Bobo the bird, after quitting their stressful job in the big city, has moved home to Tapioca Town. There, they join their childhood friend Stellar in their quest to repair and restore their family’s boba tea shop. Now, Bobo can farm, fish, bond with the townspeople, go shopping, run the store, and even engage in shootout battles in their dreams. And don’t forget to unlock new boba recipes to keep customers satisfied!
Call of Boba is a boba-centric cozy game developed and published by Tomatoast, currently available in Early Access with a fairly robust roadmap of future updates planned. It’s pretty obviously an Early Access game in its current state, as it feels fairly empty at points and certain mechanics are fairly under-utilized, but the core gameplay loop is pretty fun, the pixel art is adorable, and I can definitely see a lot of potential as more content is added in the future.
The game is a hybrid of a farming simulator (you have to plant and grow ingredients – although you can also buy them in the General Store, it’s much more efficient to harvest them yourself) and cafe management with the daily shifts of serving boba to customers. The cafe management is pretty fun, a little repetitive but generally relaxing and not too stressful even as you add more flavors to your menu. I like that it doesn’t take up the entire in-game day, so you have the opportunity to do other things while still keeping the store open most days.
There is a mini-game early on where you have to measure the correct amounts of ingredients the first time you make a tea to add it to your recipe book, but that appears only at the very beginning of the game and doesn’t return even as you unlock more complex recipes. I was bummed by that – I did want to see a little more of that mini-game to break up the repetitive flow of the days in the store. I think it could be used each time you experiment with a new recipe, not just at the beginning of the game.
While the store itself is fairly robust – lots of recipes and ingredients, the ability to lure in more customers by decorating the interior – the other mechanics feel a little sparse at this time. Farming is fairly standard – you need to water your crops and plant them in the correct season, and there are a few fertilizer options to help them grow better and faster.
Fishing, on the other hand, is pretty bare-bones – there aren’t many areas where you can fish, and there are very few types of fish to catch. The fishing minigame itself – a rhythm game – is fun and not too difficult but repetitive, as you play the same “song” each time you catch a fish of the same type. As there’s not much to do with fish besides selling them, I sort of wonder why this game included fishing at all – was it just because it’s a fairly standard element in cozy games? I’m not sure.
Other mechanics are also lacking at the moment – the arcade is pretty much just a Flappy Bird clone that you can play for fun, and villager dialogue / interactions are limited. The stores have really expansive stock, but you don’t really need to shop at any of them besides the General Store (for ingredients and seeds) or maybe buy the occasional gift for a villager somewhere else.
However, Call of Boba’s roadmap is extremely promising. Currently, the game plans to add a romance system, a library, a community center, more quests, special events, and more. I really look forward to seeing what the game adds in the future, because I feel like it has so much potential.
Then, of course, there is the element that separates Call of Boba from the rest of the cozy game genre: Bobo’s dreams. Every night when Bobo sleeps (unless you choose to turn on the light and skip it) they enter a dream world based on the old corporate job they left. Gameplay in the dream is that of a roguelike shooter, with Bobo wielding a gun that shoots boba, red beans, and other tea ingredients. Surviving the dream each night and defeating enough enemies earns upgrades like increased bullet speed, frequency, and damage.
I’m not the biggest fan of shooters, but I didn’t mind the dream – the difficulty level is fairly low, and there’s always the option to skip it if you don’t feel like doing it every night. I do think it’s overall a worthwhile inclusion, as it makes Call of Boba feel different from other cozy games which, if they include combat, tend to be more melee- and dungeon-focused. If the dream happened every night and was unskippable, I think I’d grow really annoyed with it, but I like that it can be tackled as you feel up to it. More rooms, bosses, and layouts will be added in the future, too, which will likely enhance the mechanic further.
The last thing I want to mention is that the art style in Call of Boba is absolutely beautiful. It uses a classic pixel art style, and each environment – from the outdoor area of Tapioca Town to the interior of each store – is lovingly decorated in stunning detail. It’s a truly beautiful game, and one you could easily spend time just looking at. Plus, all the animal villagers are adorable (although the axolotl was definitely a personal favorite!)
Call of Boba is a fun, relaxing cozy game that sets itself apart from the genre with its boba tea theme and roguelike shooter dreamscape. It’s currently very early in its Early Access period, and a little bit sparse on things to do, but it shows a lot of potential and the developers have plenty of plans for expanding it in the near future. Cozy game fans should definitely keep an eye on this one!
Kate played Call of Boba on PC via Steam using a provided review code.
