Butterfly Soup 2 and creating games to help your past self
This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series. The IGF (Independent Games Festival) aims to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize independent game developers advancing the medium. Every year, Game Developer sits down with the finalists for the IGF ahead of GDC to explore the themes, design decisions, and tools behind each entry.
Butterfly Soup 2once more hangs with a group of gay Asian-American teens as they play baseball, send 2009-era memes over text, and deal with the complexities of school and life.
Brianna Lei, creator of the Excellence in Narrative-nominated title, spoke with Game Developer about what was specifically compelling about the time they chose to set the game in (2008-2009), the challenging fan expectations that can come from creating a sequel to a well-loved story, and how they created an experience that would have helped their past self.
Who are you, and what was your role in developing Butterfly Soup 2 ?
My name is Brianna Lei and I created Butterfly Soup 2. I wrote, programmed, and drew all the art for the game.
What's your background in making games?
I’m a jack-of-all-trades! I’ve worked as a designer, artist, and writer over the past ten years on a variety of stuff like virtual pet-raising games, hack-and-slash games, and dating sims. But I’m best known for my solo work in narrative-focused games.
How did you come up with the concept for Butterfly Soup 2 ?
When I was in college, I was a huge fan of sports anime like Free!, Oofuri, and Haikyu!!. There weren’t a lot of popular anime about girls playing sports, so I felt inspired to make my own story about that topic. But since I only knew how to make video games, it had to be a video game instead of
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