Hustle Cat is a game made by Datenighto and can be found on itch.io.
Price: $20
Point one is that the length of the game is decent. There are six romanceable characters, though the way the game starts is more like real life, and setting up for the romance to come.
Point two is then the characters.
- Avery
- main character; not a stand-in
- Finley
- fangirl
- Landry
- nice guy. good at construction
- Reese
- awkward and a little stuck up, but not a bad guy
- Hayes
- easily the shyest character in the game
- Mason
- the strong, silent type
- Graves
- Avery and the others` Poe-quoting boss
- Mochi
- Avery`s cat
The main plot of the story is that Avery, who is crashing in his aunt`s apartment while she`s abroad, gets his first job working at a cat cafe. When asked to get some coffee beans from the basement, Avery finds a mysterious unreadable book. What`s the book for? And what`s this about there being a catch to working at the cafe???
Point three is Avery. I very much identified with him/her as a main character. (You even get to choose which you`d like!) Right from one of the very first lines, I identified with him (screenshot from the game):
There are other fun lines as well, and I was laughing through a lot of the playthrough.
The art is cute, the sprites change expressions, which is always nice, and the story is fun. Each character is a distinctly different personality, and all are interesting to get to know in their own ways.
Downsides: A couple of the technical parts need work. The game is meant to be played through at least six times, but the skip dialogue button goes over both old and new dialogue without stopping. It`s also a weird glitchy speed through, and doesn`t really help since you have to read to make sure it doesn`t start going over dialogue you haven`t seen yet. There are also two photos in the gallery that seems to be a known glitch, and even after you complete all the routes, you can`t get them.
Overall Score:
♠♣♥♦9/10♦♥♣♠
It`s a cute game, and I like all of the characters. Not everything is explained, but enough is hinted at once you`ve been through all endings that you can guess what happened in the past that led up to the events of the present. It did lose points in my book because of three things; the missing gallery photos, the weird skip dialogue button, and a lack of save space. If the three problems I mentioned were fixed, I`d change my score to a 9.5. ^_^