Five years after the release ofButterfly Soupcomes its sequelButterfly Soup 2, reprising the stories of its four protagonists and keeping a comparison between teenage years and chrysalides.Butterfly Soup 2also shifts its focus to the feelings and struggles of the main characters, including Akarsha and Noelle’s romance and confronting family about one’s origins - which draws an interesting parallel with theMCU’sMs. Marvelseries.
Game Rant spoke with Brianna Lei about what it was like to createButterfly Soup 2, especially after the first installment’s success and the positive discussions it spawned. In fact, manyButterfly Soupfans ended up pointing out that the main characters of thisindie gamehave neurodivergent traits, which Lei didn’t put there intentionally, but they still were able to provide representation and comfort to players. Interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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Q: Was writing Butterfly Soup 2 a natural progression for you after its predecessor? What was the process like for you?
A: There were a lot of storylines and themes I wanted to cram intoButterfly Soup 1, but didn’t have the ability to flesh out and include at the time. As I worked onButterfly Soup 1, I kept a Word document of ideas and scenes that I cut. By the time the game was finished, that document was 141 pages long! To me, the end product felt like a tiny sliver of my initial vision for the game.
So writingButterfly Soup 2felt like a second chance to bring those unused ideas to life. I especially wanted to explore the experience of growing up as a second-generation immigrant in more depth, and I’m happy I got to do that! When you putButterfly Soup 1and2together, you have something a little closer to what I originally intendedButterfly Soup 1to be all those years ago.
Q: What was your favorite part of working on Butterfly Soup 2 compared to its predecessor?
A: Writing Akarsha and Noelle’s crushes on each other! I wanted to write a romance that made people want to scream and rip their hair out while reading it. Diya and Min’s romance from the first game was pretty straightforward, so it was a fun change of pace to write a love story where many things were in the way of thecouple getting together, including the timing being wrong. I feel like so much messiness in romance comes down to timing. It’s rare enough for two people to crush on each other — how unfair is it that they also have to crush on each other at the exact same time for anything to come out of it?
Akarsha’s attempts to woo Noelle were inspired by things I really tried on my crushes when I was younger, so I had a blast portraying how ineffective those tactics were. I especially enjoyed writing Akarsha trying to pass off her online confession to Noelle as a prank by her brother. That scene was partially based on a friend’s failed confession to me when I was Akarsha’s age. I dug up the old GChat logs and mimicked the lead-up to the confession, so it would feel extra realistic.
Q: Are there games or other media that inspired parts of Butterfly Soup 2? If so, which ones and how did they do that?
A: Diya, Chryssa, and Liz’s conversation about the Mariners was inspired by the documentary seriesThe History of the Seattle Mariners. Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein make the case that the Mariners are the most fascinating team in the history ofNorth American sports, and it’s an amazing watch even if you have zero interest in baseball!
Also, the monologuing during the dance scene was influenced by lyrics from the songYou! Me! Dancing!by Los Campesinos! I listened to it a ton of times while making the game.
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Q: What would you suggest people who enjoy your game for the representation involved should play or watch next?
A: I have a ton of suggestions, but I’ll try to keep it to just a few!If Found…is avisual novelabout a trans girl that’s set in 90s Ireland. LikeButterfly Soup, it’s fiction that draws from personal experience in a way that makes the story feel real and almost autobiographical. I also love Tamsyn Muir’sTheLocked Tomb,a series of novels about lesbian necromancers in space.
People who related to Min’s childhood abuse at the hands of their Asian immigrant parents might benefit from readingWhat My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Traumaby Stephanie Foo. Lastly, I’m not much of a Marvel fan, but the first episode ofMs. Marvelmade me cry! Kamala’s argument with her mom was so similar to ones I had with my parents. There are plenty of things I rolled my eyes at like how the characters fangirl over the Avengers, but for me, seeing such a loving, authentic depiction of an Asian-American girl navigating life on a big budget absolutely made up for it.
Q: Did you like some of your characters in Butterfly Soup 2 more than you did in part one? Did you end up liking some of them less?
A: Not really! As a writer, I don’t really like or dislike my characters for things I had them think or do. They’re vehicles for the story I’m trying to tell, not people!
Q: What were the highlights and the challenges of writing Diya as a character when she is the one you identify with the most?
A: Though I relate to a lot of Diya’s quirks andsocial anxiety, she’s ultimately still her own character! So I don’t think my relating to her particularly factored into how I wrote her. Diya’s quiet disposition was both a highlight and a challenge for me to write. When playing as Diya, you get a constant stream of her thoughts, but when you play as the other characters, she’s pretty quiet, and you’re often left to wonder what she’s thinking. That mysteriousness was often fun to write, but it was also challenging in situations where I needed to have her vocalize her thoughts. Sometimes getting her to have a conversation felt like pulling teeth!
Q: What was it like for you to discover that people relate to your characters also because of neurodivergent traits they have when you didn’t plan for them to be present?
A: I was glad people found comfort in relating to them in that way, even if I didn’t expect that while developing the game. Seeing that even my unintentional representation was worthy of discussion made me wonder about the state of neurodivergent representation in other games.
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Q: What do you think should or could change for neurodivergent representation in games and other media?
A: I know more about autism than other conditions, so I’ll just speak from that perspective. I think it’d be neat if more media hadLGBT+ autistic main characters! Autistic people are significantly more likely to experience gender dysphoria and gender nonconformity than the general population. They’re also less likely to be straight. But you wouldn’t know that from the little representation that they get in mainstream media! I feel like there’s a lot of potential in exploring that area of overlap.
Q: What would you like to see in the video games industry in terms of LGBTQIA+ representation?
A: I’d like to see more game creators say with their whole chests that their characters are trans or nonbinary! It meant a lot to many of my friends when the latestGuilty Geargame finally had Bridget question her identityas a boy and come out as a trans woman. The games industry has made a lot of progress on this front over the last few years, but it’s still a rarity in AAA games, especially for playable characters.
Q: What would you like to see more of in terms of Chinese-American stories?
A: Personally, I’d like to see more stories about Chinese-American adults dealing with stubborn immigrant parents! Definitely not because I need advice with that in real life or anything…
Q: Are there sides of queer life that you would like to explore further in your future titles?
A: I’d love to write a visual novel about amarried queer couple! I feel like society lied to me about the initial chase and honeymoon phase being the best part of a love story. I thought I was mature by assuming that after that, things would realistically stabilize into something more difficult and boring. Well, that’s a total lie! The things you experience several years into an established relationship are so insanely funny and unique that I feel like it’s a waste that more people don’t set games during that phase of a relationship.
Q: What was it like for you to take your characters through hard times and traumatic events?
A: Writing a lot of those parts made me cry! Like many immigrant kids, I had plenty of complicated feelings about my parents and identity growing up, so it was cathartic writing my characters grappling with similar things I once did and eventually finding happiness anyway.
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Butterfly Soup 2is available now on PC.
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