Book of Fei

A desktop idler with more going on than expected

Book of Fei is a budget idle RPG from TAO Studio that asks players to recruit and grow a small team of adorable warriors, park the game at the bottom of the screen, and let them grind through hundreds of chapters and zones while the player does other things. Reviewers who bought in cheap and expected a shallow time-waster were repeatedly surprised by how much is actually here. "Cheap but tons of content. Amazing idle game, cute characters, and the systems are way deeper than i expected. Over 100 hours and there's still new stuff to do," wrote one reviewer. Another was blunter about the value proposition: "How is this only $3? This has to be one of the best deals on steam. Ridiculously fun game you can just leave running on the bottom of your screen. You can also easily switch monitors, and hide it. Not overly complicated. Just a simple idle game with clear progression. Has more value than many $10 games. If you enjoy idle rpg's, give it a shot."

A third reviewer framed the appeal against the genre's usual pitfalls: "No gacha. No microtransactions. No Steam market. Not a lot of clicking. Not wasting time managing inventory. This is the type of idle game I was looking for. Cute graphics. Catchy music. An easy, comfortable game." Others praised the sense that the game keeps unfolding well past its opening hours: "Fantastic little Idle game!! Scratches every itch, and just keeps giving! Four different times I've thought 'Ok, here the plateau is, that was fun', and then BAM! There's a new build tree or weapon system or map mode(using broad terms as not to spoil anything). I plan on this being a part of my screen for a long while. Well done dev/devs!! Thank you."

A dated shell around a solid loop

The most consistent complaint, even from reviewers who otherwise recommend the game, is that its presentation feels out of step with a 2026 release. "8/10: the gameplay loop is enjoyable. The UI though.. feels dated. When I first launched it, I thought it was some old game. I even checked the store page to see when it came out… and nope, it's a 2026 release. The game itself has so much potential to be super addictive, but the UI really needs a glow up. Some of the wording isn't translated yet either, so you'll occasionally click something and have no idea what it means," wrote one reviewer, who nonetheless concluded, "Even with those issues, there's a charming core underneath. With a better UI and proper translations, this could easily become one of those cosy and fun game you keep coming back to."

The game's lone negative review on Steam raised similar concerns at greater length, alongside a specific technical complaint: "I can't stress enough how irritating this one is. The setting menu is messed up. Every time I open it, no matter what screen I open it on, the settings menu is HUGE and off to the side in a way that over half of it is not on screen. There is no way to fix it. No way to move it. I checked the discussions and found other people asking, but no solutions being given. This means that I can't control the volume. I can't control where it sits on my screen. How big it is. Nothing." That reviewer also flagged a threadbare tutorial: "The tutorial is horrible. I've figured out some of the game but there are several game mechanics that I have just kinda discovered that the game never told me about or explained. There are some that I don't know how to use at all." A different reviewer echoed the rough edges from a bug-report angle: "I had fun but the bugs/typos kept me from playing further. I unlocked the talents option but increasing points on them don't seem to do anything. My character's stats stayed the same," adding that the developer's official Discord was quiet enough to make it hard to tell if issues were being addressed.

When automation removes the game from the idle game

A more structural complaint runs through several reviews: once players unlock the automation tools the game hands them, there's a real risk the loop stops feeling like a game at all. "The game is very fun to play while you are doing something else on desktop, but once you unlocked a skill that can automate everything, you pretty much do almost nothing. No wonder the game is $2.99," wrote one reviewer. A much longer review traced the same arc from enjoyment to detachment: "For the price, it's a fun desktop game. The first few 'chapters' were enjoyable. The problem is once you pass those beginning ones, the game basically becomes automated and the only thing that matters is gold collection. Even that, though, can be automated. You turn on 'Auto Challenge,' leave on the setting to allow them to farm gold when needed, and ignore it. They'll just keep clearing chapters on their own. If it gets stuck, you leave them farming gold for a while to upgrade stats, and then you get back to it. The game could probably beat itself if you just left your computer on at night. It's not even an auto-battler at that point, because you don't need to choose formations or gear or anything. It's just an auto-game..." That same reviewer weighed the alternative and found it worse: "You could not turn on the auto challenge feature, but there are over 600 'chapters,' each with a few dozen zones. It would be almost peak tedium. I have no suggestions to fix this. I still think the initial few chapters are worth it for the price. It just hit a very specific point for me where it ceased to be a 'fun game' and ended up a background program I couldn't even be bothered to check."

The lone negative review's central frustration was less about automation and more about the game's story and reward structure never really landing: "I think there is loosely supposed to be a story here based on the tons of 'mail' I get in game but it's so badly written that I don't know if it's just goofy mail or if it serves a purpose other than occasionally giving me goodies." That reviewer's equipment complaint was pointed too: "Equipment is random. You buy a chest for 200 gold and you get random stuff. There's no equipment you earn from fighting. From unlocking new areas. No store with specific stuff you can save up for. Just throw 200 gold at a box and hope you get something good." Even so, the same review closed on a note most critics of the game shared: "Even though I have my gripes again $3 is pretty good when most games like this are full of microtransactions and if you don't pay those the game isn't fun."

Verdict

Book of Fei is a small, unpretentious idle RPG that repeatedly outperforms its budget-shovelware asking price, and reviewers are near-unanimous that its job-class progression, fishing-deep systems, and gacha-free structure are worth the three dollars on their own. Its problems are all fixable rather than fundamental: a UI and translation pass several reviewers say looks years behind its actual release date, a broken settings menu that at least one player found genuinely game-breaking, and a design tension where the automation tools meant to make the game more comfortable can end up removing the player from it entirely. It's an easy recommendation for anyone who wants a cheap, low-commitment idler to run in the corner of a monitor, as long as expectations for polish and narrative stay as modest as the price tag.