KITTYPOOL Traces Visual Novel Roots To Moon, Gunbuster, And ECD
KITTYPOOL describes the games as pop entertainment built on deliberately bounded worldbuilding, which explains why the social themes sit next to genre influences rather than being the point of the work.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
In a Game Spark interview, solo developer KITTYPOOL says the visual novel Kutsuhimo Monogatari and its spinoff PAIC: Moon Rider Monogatari grew from a shared love of the 1997 RPG Moon. KITTYPOOL calls both works pop entertainment despite their social-problem themes, and cites superhero comics, film criticism, Alan Moore's Top 10, and the ECD rap classic as influences.
KITTYPOOL started making games in 2021 as a two-person team. The first question the pair asked was what to build, and both liked Moon, the 1997 RPG, so they decided to make something Moon-like and fleshed it out from there. The developer says Kutsuhimo Monogatari was not merely influenced by Moon but consciously built to resemble it, including the premise of a hero who talks down a demon lord rather than fighting him.
Other cited influences include Alan Moore's Top 10, superhero comics generally, and film criticism. KITTYPOOL also names ECD, the Japanese rapper, alongside the Chinese science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem and Gunbuster.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.