Poptart’s route has 1st-person, very detailed flashbacks of his mother verbally assaulting him, hitting him, slamming him into walls, not feeding him properly, and not giving him proper medical care. He is safely in foster care now, but Poptart’s trauma related to his abuse is the crux of his character arc and cannot be ignored in his route.
In Garth’s and Tom’s routes, it is revealed that Garth has been kidnapped and kept in a basement (he is a teenager). In Garth’s route, this is shown in first person. This, like Poptart’s trauma, is a crucial part of his route that can’t be ignored.
As mentioned before, a character in the final route describes being repeatedly sexually assaulted while in high school by a teacher.
During Poptart’s route, Aaron’s OCD is triggered and he vomits on-screen. There is an accompanying sound effect, but the game does have a slider to turn off sound effects. The event happens on Planets Day if you want to turn off sound going in, but be warned that the same setting also turns off voice acting.
Nobody is tortured for the sake of torture, but during the later days of multiple routes, the training at band camp is incredibly harsh and leads to extreme physical pain and exhaustion. There are also cruel punishments in the game, like destroying someone’s instrument, forcibly dyeing someone’s hair, and many other similar instances.
There are not misophonia-triggering sound effects.
Poptart describes his mother as having misophonia and seems to also struggle with aversions to some sounds, but the details he goes off of for this label seem faulty. Both he and his mother have an issue with all loud sounds (like thunder or loud talking), not specific misophonia triggers (at least not from what’s shown in game). Still, it is a topic of discussion briefly in Poptart’s route.
Poptart is mentally ill and will threaten violence towards an antagonist in his route. In the good ending, he is talked down, but in the bad ending he follows through with it. He is an example of the “yandere” archetype.
In some bad endings, notably in the true route, Garth can die. He is openly gay, the only explicitly LGBT character in the game. His death is optional, and can be prevented using the walkthroughs available on the Lovebird Games website.
There is a gun which, throughout the routes, gets juggled around between the cast and used many times. It is usually used for intimidation, but in some bad endings it is used to kill. It is shown in Mr. Wiley’s sprites, but no other characters. There is an accompanying sound effect when it is fired.
During the true route, the Warden also has a gun and uses it for similar purposes.
Though it is not explicitly PTSD, Poptart clearly suffers from some sort of trauma disorder(s) from the abuse he faced as a child. His mental health is a focal point of his route and cannot be easily skipped past.
Sort of. Though not explicitly so, multiple characters (including the POV character Cadence) seem to have panic attacks. They are related specifically to the traumatic events in game—none of them have recurring anxiety disorders.
Poptart’s father was terminally ill, and then died at some point off-screen when he was young.
The Warden is terminally ill, and his motivation for his evil actions is attempting to get organs for a transplant.
Almost all bad endings involve major character death, with many even killing off Cadence. The true ending also does feature the death of an antagonist.
Sam’s route features a major fake-out where the player is lead to believe for a long time that someone important to him died.
No, but there is one optional bad ending of the final route where it is left open-ended if a character was led to his death by a ghost or by a hallucination.
Clark’s cat does in a comic (see: Does a pet die?).
In Tom’s route, he attempts a self-sacrifice, which ends up actually happening in his low-affinity bad ending.
Occasionally Cadence will narrate that she is about to take a shower, and then the game cuts to after she does so, but there are no scenes during showers/baths.
In Samuel’s route, his grandfather has a mini-stroke off-screen. He survives, but it still scares Samuel, especially because it takes a few days for the news that he survived to get to him.
Not illegal/non-prescription ones, but Mr. Wiley is shown at multiple points to be taking antidepressants. This is given particular weight in Poptart’s route and the final route.
Rebecca, one of the characters in Samuel’s ghost story, will sometimes appear to the characters. She is malicious and in some endings even leads people to their death, but it is left partially ambiguous whether she is real or a hallucination.
In part. Poptart is once mocked by being called “Pop-tard”, which is especially harmful considering the strong autism-coding he has. This only happens once and is played lightheartedly.
Poptart’s dad died quietly off-screen, and iirc Doug’s dad is either dead or completely out of the picture.
A band teacher who is something of a father figure to Cadence died years before the game, which is shown in flashback scenes in Tom’s route.
Yes, in a ghost story told by Samuel in Poptart’s route, there is a fatal suicide. This story is not shown in 1st-person or described in much detail, but it is strongly implied if not confirmed to have really happened.
No, but some sentimental objects belonging to minors are.
Poptart breaks a wedding photo of his parents during a 1st-person flashback.
Samuel’s saxophone was run over a few months before the game starts. It was a family heirloom and he is racked by grief over this.
Cornelius (a minor character) has his cornet destroyed as a punishment. It is described in viscerally upsetting detail (for an instrument). There is also a blink-and-you’ll-miss it line from Peter, asking Samuel if he’s alright after seeing this.
