I think way back in the Town Park review, I said that themed playgrounds were going to be a trend, and I like to think that's been true anyway. We've had at least three with some kind of consistent theme (and no, "horrible run down death trap" does not count as a theme), and it's been interesting to compare and contrast these themes as the garrison has went on.

So naturally, when google maps started telling me about the "Butterfly Park", I figured it was either one of two things. Either it was some kind of nature area for butterflies like they have at nearly every zoo, or it's a playground themed around butterflies.

In reality, it's uh... Well, I'll let it speak for itself.

When you turn the corner to the Butterfly Park, you're met with this slightly foreboding obelisk bearing butterfly symbols, and a rather large metal statue depicting two butterflies. Now, if there's anything kids love, it's giant insects, so this seems like fitting decor.

It did make me worry that I was headed down a path to something other than a playground though, which was deeply disconcerting on a personal level. I can't have people thinking I'm the kind of person to go to a park WITHOUT a playground, after all.

Luckily, I was not disappointed, at least by the presence of this structure anyway. I think it's trying to be butterfly themed but we'll... see about that.

I was however, disappointed in this picnic bench off to the side, because not only did someone just leave their water bottle there, but they didn't even finish drinking their water? Look, say what you will about the gravity of this situation, but if you're gonna leave your bottle, at LEAST finish your water dude. You're literally wasting the money you spent on this overpriced bottled shit.

And now, time for a lore dump. The stairs going up to the playground are labeled "BLUE IMP", and it just so happens that this name means something to me. Blue Imp is basically Canada's leading manufacturer of shitty prefabricated playground parts. I'm not sure if it's the case anymore, but as a kid if you came across some playground with like literally just a slide and some swings, maybe a REALLY effortless climbing area, chances are pretty good you'd see BLUE IMP plastered at least somewhere on it.

Either way, seeing the logo did not fill me with confidence, because usually blue imp stuff is pretty lame

On the other side of the stairs there's like, this. I guess it's marginally more interesting than taking the stairs, which isn't saying much. If I was really itching for some climbing action, I'd probably rather take the next way up on the list here.

I have no idea what it is with playground and bizarre alien geometry, but here you go, I guess. The obligatory weirdly shaped climbing thing. Speaking of climbing things, it's been quite a while since I've seen actual monkeybars around here. I know I said the same thing about the meme wheel last episode, but this is even weirder because monkeybars are like a playground staple.

They're not a playground staple I'm a massive fan of mind you because I have no upper body strength, but it's still just weird.

While I was circling the perimeter, I figured I'd try and see if this thing was as much of a scrotal apocalypse as the chipmunk ride from Cimarron Park, but it's so small I couldn't even fit, so I had to squat like a Russian on the seat and try to awkwardly rock it back and forth. It technically does work I guess, but I should probably point out that I'm not very hefty myself so if I couldn't even get my ass in the seat, I'm sure there's a good chunk of kids completely screwed over by the proportions of this thing.

Town Park called, it wants its gimmick back.

There's also these circular things which I guess kids can... walk through? I'm not seeing much of a point to these, because unlike Pirate Park, underneath this playground is basically open space, save for the ice cream shop. Strictly speaking, there's no reason to go playing down here. Also, what does any of this have to do with butterflies? The rocking horse thing was a butterfly I guess so points there, but I didn't know that ice cream and flying insects were correlated.

Anyway, after all the shit I gave them, I ended up taking the stairs up anyway because I'm stupid and lazy. But it was worth it, because on my left was...

...An old enemy of mine...

Well, looks like I spoke too soon last time, because here's two of the fuckers. I guess the control panel looking thing kind of justifies them a bit, but again, this doesn't even match up with anything else in the park. I went looking into it, and apparently this is literally just a BLUE IMP prefab thing slotted in. Really? Can't just toss another slide in, guys?

I went looking on the flipside to see if maybe it was some kind of car motif deal, but actually there's just this picture of a santa claus christmas elf in a UFO. I guess they're supposed to be spaceship controls?

I did go looking into why the fuck this image is even on a piece of playground equipment though, and apparently it's the blue imp mascot lazily copypasted in.

