《Plushy Store Tidy Up》评测：可爱毛绒整理游戏

Plushy Store Tidy Up actually came out well over a month ago, and I did play it a few weeks ago, but I’ve only just got round to reviewing it. This isn’t because it’s a bad game; I’ve just been so busy – but I’m doing the review now after having fun playing it one evening.

Video Muted

Even though I’m a little late getting my verdict out, is this cozy organizing game worth checking out?

Plushy Store Tidy Up is available on Steam for $4.99.

1. Story – Free the Flamingos

You might look at this heading and wonder what flamingos have to do with Plushy Store Tidy Up. In all honesty, I’m not sure either. I’m guessing they’re the store mascot, or just a little bonus reason for finishing the job.

Either way, in Plushy Store Tidy Up, your goal is to put away all the plushies on the right shelves, so that you can reopen the plushie store and free the flamingos trapped in the cage in the middle of the shop floor.

I don’t remember a mention of the flamingos upon starting my playthrough, so I was taken aback a bit when the final step was to free the flamingos by interacting with their cage.

Still, it was a fun way to end my run, and it explained why the flamingos were there to begin with. I thought they were just another special plushie display.

2. Gameplay – Sort the Plushies

Yes, Plushy Store Tidy Up is another cozy organizing tidy up game, so how does it differ from all the other games? As it turns out, there are a few things that Plushy Store does very well, and other aspects that could be better.

2.1. The Easy Way or the Hard Way

When starting a new game, you’re presented with a few options. First, are you playing solo, or do you want to play co-op with friends? You can play with up to 3 other players, if this is something you’d like to do together, or you can just go it alone.

The other option is what mode you want to play in. Plushy Store lets you approach the sortout in two different ways. In Relaxed Mode, you can tidy all the plushies away in any way you want; any shelf, any place, whatever.

Then there’s Challenge Mode, if you want to do something a little stricter by the rules and harder as a result. In Challenge Mode, all the plushies must be put away on the right shelves, or else they’ll get rejected.

Whatever mode you go with, you can’t go wrong. Whether you want a challenge or not, Plushy Store gives you that option.

I personally opted for Challenge Mode because I wanted to go for the more difficult mode, and I find it more fun when the game is more of a stickler for rules and order.

You get to choose how you want to play Plushy Store: easy or hard.

2.2. Food and Animals

The titular plushie store has over 1,600 plushies to sort through. Compared to other games, that doesn’t sound that many, and in fairness, this was probably the shortest sorting game I’ve played to date. That doesn’t make it the easiest though!

In Plushy Store Tidy Up, all the plushies fall under two categories: food and animals. One half of the store is dedicated to foodie plushies, while the other is made up is animalistic plushies.

When going through the piles of plushies, it’s easy to know what side of the store they go on, and you soon get a system going where you sort one side or the other based on which plushies you’re dealing with.

It’s easy to sort the different plushies into the two major categories.

2.3. A Place for Every Plushie

If you opt for the more difficult and picky Challenge Mode, you really are in for a challenge, and this is when the game really does get picky!

In Challenge Mode, Plushy Store Tidy Up is very strict about where everything goes. It’s not a simple matter of food and animal plushies. They are further divided into various sub-categories. For example, animals are split up based on their habitat, and food have their own sections based on type.

This sounds simple enough, especially when there are nicely-designed signs depicting what type of plushie belongs there. However, where it gets difficult is the confusing layout of the store and the designated shelves for the different plushies.

There are special displays around the store with giant plushies where matching smaller plushies go.

Each shelf houses a different type of plushie, with varying quantities. It’s easy enough to work out what type of plushie goes where based on the shelf size and number of plushies, but it’s also very easy to get the plushies mixed up into the wrong section.

Sometimes in Plushy Store, it feels like a case of trial-and-error. To be fair, the game quickly alerts you when a plushie has been put on the wrong shelf, so you can quickly rectify your mistake, but it’s still not always obvious where a plushie belongs in the store, even with logic and common sense behind you.

You do get there in the end, finding a home for all the plushies, and it is very satisfying. I do appreciate what they were going for with the shelving system, but I couldn’t help feeling it was just a bit too confusing and not completely clear. That was probably Plushy Store‘s biggest downfall.

The different shelves are labelled, but it’s still confusing what goes where.

2.4. Skills and Upgrades

As per the norm for any cozy organizing game, Plushy Store Tidy Up includes a skills and upgrades system to help make life a little easier.

Available skills in this game include expanding your carry capacity, summoning either matching plushies or random plushies, moving faster, and jumping higher. 

All of these skills worked really well, but one that Plushy Store could really have done with was the highlight correct shelf skill.

With the puzzling shelving system in place, this skill could have been seriously useful, so it was odd that it was absent. Perhaps it would have taken the puzzle element away too much?

There are a handful of skills available, and while they do work well, a few absent ones should have been present.

3. Graphics & Audio – Really Cute

Graphically, I was surprised with Plushy Store Tidy Up – not that I was expecting it to be terrible, but there were a few things I wasn’t entirely expecting.

For one, the store itself is nicely designed – and huge! It does take time to get from one end to another, but I just learned to focus on one end at a time when sorting the plushies.

I especially like the special plushie displays with the giant plushies, which spin around when every matching plushie is placed down.

I liked the inclusion of the big mirrors as I ran between each end of the store, that was a nice touch.

What really took me by surprise though was what was going on outside the store. I was expecting a generic city or countryside scene. Instead, the city outside felt really alive and well designed, with all sorts to take in and see. I wasn’t expecting that level of detail.

The detail outside the store was very well done.

As for the plushies themselves, they were really cute! I liked the texture applied to them, making them look more soft and realistic, like I was holding a real plushie. Their designs were distinctive too, which made looking for specific ones and sorting them so much easier.

The one thing that stuck out for me with the audio of Plushy Store Tidy Up was its music. The whimsical soundtrack kind of reminded me of those fairytale themed rides you’d get at theme parks with the music playing on loop throughout. I thought it suited the game nicely and left me with a pleasant feeling of nostalgia.