Hustle Cat's nod to a boys love visual novel classic

How a sweet English-language visual novel paid homage to a genre classic.

Hustle Cat's nod to a boys love visual novel classic

How a sweet English-language visual novel paid homage to a genre classic.

green solid is a visual novel studio created by Kasey Van Hise and Lindsay Woods. With developer Date Nighto, they created the 2016 game Hustle Cat, and currently have an 18+ horror boys love visual novel titled West Falls in production.

Hustle Cat allows the player to choose the appearance and pronouns of the protagonist, with pronouns independent of appearance – whether you choose to look masculine or more androgynous, you can play the majority of the game as male/male romance if you desire. It's a charming game, and highly recommended for any BL fan. 

But it's in one of the two female routes that the real fujoshi gold can be found: Finley, the social media superstar, has a phone charm and earrings of a game called Bl@st Zone, and is intrigued to see the protagonist is wearing a shirt of the same game.

She mentions that she loves the character Akiya, and from the way she talks about the game it becomes apparent that it's a BL game centred around fighting. I remember playing the demo when it was first on Kickstarter and being like "wait, wait a second... is this a Togainu no Chi reference?"

I've since been lucky enough to work with Van Hise and Woods throughout the long process of doing quality assurance on Slow Damage, and therefore am able to confirm that yes, Hustle Cat is indeed offering a nod to Togainu no Chi. In fact, that game's influence on green solid goes even deeper – the studio's name comes from the green curry Solids that Keisuke likes best to eat in Togainu no Chi.

green solid's forthcoming horror BL, West Falls, is currently available as a demo, though production on the full game has stalled for the time being. I'm happy to wait, though, as it looks like it's going to be incredible. 

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