I went into the immersive horror sim, Thanks for the Soup, with few expectations—I certainly didn’t think it would hurl me into the complex world of organic broccoli farming, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
The premise of Thanks for the Soup is simple: you deliver soup from 5pm to 1am to patrons who are stuck inside by some vague lockdown or just because their work is too hectic for them to make a trip to the store and turn the oven on. The more orders you fill, the more money you get, which can go towards a few different things: food, fishing, or farming.
I decided my wages would best be spent on setting the foundations for an organic broccoli farm. What started out as a simple bid to grow enough food to keep me peddling soup orders sprouted into my dream job—the soup delivery became a side hustle.
Yes, the town in which I find myself delivering soup is more than slightly unnerving. The occupants are kind of weird, the neighbourhood gets super dark, flashes of light and thick white fog descends on the town at random, and occasionally you experience a heavenly vision. But a job’s a job, and I find cycling around on my bike surprisingly peaceful. All I have to do is think of my broccoli, oh, and eat a mushroom or two—did I mention there’s a wide variety of mushrooms found across town?
On my travels across town I found five different types of mushrooms, and because of my dedication to science and—recently—farming, I decided to eat all of them. From what I found, Zuzu mushroom takes a hammer to my depth perception, the Tolid Mushroom makes me super fast, the Folor mushroom makes everything wavy, and as for the Ulod and Cranim mushrooms, I’m not sure yet—I ate a ton of both of them and nothing seemed to happen.
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These mushrooms are a big help, especially when things get a bit spooky—it’s hard to be scared of whatever may be lurking in the shadows when I’m fighting the mushroom waves trying to stay on my bike. Although I do have to admit that I likely haven’t reached peak horror yet as I haven’t entered the kitchen.
On my first day as a soup delivery person I was told by my manager not to go into the kitchen. Apparently, if I did I would disturb the chefs and they also don’t want their secret recipe getting out. I’ve watched enough SpongeBob SquarePants to suspect that they’re probably using humans as the secret ingredient, but that’s honestly none of my business. They can keep on cooking humans as long as I can keep farming organic broccoli. Because if I can farm broccoli, then what’s this all been about? What have I been working toward?
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