Play-Asia gets into the publishing biz with Korean dating sim Miracle Snack Shop

Widely beloved online retailer Play-Asia is getting into the publishing game, and it looks like they’re going to be prioritising a combination of indie titles that might not otherwise get physical releases, and the sort of stuff you probably turn to Play-Asia for anyway.

There is, at this point, an established market for what have been historically referred to as “niche interest” Asian titles. And, over the course of the last decade or so, we’ve seen a real growth in the number of companies willing to devote themselves to bringing these titles to English-speaking audiences.

With the Asia-English market proving to be a great means of getting these games into the hands of English speakers while simultaneously sidestepping the potential inconveniences of the ratings boards PEGI, ESRB and BBFC — the latter of whom has prevented a number of localised Asian releases from being sold to anyone at all in recent years — it makes sense for Play-Asia to get into the publishing game, as they’ve been doing a roaring trade distributing exclusive physical editions of titles from companies such as eastasiasoft.

Play-Asia’s first game as a publisher is a Korean-developed dating sim known as Miracle Snack Shop. In the game, you’ll manage your own snack shop and get to know a number of different characters, including Philia, a queen from another world who accidentally ended up in the snack shop via an errant portal in her closet, and Mira, a former journalist-turned-streamer who seems to have a business proposition for you!

Miracle Snack Shop is the work of developer Talesshop, whose previous work includes the visual novels The Fox Awaits Me and My Girlfriend is a Mermaid?! Refine. Miracle Snack Shop originally released on PC back in 2018, then was ported to Switch in December of 2020 with additional material including Japanese voiceovers and a new “after story” for Philia. Play-Asia’s involvement will include making sure the English localisation is suitably tidy and producing the actual physical editions.

The game features some absolutely beautiful visuals and some solid voice talent, including Marie Miyake (Nana Abe from Idolmaster, Purestream from Arknights and Avrora from Azur Lane) as Philia and Mai Ishihara (Orange Pekoe and Suzuki from Girls und Panzer) as Mira. Fans of the lewd will doubtless be pleased to see that there seems to be plenty of saucy imagery on offer as a reward for developing your relationships with either or both of the girls — those who appreciate a good bit of hometown appear to be particularly well catered to.

The game promises “an emotionally cosy and complete story while maintaining high replay value through the many available shop management options and meta progression”, according to the press release. It sounds very much along the lines of the enjoyable Taiwanese title Food Girls, an Asia-English version of which can also be picked up from Play-Asia along with its sequel.

Miracle Snack Shop’s physical release, produced by Play-Asia themselves, will be available to pre-order from September 5, 2022, with the game itself expected to ship on November 15, 2022. There will be two versions of the game available: a limited edition of 3,000 copies, and a non-limited edition with no restrictions on purchasing.

The limited edition comes with a windowed collector’s box, an 11-page colour manual, a soundtrack CD, acrylic standees of Philia and Mira, a mini-Switch case keychain (big enough to hold the cart, three art cards and an individually numbered certificate. It will set you back $39.99, which is in line with the very reasonably priced other limited editions Play-Asia has released as exclusives over the last couple of years.

The standard edition, meanwhile, is just the Switch game in a standard Switch case , and will cost $29.99. This will continue to be available after the 3,000 copies of the limited edition have sold out.

The product pages for the standard edition and the limited edition are both up on Play-Asia already if you want to sign up to be reminded when they’re available — otherwise check back on September 5, 2022 (that’s next Monday at the time of writing) and get those pre-orders in!

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Pete Davison

Pete is Rice Digital's editor, and a proud champion of any and all games involving pretty girls hanging out, saving the world or both. His first waifu was Rit from Rod Land.

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