Sticky Business Review (Chibi)
Listen, if this game calls to you, go for it. I wouldn't tell anyone to not play this. It is very fun! In fact, I recommend you ignore this review and look at all the other super positive reviews. The creators have been adding new things regularly, but it's the limitations that really make this game shine because you find ways to think outside the box. You learn to repurposed what you have to make something new. The holographic effect you can apply is whimsical and delightful. Particularly if you'd like LGBTQ+ representation in games, this is going to be your happy and cozy place. <3
Are you still reading? Then like me, you may find another aspect of the game painfully frustrating. While I enjoy the sticker making mechanic, the buying and selling mechanic is very frustrating to me on a couple levels. First, it's not particularly challenging. I don't think it's possible to go bankrupt, so the money element is to allow you the satisfaction of slowly unlocking elements. Functionally that is fine, but it ends up creating what I can only describe as "cozy capitalism" and there is a disconnect between the content of the game and the implications of its mechanics. As you play, customers leave personal messages, and as you fulfill their orders they share the ways their life improves with each order. It should be pleasant, but all I could think was "... I'm really not comfortable with the pivotal role that stickers are playing in these people's lives..." It is justified within the game because no one's life becomes worse, but I feel like customers are trauma dumping on me. You can't communicate back. You can make them designs, but they're going to like it no matter what you make, so that doesn't really feel meaningful. It seems to suggest that A) It's okay to have this kind of para-social relationship with someone providing a transactional service and B) Consumerism makes everything better. A widower is anxious that his son might think he's trying to replace his deceased wife with his new boyfriend? That's okay, we got stickers for that! Someone struggles to make friends? Stickers! Need help with ADHD? Stickers!
On top of that, to avoid bummers, these are all problems in without any hint of money issues. It's great that this teacher is buying stickers for her students to reward them, but all I can think about is how she's spending what little she's paid on classroom supplies. The attempt to remove the player from reality does the opposite for me only makes me think about it more and feel uncomfortable. I start wondering what I'm doing with my fictional life if my stickers just make the lives of the wealthy a little bit better. I would have preferred the Animal Crossing Happy Homes approach were money is removed entirely. At that point, my brain recognizes I shouldn't be comparing it to the real world, but in this game there are enough real world mechanics that I couldn't, and instead I'm thinking about how much of a waste the extra packaging is. Is the environmental cost worth the whimsy? Am I putting other sellers at a disadvantage that I can afford to throw candy in while they may not be able to?
Again, most people will enjoy this game, but every time I think about it, I feel frustrated and a hint resentful that the bright, colorful, inclusive world of the game makes the real world feel that much darker and depressing. I don't think that is the creator's intent at all, and if you look at the reviews, this doesn't bother most people at all. I just wish I didn't find it so frustrating.