With Yo-kai Watch established as a major cross-media money-spinner for Level-5 - with its TV show, toys, video games and assorted merchandise - the company is plotting its next major project that'll employ a similar strategy. We've known about The Snack World for a little while, but the recent Level-5 Vision 2016 event has shown more of this upcoming IP.

The IP's debut will come with a Manga in the CoroCoro monthly comic this Winter, before the iOS / Android game comes to Japan in April 2017; the 3DS version is coming later, in July, but as you can see in the footage below it looks like a match of the smart device game.

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As for the gameplay itself, it's described as taking place within a 'hyper casual fantasy' RPG world, with lots of stores and places to visit. Controls will be simple and - here's the moneyspinner - small real-world toys called 'Jara' (part of a range of merchandise by Takara Tomy) will have NFC chips that allow them to be scanned into the game on smartphones or the 3DS (presumably via the touchscreen on the New 3DS models). There'll no doubt be a lot of varieties to collect and deploy in game, and they'll likely be key to this franchise making a lot of money.

You can catch a glimpse of how these Jara will be pitched in the trailer below, which shows off the CG animated show.

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All of this is applicable for Japan, of course, and we'll have to wait and see if / when this IP heads to the West. Do you like the look of it?