Talk:Butterfly Soup

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Butterfly Soup/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 19:02, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I'll take this one on. I'll try to get to it within the week. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• I'm going to give this a first pass. It's generally solid and we can come back for the lead and other final touches.
• Gameplay
• The first sentence is a bit of a mouthful. I might recommend trying to shorten it, or breaking it into two sentences with the most basic information coming first.
• "The game progresses linearly through scenes without deviation, with the exception of occasional scenes where the player can choose to move through a few different locations or select various objects." -> "The game is mostly linear, with the exception of scenes where the player can select the next location or object to engage with."
• "with the player taking the role and reading the thoughts of the viewpoint character from a first-person perspective" -> "with the player taking the role of four different viewpoint characters from a first-person perspective."
• Plot
• Again, the first sentence is a bit dense here. Same advice about shortening it or breaking it up.
• "around when they were in third grade" -> "their time during the third grade".
• Just want to clarify about what happens during the third grade and what happens in the present. It seems like each paragraph jumps back and forth, but it's not 100% clear what's in the past and the present.
• "The four girls play a practice scrimmage with the baseball club, and Noelle... decides to join the club with the other girls after her mother tells her that any time spent with her friends is wasted." -> "The four girls play a practice scrimmage with the baseball club. Noelle..."
• "In Akarsha's section, the girls play a baseball game against a team from Jun's school, winning due to Min's knuckleball pitching, which she had promised Diya in 3rd grade that she would learn." -> "In Akarsha's section, the girls play a baseball game against a team from Jun's school. They win due to Min's knuckleball pitching, which she had promised Diya in third grade that she would learn."
• " Diya comes out to Akarsha, who tells her that she is bisexual and Diya just had not noticed, and that Min likes Diya back." -> "Diya and Akarsha both come out to each other, and Akarsha confides that Min likes Diya back."
• Development
• By the time of its release, at age 23, Lei had been developing indie video games for five years..."
• "Prior to its release, Lei had been developing indie video games for five years..."
• Maybe a paragraph break as we get into the actual development of this game, and away from Lei's background.
• " Lei was inspired by sports anime shows such as Haikyu!! and Free! and teen drama series such as Skins;" -> "When developing the concept for Butterfly Soup, Lei was inspired by sports anime shows such as Haikyu!! and Free! and teen drama series such as Skins."
• "Lei made the characters all different ethnicities as growing up she had been surrounded by children from multiple Asian backgrounds, but had found that the few teen dramas or coming-of-age stories to have Asian-Americans usually only had a single ethnicity other than white" -> "Lei created characters from multiple Asian backgrounds based on her own experience growing up in California, and also as a reaction to watching teen dramas that focused exclusively on white characters."
• "spanning the entirety of the characters' freshman year and concluding with the graduation of the two older baseball captains" -> "focused on the characters' entire freshman year."
• "with the working title Queen of Diamonds" -> this feels like a stray thought in this sentence, and might make sense to introduce earlier.
• "Lei originally anticipated that she would complete the game more than a year sooner than development ended up taking" -> "Lei found that development took over a year longer than she had planned"
• " and then filled in the dialogue afterwards, using elements of her personal life and humorous lines she had heard or invented and then writing the dialogue that would lead to them." -> "and built the dialog around humourous lines and other elements of her personal life."
• "including free; she has said that this is because in high school, when she "needed a game like this", she would not have been able to pay money for it without asking her parents and discussing the game's LGBT content and mentions of parental abuse." -> "She felt that the game should even be available for free because her younger self would have "needed a game like this", while being unable to pay for it without discussing the purchase and the game's subject matter with her parents."
• Reception
• Where/when/how was it exhibited at GDC?
• I might suggest reducing the amount of quotes where they don't really add anything, since it can start to break the flow.
• This is a really well written section.
• Sequel
• "She said a few months later in early 2018 that it was planned for release in mid-2019, though she warned that the original game had taken much longer than expected" -> This sentence is a little confusing. How does the length of the original game connect to this game?

Shooterwalker (talk) 18:44, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Okay, all the above done. --PresN 21:48, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Going back around for the lead and any other lingering issues.

• Lead
• I don't know if "in" is better for a date than "on".

• It's better when it's a month, you can't do something "on" September

• I don't know if queer is a more accurate term than LGBT (considering the plot specifically uses the terms bisexual and lesbian for different characters).

• Switched, Min and Noelle never actually self-identify, but LGBT is probably more accurate

• You use the word "follow(s)" twice in two sentences, back to back.

• Done

• "while also exploring the interactions between the characters' four different personalities." -> I feel like this is implied and you could drop it to improve readability, without losing anything. Or at least heavily shorten it.

• Done

• The lead is otherwise solid.
• Body
• For the plot, it might be better to state the setting first, and the premise second. (But maybe premise first is the right call.)

• Done

• "In the present day, it shows Diya's friendship with Akarsha and Noelle and her realization that she is a lesbian, finishing with the trio collectively deciding to try out a new baseball club and discovering that Min has moved back to Fremont." -> this sentence is a little long and might work better as two sentences.

• Done

• The two timelines on the plot are a lot clearer now.
• "claimed that it was a cult hit" -> "called it a cult hit" or even "hailed it as a cult hit"

• Done

• Is tomorrowed a reliable source? I understand interviews are a little loose, and maybe it's enough just to know that the interview is authentic.

• Yeah, I'm using it because it's an interview, I don't think it would stand up on it's own - it is authentic, Brianna Lei liked their tweet where they promoted it.

• Is laptop mag a reliable source?

• Yes, it's a 30-year-old magazine with editors and everything that's gone through a bunch of names over the years. It's mostly about laptops (hence the name) and other hardware, but they do have a few games articles.

• Would the external link to the sequel be more appropriate for the sequel article?

• Now moved, the sequel article didn't exist when I nominated the article

That's it. It's all pretty minor stuff, and you can take the questions at face value. We can figure these last few things out together. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:36, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Replied inline, thanks! --PresN 01:53, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

This is all excellent and I'm happy to promote this to GA. Thanks again for all your work on this. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2023 (UTC)