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The Boba Teashop
The Boba Teashop is a first-person indie game where players take on the role of Risa, a former office worker now running her own tea business. The core loop is centered around preparing and serving a variety of bubble tea drinks while managing the flow of customers and maintaining the space. Each shift includes multiple tasks—taking orders, choosing the right ingredients, and completing drinks in a timely manner. The interface is minimal, designed to keep players focused on the rhythm of the workday without overcomplicating interactions.
As players progress, the menu expands and more customer types begin to appear, each with specific behaviors or preferences. Cleaning the shop, restocking ingredients, and managing time effectively become increasingly important as demand rises. Despite the familiar format of a simulation game, The Boba Teashop uses subtle changes in lighting, sound, and animation to gradually shift the player’s perception of the world around them.
Psychological Twist and Atmosphere
What begins as a calm, task-based experience slowly introduces disturbances that are hard to explain. Glimpses of figures in reflective surfaces, warped voices on the radio, and shifts in item placement all contribute to a sense that something isn’t quite right. These elements are not presented directly, but rather through brief and irregular moments that force players to question what they saw or heard. This layered tension builds steadily and becomes harder to ignore the longer you work behind the counter.
The visual design is heavily inspired by VHS-era aesthetics. Slight distortions, grain filters, and static lines appear intermittently, blending realism with surreal hints that disrupt the everyday flow. The calm repetition of making drinks contrasts with the unsettling events that creep into the environment. Over time, these distortions seem tied to Risa herself, suggesting that the shop may be more connected to her state of mind than it first appears.
Things to Watch For in The Boba Teashop
· Customers whose orders repeat too often or shift unnaturally
· Audio that doesn’t match current events in the environment
· Objects that subtly change location between shifts
· Sudden silence or visual interruptions while making drinks
· Notes or receipts that reference things not visible in the shop
The Boba Teashop blends routine task management with psychological disturbance, using familiar gameplay as a framework for something deeper. Instead of relying on fast scares, it slowly rewrites the rules of its own world, making even small actions feel uncertain. Each cup prepared and each customer served might carry a clue—or a warning—about what’s really happening behind the counter.
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