Magic Tidy Up Simulator – Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library

There’s a new game going viral online, with beautiful graphics and smooth control and relaxing music to help you settle into the world. It’s Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library. 

The love for Tidy Up the Arcane Library piqued my curiosity, why is everyone playing this game of organising a room, and loving it? Suddenly my YouTube recommendations and social media feeds had people playing this game where they are just carrying around a stack of books. I didn’t understand. After spending over 10 hours in the library, carrying books, chucking them off the balcony and peacefully losing time to this game, I get it now. 

What is Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library

A fairy got loose in the library and knocked every book across the two levels off their shelf. The room is covered in books scattered about in massive piles, the books are on everything from mystery novels to elemental spell books to prophecies. Your task is to get every book back on the shelves. Preferably, in the right place and in the right order. Yes, that is the entire premise. 

Across two floors of empty shelves and piles of books, you use the two maps of the floors which tell you what genre of books go where. Which sets of books you put on what shelf, thankfully doesn’t matter as long as they are in the correct section. The game has built in magic that you can unlock or just completely ignore, either way you get achievements. You can find hidden keys and unlock secret skills to help you return the books. 

The Satisfaction Factor

There are so many games about the menial tasks of every day that attract a huge audience now. There’s something about games like Unpacking, A Little to the Left and now Tidy Up the Arcane Library which scratch our brains in just the right way. Filling a shelf with all 10 volumes of a book, in the right order and having them all glow yellow confirming it’s correct, is so gratifying. 

The tidying or cleaning we do every day is boring and monotonous, where this relaxing puzzle game gives a small new world to explore completely uninterrupted and absolutely no weighing responsibility if we don’t finish it. Tidy Up the Arcane Library is a great example of the gamification of tedious tasks that otherwise you would dread doing. 

What are the books? Ingrained storytelling

There is not a huge world for you to explore, but you do get a feel for the magical world the library inhabits through the book types and titles. The economics books are both boring economics books and then you get one that is about the Mana markets or ‘Economics: The Lost Three Decades’. It alludes to bigger world problems or situations. The sociology books are similar in how they imply the world has ‘mana disparity’ that minorities are navigating and others are studying. As well as the fun books such as illusions, romance books and monsterology. You do build a great picture of the world the Library is a small part of through the titles. 

Different Play Styles

Depending on how you like to play games of this style you can interact with the magic systems as much or as little as you like. If you’re in it for the meditative experience of manually sorting all of the books, you can. Or there are helpful magic spells to unlock as you fill the shelves. These spells include auto sorting the books you have in hand, reminding you where the in hand books need to go. Also, spells to make sure you’ve grabbed all of the books from that series, auto grabbing any rogue remainders. These are how content creators and gamers are doing speed runs and challenge runs of this game. 

My impressions

This game can feel overwhelming when you’re first dropped into it. There’s a moment of “oh that’s a lot of books”, but once you start picking up books of the same color, or deciding to find every spell book, it quickly starts to feel manageable. I started with all of the white books, I quickly found these were usually ‘healing’ or ‘holy’ magic texts. Then I went to the 2nd floor and throw off the balcony any book where the title seemed like it fit downstairs. I can’t express how long it took me to realise all of the black books were Stealth Arts books. When you can’t figure out where a set of books goes from the title, pay attention to the cover color.

For $6 you will get your money’s worth and potentially more depending on what type of player you are. Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library was a lovely surprise and found it very relaxing. For my first run I’ve been playing without magic – forgot it was there or an option. Next run is going to be a magic run and hopefully that will speed up the process. It’s been strangely meditative and helped my brain switch off from other things. If you want a chilled out afternoon, this might be a game for you.

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AI Disclaimer

So this game is labeled as having used AI, meeting Steam’s requirements for honesty around AI usage. The Steam Store Page has the AI disclaimer:

“The four assets in this work—one UI component and three landscape paintings used as wall decorations (frames not included)—were produced using additional AI for refinement. None of them were created by AI from the ground up.

We only consider AI to be a supportive tool. Every detail is meticulously crafted with human intent, as our creative process is still firmly anchored in manual craftsmanship.”

When I bought the game I was unaware of the AI. This game was developed by a two-person team. The bigger companies using generative AI are more the problem than the small dev teams using supportive AI features. But it’s important to be clear about any AI involvement regardless of the game’s size. For the full statement the AI Statement is under ‘About the Game’ on the Steam page.