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<img src="/icons/video-game_gray.svg" alt="/icons/video-game_gray.svg" width="40px" /> This is the playthrough guide for Butterfly Soup!
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Have a response for a discussion or reflection question? Leave a 60 second voice message and you’ll have the chance to be featured on a future podcast episode!
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If you you prefer writing, or have any questions or additional comments, please send them to [email protected]. Thanks so much!
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Listen to the podcast on https://open.spotify.com/show/3zGV5U6x6oayRT3KxOz41P?si=79c7b4ae31c54dfe or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/geeks-grounds/id1673175947
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🌃
About Butterfly Soup
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You may especially enjoy this if you like:
- heartwarming stories about love and friendship
- exploration of queer teenage years amidst the backdrop of 2008’s election season
- short visual novels (3-4 hours)
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💜
Why Butterfly Soup?
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- Short and sweet queer coming-of-age story
- Free (with fan-made ports) — you can support the dev by purchasing the bonus art PDF on their itch.io page
- June is Pride (and May was API Month) ~ we’re taking some time to celebrate both with this title
- When it came out in 2017, it was one of the first ‘cult classics’ that I can remember about gender, sexuality, race (and baseball) — there wasn’t really a game like it at the time!
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⚠️
Content Warnings & Notes ⚠
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- The game does not have an ESRB rating, but the dev notes that there are brief written depictions of parental emotional+physical abuse (no visuals), and ableist slurs
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🗓️
Geeks & Grounds Timeline / Important Dates 🗓️
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Please note that this timeline is a general breakdown and suggestion for if you’d like to stay on track to finish the game by the time we have our monthly hangout! Feel free to play at your own pace: play in one big session, or even break it up further into smaller bits.
***NOTE! This is part of our June “One-Shot” Collection where we’re playing four games created by queer dev teams ~ so this schedule shows the whole month of June, for a full context on what we’re doing!
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Reflection & Discussion Questions
- This game takes place in 2008: what were YOU doing in 2008? What do you remember of your life, pop culture, etc?
- What are some of the expectations you remember your parents/adults having for you as a teenager? How do those expectations impact you now?
- One of the strengths of this game is not simply that it provides representation, but the nuance with how it does so, combatting the ideas of “Asian” as a monolith and how “queerness” can be different cross-culturally. As you play, try to identify and explore the ways it does this!
- When the game launched in 2017, the landscape was VERY different than today. How has gaming (and the world) changed since then?