Yes. Poptart’s dad dies quietly off-screen between flashbacks.
Also, Samuel’s grandfather has a mini-stroke, and it takes a few days for Sam (and the player) to find out that he survived.
The whole band is kidnapped as the inciting incident of the game, except in the final/true route (which is only unlocked by playing all the others).
At the end of Garth’s route, regardless of player choices, he and Cadence are kidnapped on-screen by Mr. Wiley and locked in a basement. This happens off-screen to Garth only in all other routes except the final route, and in Tom’s it is given narrative weight (in the form of a rescue mission).
As previously described in more detail (see: Is someone sexually assaulted?), it is revealed in the true route that a major character was sexually assaulted the year before the game took place. This is always portrayed as a bad thing, and we never hear anything from the perpetrator justifying his actions.
More details in “Is someone sexually assaulted?”, but sort of. Felicity touches boys without their consent and is never called out for it, even later being portrayed as a heroic figure in regards to her involvement with the survivor of sexual assault in the final route. It is played lightheartedly, but characters themselves don’t joke about men being assaulted.
The sound effects themselves aren’t very loud and can be turned down, but there are thunder and gunshot effects.
There are also scenes in Poptart’s depicting struggles with loud noises, though they still aren’t actually loud to the player.
Yes, but not permanently. It’s always more in-line with neglect.
Poptart’s mother has him walk to school alone after severely injuring his leg.
Clark’s parents always payed much more attention to his siblings. Once, when the family of five won four tickets to Disneyworld, Clark was left home at Bible camp. He was physically well taken care of, but still harbors resentment over this incident and all the others like it.
Yes, in one route Olive briefly mentions it. She bluntly describes how she has self-defense training and tools because she is very small and does not want to be raped.
There are some scenes where a character discovers partway through the scene that someone is listening in/watching them. The biggest perpetrators of this are Poptart and the Warden.
Not in any serious way, but there was a scene I found slightly insensitive as an aromantic person. There is a dialogue option where Cadence’s friends ask her who she has a crush on. If the player chooses “nobody”, Cadence goes on a fourth-wall breaking rant about how much she hates all of the characters. This leads to a comedic bad ending. Of course, she is the alloromantic protagonist of a dating game, but it is slightly upsetting to see not having any crushes at a given moment being conflated with hating everyone.
A character contemplates letting his pet out into the wild for fear of being unable to take care of it, but he does not actually do this or mistreat her in any other way.
No, though at one point Tom is very lightly teased for wearing a coconut bra and skirt. It is not in a trans context at all, but it might be slightly upsetting to people who have struggled with similar things in a different context.
The largest possible age gap is two years, between 16-year-old Cadence, and 18-year-old Peter. Some antagonistic side characters joke about the implications of an adult Peter dating a minor, but seeing as they are only a grade apart in school this is not a serious issue. If it does bother you, though, be aware of the fact that Peter’s route does focus on the fact that he’s going to go to college while Cadence is still in high school.
The minor characters are sometimes depicted shirtless or in swimwear, and will occasionally make sexual jokes or innuendos, but the characters themselves are not intended to be seen in a sexual light.
There are some scenes where male characters are shirtless while swimming or working out, but nothing that would get anyone a public nudity charge in the U.S.
It’s complicated? Poptart will willingly share his birth name with the player later on in his route, but his relationship with that name is very complicated. He’s okay with Cadence calling him it privately, which her internal monologue switches to doing exclusively, but he doesn’t want the rest of the band to know it and seems to have negative memories associated with it. The name is also seen extensively in flashbacks from before he was called Poptart. Also worth noting is the fact that Poptart is not explicitly trans, and his deadname is a masculine one (which aligns with his stated gender presentation in-game). Still, it could be potentially triggering to see his birth name used so much, especially because he is somewhat trans-coded.
It isn’t debated or given much detail, but in his own and Clark’s routes, Poptart questions the meaning of his life and if anyone would miss him if he disappeared. In both cases, he is talked into realizing that he does have a place in the band.
The end credits happen in the middle of the last chapter of every route. There is still a brief scene on the field and then a full epilogue after the credits.
There are optional bad endings, most of which are very tragic. They can be avoided using the walkthroughs on the Lovebird Games website, but Garth’s bad ending must be played to unlock the final route, and Peter’s good ending could be considered bittersweet.
There is a through-line in the background of the story, mainly in Garth’s route, that a former band director inappropriately touched an underage student. It is revealed to be a major character in the final route, and this character and their friends discuss it. They don’t go into much detail, but it is given a lot of narrative time and weight. In all other routes except the final route, it does not factor into the story.
Also, Felicity is handsy with boys (namely Tom and Leon) and consent is dubious.