Why I made a game that lives in the corner of your screen

Here's a confession: I like making games more than I like playing them. Which is great, until you've spent a full year of evenings and weekends building a multiplayer platformer and your brain quietly files for divorce.

Burnout sucks. So when the summer holidays rolled around, I did the sensible, healthy thing and stepped away from game dev.

For about a day. Then I started another game. Classic.

Video store what now?

One of my favourite childhood memories is going to the video store with my family on a Friday. We'd wander the shelves, argue over what to watch (I lost, mostly) and leave with a stack of VHS tapes for the weekend.

That doesn't really exist anymore. My kids will probably never know the joy of a "Be Kind, Rewind" sticker or the shame of a late fee. So I thought, why not bottle that warm, fuzzy feeling and put it in a game?

A game that doesn't need you (in a good way)

I'd been playing desktop idlers like Rusty's Retirement and Ropuka's Idle Island, which just sit there being lovely while you get on with your day. I also loved how Retro Rewind and Rewind 99 nail the feeling of running a rental shop.

But I wanted something smaller. Something that sits in the corner of your screen, minding its own business, while you work, browse or pretend to work.

That's Tiny Tape Store. It's a retro VHS shop that lives on your desktop. Customers wander in, rent tapes and wander out while you slowly stock, expand and decorate your tiny store. There's always something to do, but nothing is ever urgent. Look away for an hour and the shop just keeps on shopping.

Learning to leave the player alone

Turns out this was really hard to design. I'm used to making games that constantly poke you: press this, dodge that, optimise everything, NOW. Tiny Tape Store had to do the opposite. I had to learn when to leave things alone, which, as anyone who knows me will tell you, is not my strongest skill.

Pixel by tiny pixel

I knew it had to be pixel art. Tiny shop, VHS tapes, 90s nostalgia, it just fits. Small problem: I couldn't really do pixel art.

So I learned Aseprite. What started as a necessity became my favourite part of the whole project. Building the shop one tiny pixel at a time is weirdly therapeutic, and somewhere along the way I stopped making a game about a video store and started building a little place I actually wanted to hang out in. (Take it lightly though, pixel art is definitely not simple.)

So, did the break work?

Sort of? I started Tiny Tape Store because I needed a break, and I think I accidentally made the game I needed to take one. Now it's sitting on other people's desktops, which still blows my mind :D

If you'd like a cosy little shop keeping you company while you work, Tiny Tape Store is on Steam. And if you want even more tapes in your life, the Be Kind, Rewind bundle pairs it with Rewind 99.

Buy Tiny Tape Store on Steam

Want the longer version? I told this story to Fix Gaming Channel.