Review: Minami Lane
Available on: Steam
Cost: €4.99, £4.99, $5.50
Genre: Management Game
Developer: Doot, Blibloop
Publisher: Doot
Minami Lane is a charming management game where you build your own street with a variety of shops and attractions to entice customers. By managing customer’s feedback you can create their perfect recipes or shop stock to make more money, and buy more shops and upgrades. You’ll also need to keep your town pretty so you can attract cats to your street, as well as a mysterious character towards the end of the game.
Story
The story is simple, you are here to help Ema transform streets into vibrant neighbourhoods with different shops and attractions to please the street you are building. Build homes for youths and elders and cater to their preferences based on the feedback they give once they’ve visited your shop.
Take the feedback to earn more money, unlock upgrades and improve the street’s satisfaction levels so you can unlock more shops and new levels, and hopefully encourage cats to visit your street to delight the neighbourhood.
Gameplay
Each level has a set of tasks to complete, either within a certain time frame, to unlock certain characters or to improve satisfaction levels to a specific level. The gameplay is simple, and
involves managing your money to select shops that will be suitable to complete the tasks. It’s easy to click between shops to modify your recipes and shop stock, and to scroll across the street cleaning rubbish or spotting cats to stroke.
Graphics and Visuals
The game has a distinct Kawaii design and is based around a cute Japanese street. Although the visuals are repetitive, they are very charming and I really enjoyed unlocking a new shop to see what it would look like, and what the different upgrades would look like. You can change the colours of the shops but it’s all within a set of 6 colours within the game’s colour scheme. While it was nice to maintain the aesthetic, I would have liked more options to personalise the shops.
Longevity
The game is short, I completed within around 3 hours. There are 5 levels in total, with compulsory tasks to complete and optional ones. It’s not an overly challenging game so I was able to complete the optional tasks within each level. However if you hadn’t you could go back to each level to complete in full. But honestly, I’d have played another 10 hours of this game easily, so if any DLC for more levels comes out I’ll definitely be getting them.
Conclusion
Overall, Minami Lane is a charming, Kawaii style management simulation and a great addition to this genre. According to the credits, the game was made in 6 months which is impressive because it’s a very clean, fun if not a little simple game that I really enjoyed playing. The limits to the game are a lack of varied customisation, limited dialogue and repetitive visuals. However, I would happily play again if more levels were added for DLC, and I’d keep an eye on anything the developers make again and would definitely recommend, especially for the price.
