Butterfly//Circuit
WireWARE · 2024 · Visual Novel, Psychological Horror, Thriller, Story Rich, Conspiracy
PC
Positive100% · 25
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About Butterfly//Circuit
Unable to deal with the aftermath of what happened in her home town of Rzekiva, Amelia Morrison leaves for the city to try and pick up the pieces of what’s left.
The routine of every day life is comfortably numbing in its monotony, but no matter how much she tries to suppress them, the memories of that town always resurface. Despite the pain they cause, their persistence reveal that the events that transpired in Rzekiva may not have been what they seem.
As Amelia peels back the layers, the world around her starts to spiral and she alone stands in the middle of it all. Trust and truth become scarce commodities.
Butterfly//Circuit is set in the New European Federated Economic Territory (NEFET) in the grey city of Centropol. Surveillance, resource extraction and the policing of bodies are nothing if not the norm within the concrete grid, but Amelia has bigger things to worry about. Networks of conspiracy, hidden passages, and lost technoccultures permeate the the fabric of Centropol, and Morrison has to cut through the threads.
Crossing paths with faces both new and old, Amelia has to choose wisely who to trust, and who to keep at arms length.
From up and coming solo developer WireWARE with guidance from the MVU, Butterfly//Circuit is a cybergothic kinetic visual novel featuring a twisting drama laced with psychological horror inspired by the likes of Serial Experiments Lain, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, and the works of David Lynch.Butterfly//Circuit creates a dark and tense reading experience supported by original art and an originally composed soundtrack featuring a variety of music ranging from pumping techno and chill trip-hop, to moody post-rock and atmospheric drones.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
i love everything about this game, please make more visual novels2 found this helpful
... damn
Butterfly//Circuit is an engaging exploration of grief and loneliness, despite being among thousands of people, but is held back by amateurish writing and an abrupt ending. Amelia Morrison and her friend Charlie Barker are delinquents with few future prospects in the last year of high school, but they at least have plans to move in together, away from their desolate hometown—something to look forward to. [spoiler]But then Charlie dies.[/spoiler] A year later, Amelia is living in the big city, Centropol, working a backbreaking job as a garbage sorter. But when she sees something that could be a clue about what happened last year, she is caught in a spiral of research and theorizing. The setting and atmosphere were the most enthralling part of Butterfly//Circuit. The artwork,—gross, grey-and-yellow, concrete facades—the grungy soundtrack, and the evocative descriptions portray Centropol as a disgusting, oppressive city that makes Amelia feel cornered. Also, the first half of the story does an excellent job of capturing the mundanity of full-time industrial work. However, some of the grammar in the writing is lacking. The author has a real aversion to using commas, so most se…
This captures something that is becoming increasingly important to me not just in games, but everything creative, and that is it being deeply human. Messy, bizarre and emotional, with all the flaws and contrivances, there is overwhelming life to Butterfly//Circuit. As pointed out in other reviews, there are typos and some of the story is overly long, but I’m glad this was allowed to exist, to be what it is, because there are things that usually get cut out in the process of (over)refinement that I appreciate are still intact here. The entire novel is a huge achievement, especially for a single creator, and well worth people’s time. It all feels so cohesive, filled with an abundance of intriguing ideas and moments that I just wish more people would get the chance to experience. Also, mundane cyberpunk slice of life is a genre I didn’t know I needed to exist, but here we are.
Playing Butterfly//Circuit resembles death by one thousand cuts. It made me extremely anxious at times, and it's a testament to the quality of the writing that it was able to do so effectively and have it feel earned. Play the prologue first, and if you enjoy it, play the full thing.
Minor spoliers; Aside a couple nitpicks, a desire for one side character to get something more satisfying than having a disappointing resolution, and a certain out-of-place segment involving PC building, I really loved Amelia and if I could give her a hug, I would.
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