Librarian

Tidy up the arcane library

Librarian is a game about tiding up the arcane library after its organization gets destroyed by a stupid fairy. A game that encourages good housekeeping and organization while making it fun.

Introduction

As you start the game you get introduce to the library with all its books out of order mostly on the floor with one simple instruction, to tidy up the arcane library, sounds simple right. When looking in front of yourself in the game after been given the task to tidy the mess in front of you can see just how many books there are to be put away which to be exact is 3072 books or 400 rows. But the other obvious thing you will see that helps you start the game is a clear collection that will all go onto the same row. Once you have grab that row of books you will only need the knowledge for which row to place them onto which you can find on the maps on either side of the staircases. When you place them into the correct spot the books will unlock a levelling system.

Major Magic

Going on to the levelling system, this system is what unlocks the major magic in this game making the game feel completable. the first of the five is sort this allows the player to sort the books in the hand by the number they are in the series of books they are holding. I personally didn’t use this major magic often as I found others to be of more use however but it was better to be using it then not when you are first learning where to place all books as it made sure if you put them a shelf they where not mixed in order. This major magic starts with a cooldown period of 30 seconds after use but go to 5 second when max level is reached for the skill.

The second major magic is shelf guide this allows you to see which shelf the books go onto from in your hand. this is a help major magic as it means you do not have to look at the two maps on either sides of the staircases which will defiantly speed up your progress placing away books. This specific major magics was one of my two favourites as it made the process a lot quicker and easier to do. This one starts with a cooldown time of 60 seconds and a 15 second activation time and when maxed out will give you a 5 second cooldown and a 60 second activation.

Going onto the third major magic, insight with a cooldown speed of 60 seconds and a activation time of 7 seconds when you first start gives you the ability to see where books are from the collection of the top book in your hand at the time of activation. when first played with this major magic can be helpful but a little underwhelming however on max level can be more useful as it cooldown time if only 20 seconds and an activation of 40 seconds making it helpful to find books from smaller collections or the odd few books that you may be missing from the odd collection.

Moving onto the fourth major magic auto shelfing. My other favourite of the major magics out of the five this magic will take all the books in your hand and place them into the shelf organizing them into the correct place on the shelf however this only works if you are facing a shelf that the books in your hands goes into. It starts with a cooldown of 100 seconds and a activation time of 10 seconds. which on its own doesn’t sound like a great major magic however when on max level with the cooldown of 10 seconds and a activation of 55 seconds can be very helpful however this specific major magic is best pair with the second major the second major magic as you will know where to stand before activating to make sure the books go away easily. 

Finally going onto the fifth and final major magic of the game, assemble. This major magic allows you to pick up a book and gain books of the same series into your hand. The game gives a starting level of a cooldown with 120 seconds and a pick up of 3 books from what every series you hold, but maxed out gives you a cooldown of 10 seconds and allows you to pick up the remainder of the full series meaning you will pick up the remainder of the 9 books to make the highest set level of ten per series. Assemble is a amazing major magic and very helpful however I did find this specific major magic made the game feel like it went by to fast and was to easy to complete.  

Minor Magic

This game also have minor magic these are not as useful in the game but do not require you to correctly sort series of books to unlock or upgrade. There are four minor magics these do not have a way to be upgrade and can be gain by finding the keys for the four chests in the game which are all located on the top of the staircases, two on each side of the stairs. The first out of four the easiest one to find is the red key this unlocks the minor magic that allows you to jump or double jump inside the library. Jumping in the library can be helpful to get between the two layers of the library. 

Second of the four minor magics that your likely to find is the green key which unlocks the ability to run in the library. I personally didn’t find this specific minor magic helpful as to use this one I would continuedly need to use my shift button which over time of playing the game I just stop using as it wasn’t making much of a differences for me. That’s not to say it didn’t speed up the process of getting around the library I just didn’t see a big enough of an improvement to really justify using as a period of time.

The third and fourth minor magics can be found at any point from just jumping around the library so I personally can’t say which one your more likely to find first, but in my case the third one I found was the yellow key this unlock addition books I could hold by the total of 3 making it so I could hold 13 books at once compared to when you start the game only being able to hold a total of ten in line with the number of books in a full series. The fourth key I found was the the blue one in my personal opinion these two keys where both quite hard to find but this one for me was the hardest this key unlocked the fourth a final minor magic giving me another increase in the quantity of books I could hold adding an additional two to the total I could hold making it for a max holding of 15 books at once. Obviously from this depending on which key you find first between the blue and yellow key will depend if you spend a period of the game with a pick up quantity of 12 or 13.

Gameplay replay ability

Librarian has been a interesting game to play to say the least as its simple but complex feel and can give it a positive and negative feeling. I personally found this game to be fun as it gave you the satisfaction of sorting and organising the books which if you like things to be neat can be satisfying like it was for me but the other side of this is if you don’t enjoy tidying or organizing as this then may not be your game as much. Depending on how you plan to play the game depends if you would personally enjoy playing the game or even repeating the game. I personally only found this game repayable if you where interested in achievements or to help cope with something like OCD as the game does sadly give of a repetitive feeling as you play thought the game. However that being said I found I did relay the game and enjoyed doing as so but near the end of my second play through I was drifting away from the game.

Achievements

In this game there are a total of 12 achievements most of which you can gain by playing the game for a total of two to three times. Obvious achievement’s for the game are The grand Librarian which is for completing the whole library, Novice Mage which is for unlocking your first major magic, Sage of the Library which is for unlocking all the major magics, The Archmage which is for maxing out all of the major magics and Life Hack Wizard which is for unlocking all the minor magics. However this game also holds achievements that for me at least I wasn’t expecting some of these being Efficiency Librarian which was complete the game with in a three hour time period, Anti-magic Master, which required you complete the game without ever unlocking or using any major magic  and You are Fired, which required you to complete the game without place a single book into its correct location. But overall the games selection of achievements makes senses and can give motivation to relay the game as much as I know it wont always interest everyone.

Graphic and Audio

starting with the audio as there isn’t as much to comment on for the games audio. Librarian has a simple yet unique audio track as the track replays its self regularly made up from violins and trumpets amongst other instruments from my ears. it gives of a magical feeling like you some fantasy game or story, this being said the game does had the addition noises to point out when you have gotten a book into the correct shelf but wrong place or if you have gotten it into a correct place overall it gives the little subtle indication your doing it right or wrong which spurs with motivation to continue playing. This audio its self well suites the game to give the feeling of a magical library which is always nice.

Going no to the games graphics I personally love them. I can see that the makers of this game ArtRising have done a amazing job by being able to keep the graphics simple elegant yet detailed and captivating. they have done this by making it so each book had multiple’s of its self whether that be in groups of three, fifth or ten. this makes the game feel simple and the graphic feel respected however they made a total of 400 different types of books or book series as best referred too. By doing this they allowed them self to add a lode of detail whether that be by having some simple but multitude of the books or having over intricate books in smaller collects allowing the game to have layers of detail giving it a more relist feel and boost the way the game presents its self.

conclusion

Reviewing this game has been so much fun as this game has given me so much enjoyment and I hope this review will encourage you or others to enjoy the game like I have. I have found this game to interesting and satisfying to play for the last few weeks overall I would say the game has a great structure and can be a great way to make something look tidy even when everything around you is no a much so. its given me something to enjoy and with yet no bugs for me to find the game its self has given of a respected and polished game. 

Thank you all for reading reviewed by vanilla. 

 you can play this game here: Librarain tidy up the arcane library