Review: Sticky Business
Available on: Steam, Nintendo Switch
Cost: €9.99, £8.99 or $9.99
Genre: Management Sim, Casual Gaming
Developer: Spellgarden Games
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Become your own boss by creating a sticker printing company in the management simulation Sticky Business. Create original sticker designs with over 100 elements to delight customers, post them on your website, print and pack your orders before the day ends to earn money to buy new design elements, treats for your customers and make more stickers!
Story
Sticky Business works as a management simulation where you run your own sticker making company. There isn’t much of an introduction story, you get straight into the sticker making and earning money. Once you have created a design it gets uploaded to your website where customers can purchase your stickers. The customers will leave comments with their orders and here you can see their stories progress as you build repeat customers, giving little insights into their lives, from making new friends, studying for tests, writing to penpals, to coming to terms with loss. Each customer has a unique little story that will build the more orders they place. These stories are quite heartwarming and charming, and the conclusion usually plays out with the stickers having a positive impact on their lives and turning points in their stories.
The days are quite short, although this can be modified in the settings. You can usually get through a handful of orders, ship them to the post office and get a new design in each day in the beginning. This does increase in difficulty as time goes on and your orders increase. You’ll also earn XP as well as coins with each order to give you the ability to buy more sticker elements and treats for your customers, which will in turn generate more XP.
Gameplay
The game isn’t complex, although that doesn’t mean it’s not detailed. There is around 100 elements that you can mix and match to create new and unique designs. Playing this on the switch, I found that the analogue stick didn’t really help for precision of placement. This would be much better on the PC version using a mouse. I was impressed by the smoothness of the placement, there is no gridlines lock so you can place wherever you like. I was also pleased to see extra layout features, making elements bigger or smaller, rotating them, flipping them and managing layers.
As different stickers attract different customers, you need to listen to the customer’s comments to try and make stickers they’ll enjoy and want to buy. You’ll recieve hints and requests in their comments from “I really need plant stickers” to “More Dinosaur Stickers!”. This adds a small amount of challenge, as you won’t get very far filling your shop with only one type of sticker.
I did feel there were some technical elements that could be improved. It would have been helpful if when a customer story has been completed you we’re given an indication that it is complete on your inbox, crossing it out maybe or moving it to the bottom of the list. I did find myself having to repeatedly go into each of the characters stories to find one that had not yet been completed. Some stats on number of packages sent or most popular stickers would have also been nice to see how I was progressing through the game.
Graphics and Visuals
While not an enormous amount of options for sticker upgrades, what is there is simple but done well. The designs are cute graphics, quite kawaii styled, with a good mix of themes, from animals, to musical instruments to seasonal christmas themed styles. The styles between the packs do suit and fit well with each other. I was very pleased with them visually and with the text options allowed to make unique designs that look like they go together, rather than mashing random objects on top of each other and everything looks disjointed.
The options to pack your stickers get more creative the more you unlock too, which I thought was a nice edition. You can unlock new papers, fillers and goodies for your customers, from chocolate bars to notebooks, and in return you’ll recieve a percentage increase in your XP.
Longevity
The game can be completed in around 8 hours. To complete the game, you must complete all the stories with the customers. Then for completionists, it would be all about collecting the remaining upgrades and sticker elements. It is a simple idea played out very well, but any longer than 10 hours I imagine the game would feel quite repetitive.
I also struggled to get a gauge on what promped 10 order days compared to a 3 order day, and it felt like the more customer stories I completed the less often those 10 order days appeared. This could get frustrating if you were looking to increase your daily income overtime to unlock all the upgrades.
There is DLC available for the game, which offers glitter and hologram papers to print your stickers on which are really charming. Additionally the DLC offers new customer stories which adds some more time to the game. It wouldn’t surprise me to see extra DLC of new sticker packs and customer stories in time, as it would be quite easy to pick the game back up after a while just to play with the DLC.
Conclusion
Overall, Sticky Business is a charming management sim that although simple in story is executed well. There’s plenty of variation and sticker types to create truly unique designs, and lots to unlock. There’s very little challenge, except on the days when a lot of orders are recieved, but if you are looking for a relaxing but creative experience this game will fulfil that. The stories do get charming and uplifting as time goes on, and the game has a positive and inclusive tone. There are places it could be improved, with better signposting for progression, more stats on what’s working, and a better balance of the orders coming through (I do feel this should increase as time goes on). But the game is very cute, enjoyable and relaxing way to spend a few hours. I wouldn’t necessarily play it again from the beginning, but I would pick up from where I left off if more DLC came out for it.
