Welcome back to Insider Gaming’s 28 Games Later: A Horror Showcase. One of the games you saw as part of the show was The Boba Teashop: Refill.
From Serafini Productions and Mike Ten, The Boba Teashop: Refill is a first-person psychological horror game set inside a boba teashop,
developed in collaboration with Mike Ten, creator of The Boba Teashop. Players step into the shoes of Maya, a young woman struggling under financial pressure who takes a job at a newly opened boba teashop. But this isn’t just any store: it’s a new branch of Risa’s shop from the original The Boba Teashop, expanding the business into a new location.
As part of the show, we spoke with the game’s developers about The Boba Teashop: Refill. Below you can find the full conversation. And for more on the game, check out our complete rundown.
The Boba Teashop Refill – 28 Games Later Interview
Q: How long has the game been in development?
The Boba Teashop: Refill has been in development since 2025. The project started from our collaboration with Mike Ten, the creator of the original The Boba Teashop, with whom we’re also working on the release of his next title, The Hambagu Shop, coming this January.
From the beginning, we didn’t want to simply recreate the original game or make a direct sequel. We wanted Refill to be a standalone story, with a new protagonist, a new location, and its own narrative, while still existing within the world established by the original game.
This also gave us the opportunity to take the original concept and expand it considerably, both in terms of gameplay and production.
Q: Can you talk about the game’s inspiration?
The original The Boba Teashop was obviously our main starting point.
We really liked the simplicity of its concept: you’re working an ordinary job, preparing drinks and serving customers, but little by little that everyday routine becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
For Refill, we wanted to expand on that idea and focus even more on the pressure of working in a customer-facing job. You have customers waiting, orders to prepare correctly, reviews evaluating your performance, and a manager who is constantly watching you.
Our protagonist, Maya, takes the job because she’s under financial pressure, so simply walking away isn’t necessarily an easy option for her. We liked the idea of taking something as colorful and familiar as a boba teashop and gradually turning it into an oppressive environment.
At the same time, we wanted to make the experience much more ambitious from an audiovisual perspective. We’ve introduced full voice acting, facial animations, and a more cinematic presentation, which weren’t present in the original game. We wanted the characters and their interactions to feel much more alive and to make the horror moments more impactful.
We also wanted to preserve the identity of the original. The new shop is another branch of Risa’s business, so people who played the first game will find connections and familiar elements, but you don’t need to know anything about the original to enjoy Refill.
Q: During the game’s development, has the team faced any obstacles it had to overcome?
One of the biggest challenges has been finding the right balance between the work simulation and the horror.
Making drinks, taking orders, cleaning the shop, and serving customers are still fundamental parts of the experience. We didn’t want to lose that aspect because it’s part of what gave the original game its identity.
At the same time, Refill is considerably more ambitious in terms of storytelling, characters, animations, voice acting, and overall presentation. The cast alone includes more than 20 people, which has required a significant amount of organizational work, from casting and scheduling to voice direction and coordinating performances.
So one of our biggest challenges has been expanding the experience on that scale without losing the simplicity and charm of working behind the counter of a boba teashop.
A lot of the horror also comes from disrupting that routine. You start learning how the shop works, what customers expect from you, and what a normal shift should feel like. Then, little by little, things begin to happen that don’t belong there.
Finding the right pacing between those two sides of the game has been very important to us.
Q: Was there a “eureka” moment where everything just clicked and started to come together?
We think it was when we realized that the job itself could become part of the psychological pressure rather than simply being the setting for the horror.
The customers, their orders, the reviews, Vanessa watching your performance, and Maya’s need to keep the job could all work together to create tension before anything supernatural even happens.
That helped everything click into place.
From that point, making a drink wasn’t just a minigame between horror sequences anymore. The ordinary gameplay and the horror could start affecting each other, and we could use the player’s familiarity with the routine against them.
Q: What features are you the most proud of?
We’re particularly proud of how much we’ve been able to expand the original concept while keeping its core identity.
The work simulation remains a fundamental part of the game. You’ll take orders, prepare different drinks, keep the shop clean, and try to keep your customers happy. But around that foundation, we’ve built a more ambitious audiovisual experience, with fully voiced characters, facial animations, more elaborate cinematics, and a stronger focus on character interactions, bringing in some of the elements and production values we’ve developed through our BrokenLore series.
Another thing we’re really happy about is the cast of customers.
Several content creators who played or were connected to the original The Boba Teashop wanted to become part of Refill themselves. Creators such as Yotobi, Knite, and Suzi Hunter, also known as The Sphere Hunter, appear as customers in the game.
We think it’s a really fun way of connecting the community that formed around the original game with this new project. Players will encounter many different customers throughout their shifts, and some of them might look or sound very familiar.
Q: What are you excited for players to experience?
We’re probably most excited to see the moment when players stop trusting the routine.
The game takes place across one week, and we want players to gradually become familiar with the shop and develop their own habits. You learn where everything is, how to prepare the drinks, how different customers behave, and what you’re supposed to do during a normal shift.
Then we start playing with those expectations.
We’re also really curious to see people’s reactions to the characters. With voice acting and facial animation, we’ve been able to give customers and other characters much more personality, and some interactions can go in directions players probably won’t expect.
We think the contrast between doing something as simple as preparing a boba drink and everything happening around Maya is one of the most interesting parts of the experience.
Q: You have 30 seconds or so to pitch to a player who’s looking for a new game to play. What would you say to them?
Your shift starts like any other.
Take the order. Make the drink. Keep the customer happy. Try not to make mistakes.
The Boba Teashop: Refill is a first-person psychological horror game where you play as Maya, a young woman struggling with financial pressure who takes a job at a newly opened branch of Risa’s boba teashop, which players may recognize from the original The Boba Teashop.
You’ll serve customers, prepare drinks, deal with your manager, and try to do your job as the shop around you becomes increasingly disturbing.
Some of your customers might even look very familiar.
Just remember: every mistake matters, Vanessa is always watching, and your shift isn’t over yet.
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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