The Boba Teashop
Developer: Mike Ten
Platforms: PC (Steam, itch.io)
Genre: Psychological horror / café sim hybrid
Release: April 2025
A teashop simulator with something rotten behind the counter
At first glance, The Boba Teashop looks like a standard indie sim: you serve drinks, manage a cute little business, and interact with customers. But the longer you stay behind that counter, the clearer it becomes — this isn’t about tapioca. This is about control, routine, trauma, and the human mind cracking under pressure.
You play as Risa, a 30-something woman who left behind corporate burnout to start her own tea shop. On day one, you’re brewing classic milk teas and topping them with boba pearls. But by day three, the music is glitching, the customers start to repeat things like broken dolls, and something in the back room seems to breathe. The game never announces that it’s horror — it just becomes one.
Gameplay: Sim meets slow-burn spiral
Mechanically, the game starts out clean. Orders come in, you drag-and-drop ingredients to match requests, and try to keep your workflow smooth. But monotony is the point. The same motions day after day become unsettling. When a minor UI glitch happens, it hits harder than a jump scare. And when a customer says something personal they shouldn’t know, you start double-checking your screen.
The horror in The Boba Teashop isn’t loud. It’s in the pauses. In the irregularities. In the realization that Risa’s life — and maybe yours, by proxy — is stuck in a loop she doesn’t remember creating. It’s less about what’s happening, and more about why it keeps happening.
Visuals and atmosphere: cozy horror done right
Mike Ten leans hard into VHS aesthetics. The game looks like it’s been taped over three times on a dusty camcorder, which gives it an eerie, lost-media vibe. The boba shop feels warm and inviting until the lighting subtly shifts or the background hum warps slightly out of tune.
There’s no traditional monster. No chase scenes. No gore. Just a suffocating sense that something’s wrong, and you can’t put it down long enough to stop playing.
Final thoughts
The Boba Teashop is clever. It traps you in the familiar, then quietly asks you what you’re trying to forget. It’s a psychological horror game dressed in pastel pink, and it works precisely because it doesn’t shout — it whispers. Not everyone will love it, especially if they’re expecting fast-paced gameplay or jump scares every five minutes. But for those who appreciate narrative risk, atmosphere, and subtle dread, this one deserves a spot in the queue.
