Play Sticky Business. Have your kids play Sticky Business. End of entry. Done.
Okay, obviously I’ll explain why, but I do mean it. Everything in this game is perfectly fine to show to your children. I also think your kids should actually play the game themselves. Naturally, this will depend on your child’s ability to manipulate the controls of the game (and platform), but as early as your kid is able to control a curser on screen, I say let them play.
The premise of Sticky Business is that you are starting an online sticker business. You can create stickers, print stickers, pack orders, and make money. There’s a little bit of customization of what your website looks, but most of the gameplay is in creating the stickers and reading the messages people send you with their orders. It is a textbook example of “cozy game” with all the chill vibes. The music is comforting and has enough variety to not feel too repetitive while letting you focus on the tasks presented. The pixel art is cute and the colors are soft and inviting.
The most rewarding part of the gameplay is sticker creation. In the “Creator” menu of the game (perfectly represented by a drawing tablet), you are presented with an array of little images, words, shapes, and colors. You then have full creative control over the placement of these components, arranging them into whatever picture you want to make. Once created, the sticker goes up for sale on your online sticker store.
The game progresses by increments of days. Each day provides a certain amount of time that you can spend on different actions such as creating stickers, packing orders, and mailing orders. Each activity occupies a predetermined amount of time, meaning you can spend a much or as little time creating those stickers, and still be able to do everything else you feel like doing during that day.
As you sell stickers, you earn two types of currency. The first is represented with a gold coin which is spent on stickers being printed to paper and extra goodies like candy to pack in with your orders. The second is more of an experience point which is spent on sticker components and colors, which allows you to create stickers in different categories.
Creating a diverse selection of stickers is an important part of the games progress. One of the reasons I think children should play this game is it gives them the chance to read other peoples’ stories. Characters will sometimes leave a message when sending in their order. They will tell you about the sibling they are fighting with, the leg they broke, or the projects they’re struggling to focus on. They will share their excitement for your new business, or the chance to trade stickers with their friends. These short messages are great chances to encourage your kids to read, understand, and empathize with other people, even if virtual. They also ask for specific types of stickers, giving you and your child a goal to work towards and suggestions to inspire your next creation.
The best part of all is that you can save you creations to files on your hard drive as images to your computer. You can then do what you like with these images: take them to a local print shop and print your stickers in real life, import them to your phone as stickers or emoji reactions in your preferred message service, build a custom wallpaper for your phone or computer, decorate your site hosted for the indie web. Here’s a couple of mine.
Bringing it all together, Sticky Business is great because it encourages time management, creativity, and empathy all in an extremely cute packages delivered to you with a side of relaxation and accessibility. All of the things this game teaches can also be brought into the real world, as well as the products from it. Combined with the very low price tag, you should absolutely buy this game. The only thing this game is missing is a mobile port. Your kids should okay it and frankly, you should too. Here’s all the links I can find.