Clearly though, this imp in the UFO is actually red, which leads me to believe he's like, the evil counterpart or something. Maybe that's why he's the one with the UFO. I feel like I'm trying to make too many lore assumptions here, so I took it right to the source.

I picked some random gas station in a random city around here as the address and the phone number is fake, but hopefully they get back to me soon through email.

Getting back on topic, across the bridge sits yet another meme wheel, this one without any kind of stylings or actual theme to it. It blows. I think it's supposed to be like a ship's captain thing because it's in one of these little alcoves, but instead it looks like some asshole slapped a steering wheel on his balcony.

A little further on, I found the second butterfly themed thing.

I think it's a maze? I guess you're supposed to do it with your finger or something because you obvious can't draw on it, and that seems just a little lame to me. I feel like actually drawing your line in a maze is half the point because it makes it easy to retrace your steps and figure out where you fucked up. I guess this maze makes up for it though by instead being pathetically easy.

On the other side there's a... sign language dictionary?

I'm all for teaching people sign language for easier communication but this feels like a really weird thing to put in there. Imagine being the kid who goes to the playground to practice sign language using the shitty blue imp wall while all his friends play with the meme wheel or something. I think the idea is nice but I don't think this is actually going to catch anyone's attention outside of maybe that one weird kid who thinks he's a spy and wants to talk in code.

The pole is about what you'd expect, but the slide can either be pretty nice or a total nightmare. These bumpy slides have an issue where sometimes you'll glide over the humps and kind of get a unique sliding experience, but half of the time the slight airtime the bump gives you just ends up hurting your ass if you go too fast.

This one's pretty slick too, so I can imagine that if you had sweatpants or something on you'd probably come out of it with some genuine butthurt. I had a lot of fun with it though, so I think overall it's a positive.

Last, and actually not least this time, we have the swings. The bar these things are set up on is relatively unique and cool with different heights and stuff, but where these swings win it for me is the seating. These things are like inhumanly comfortable, and probably the one thing I do actually like about this playground. They swing pretty well too, of course. You can get some good momentum going on these.

And that's about all there is to look at here. I've been all over the dubiously-named Butterfly Park, and I haven't been terribly impressed, which is why I'm giving this a...

THE VERDICT: 4/10

Talk about a bungled theme. Outside of maybe the swings, the park itself is nothing special, maybe a 5 or so, but claiming to have a theme only to basically just throw random shit in there is a pretty big sin when you have like 3 playgrounds in the same fucking neighborhood that actually commit to their theme and bring some unique flavor to the usual playground experience.

I'm not sure how much shit I can REALLY give this place, because butterflies are admittedly a really bad theme for a playground when it comes to trying to actually come up with unique activities, but the answer is absolutely not to just buy random blue imp panels with meme wheels and a christmas UFO and fucking sign language and toss them haphazardly around. I'll give this place credit for some pretty good swings and a slide that was at least fun for me in particular, but the rest is either painfully generic or just awkward and weird.

I will make sure to post Blue Imp's reply to my inquiry as soon as I receive it though, so worry not.

Damn I laughed out loud at the email and even louder at the SIGN LANGUAGE REFERENCE????????????? Great stuff as always

What in the absolute shit? Yeah you can't theme a playground around butterflies so just DON'T DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. This place seems lazy as hell but the failed theming really seals it.

The Blue Imp shit was gold, I really do hope you get a response to that form. I guess they're like the fucking LJN of playgrounds which terrifies me.

I quite like those wavy slides myself even when they do give you a bit of the ass-pain because they're unique and if you got enough air to slam your ass down, the fun from that probably pays for the pain. In my opinion anyways.

WHY ARE THERE THREE FUCKING MEME WHEELS

Fuck Blue Imp

WHY ARE THERE THREE FUCKING MEME WHEELS

power wheel, wisdom wheel, and courage wheel

Aha, but you have missed a key part of the theme. If you squint hard enough ,the oddly-shaped climbing ladder is actually a caterpillar.

Aha, but you have missed a key part of the theme. If you squint hard enough ,the oddly-shaped climbing ladder is actually a caterpillar.

if you squint hard enough, your post is bullshit

will fun with despair uncover more about the blue imp conspiracy next time? will the blue imp people Get Him????