Four games to put on a shelf.

Literally.

Jul 31, 2026

Back when I was a student, I needed a job so I worked in a local supermarket restocking shelves - and absolutely hated it. So it comes as no surprise that I absolutely adore the new hype amongst indie games: shelving games, because the most addictive simulators are always something you’d hate to do irl, right?

Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!

I already reviewed Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library! in an earlier post, but seeing at it is, to me, the masterclass in this genre, it bears repeating.

The premise is simple: there’s a library, and a malicious little fairy has thrown all the books all over the place. Your job? To pick them up and put them back into the shelves. Sounds easy enough, right?

You get some magic spells to help you, but there is also a challenge (and an achievement!) to do it without magic - so obviously I did that, first. Less ADHD-inclined minds would probably do it faster, but I got a good 28 hours of enjoyment out of just putting books on shelves. Truly a masterpiece.

Supermarket Chaos

Supermarket Chaos, despite being a lot less whimsical, hits the same spot as Librarian does. The premise is the same: a bunch of objects scattered around the supermarket, and it’s your job to put them back on the right shelf.

At least there were *some* books to shelf, too!

The “spells” you can use are roughly the same and equally as useful, but there is no reward in doing it without them. Sadly.

Supermarket Chaos also added a second, smaller map, and a third, bigger map with multiplayer will be added in a future update. I love that!

Toy Shop: Tidy Up

Toy Shop: Tidy Up was, sadly, a little disappointing.

The game aims to give you a lot more freedom than the two games above, but in doing so, it feels like it stripped all the motivation away, too.

There are a ton of toys, varying from plush rabbits to mech dinosaur robots, that you can place… wherever you want.

You can resize them and make them as big or as small as you like, placing them as a tiny toy collectible on a shelf or as a gigantic decorative piece in your shop, which is a nice gimmick on its own.

But toys don’t have a dedicated space, and that makes it too overwhelming for me. There are suggestions in the sense that the robotic corner is obviously meant for the metal toys, the car corner for the toy cars etc. but there is no counter, no sense of achievement, no timer - and those are the things that keep a brain like mine motivated.

So, if you are looking for the flow of Librarian and Supermarket, you’re not going to get that here - but if you enjoy the utter freedom of a decorating game more than a shelving game, then this might still be for you.

Toy Keeper

Toy Keeper received negative reviews on Steam immediately after release, that have now evened out to Mixed - and I understand why.

It’s definitely not a bad game, I actually quite like it, but it does need some polishing to get to the point where it’s a great game.

There is no tutorial, and figuring out what is expected isn’t as straight-forward as I had hoped, so I get why people would immediately check back out. Luckily, the lack of tutorial is balanced out by this useful guide, but it shouldn’t be, you know?

Controls can be a bit clunky, and just being able to rebind them would already fix that part. And we have a bit of a Goldilocks problem going on, too: the small store is too cramped, but the big store is too spacious!

The biggest problem the game has, is that the “toy shop vibe” is off.

The whole thing doesn’t feel like a toy shop. The mechanics are there, there are toys and they need to be shelved, but to me, the organisation doesn’t make sense. Different shelves for the same thing aren’t grouped together. They are all evenly spaced out, like they would in a warehouse, not cosily and snugly decorated like they would in a toy shop. I think the game would benefit from a slight rebranding: not “toy shop” but “toy collector’s display vault”.

But it’s definitely not all bad: what sets Toy Keeper apart is its modularity. In the original “the way the devs intended” experience, every toy has its exact spot, which is a fantastic way to go about it, in my opinion, though it is a bit tedious at first. With only one inventory slot and three floors of toy store to go through, that’s a lot of walking. It gets better with abilities, which you unlock through a gumball machine (♥!), using coins that appear somewhere in the shop after placing x amount of toys on shelves.

But they have other options! You can choose how many toys, how big your store is, which placement method, which makes for a customiseable gaming experience, and that’s always a good thing. Want to go looking for the intended spot? You can! Want to just chuck everything on random shelves? You can, as well! The world’s your oyster! Or, I guess, your toy shop.

When you start playing, you create a character (also something different from other shelf placement games) in a very limited character creator, which is fair enough. A game like this doesn’t need tons of customisation, though, since they’ve set up a character editor anyway, they might as well lean into it and add clothes, hats etc. to unlock.

You also create a baby, whose purpose is that it jumps around making high pitched noises and throwing toys around, which is super annoying but luckily can be turned off in the settings. Phew. Though not for me, I still appreciate this gimmick. It adds some difficulty for people who want a challenge.

Adorable but annoying, just like real babies!

And its biggest selling point: it’s made to be a multiplayer experience. With a three story toy shop, there’s enough to do and throwing things up and down to your friends for their departments sounds like it would be a lot of fun!

After playing for a bit, I really got into it. Just the routine of picking up an item and going to look for its place, scratched that “collectibles” itch I have in every game I play. Thinking of it as “I am a collector displaying my collection” rather than “I own a toy shop and I’m stocking the shelves”, really brought me around on this game.

All in all, I’d say it’s worth keeping your eye on Toy Keeper. With a couple of updates to controls and a user-friendly UI, this could be a great game!