp up and down the stairs as you flit between the various bookshelves. There’s a true realness about this game.

The books themselves have also been beautifully designed, which is hugely important for the gameplay. Every book is distinguishable from one another in various ways and have their own identity and theme, so it’s much easier to simply glance at a book and work out where it goes. Like the library itself, the books feel so real, despite having creatively made-up names. Whoever designed the books did an excellent job and put a lot of thought and work into them.

The audio also plays an important role in Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! Although the focus is more on visuals, the audio plays a role too, primarily for immersion reasons. The sound of footsteps crossing the floor never got old. They even added in the sound of books thudding as you discarded them on the floor.

The background music adds to the immersion as well as the relaxed atmosphere of the game, cycling through calming, ethereal music. It’s there, but it’s not annoying. The music definitely plays a role in inspiring you to feel more relaxed, which is what the game wants you to feel throughout the experience.