The Cat Lady

I admire what this Adventure was trying to do, but it missed the mark so badly. It's a story about depression and suicidal tendencies, which is a great theme that could truly use exploration. So many people get depressed because their dog died or whatever, and think that's the same thing as depression; it isn't; I've lived with it almost all of my life. There were moments when the game did an excellent job of capturing what depression truly feels like; moments that would shine like a full moon on a snowfield. Then, she'd have a psychotic episode, because reasons; that's not what depression is like. It did a pretty bad job of addressing the issue of suicidal tendencies, as well; even the parts where depression was addressed were few and far between. Not to spoil anything, but the ending (all of them, actually) was even worse; not to spoil anything the resolution isn't something that can realistically happen to help you manage depression. There were also all sorts of weird effects that the game had, like slowdown, jump-cuts, and a few chapters where you're jumping back and forth in time for no real reason, other than that it's "interesting". In fact, there's one entire scene that comes and goes, never having to do with ANYTHING else in the story. The whole thing comes off like some experimental film made by college freshmen, who were really just so excited to tell you about this revelation they'd had while smoking weed one night. Downfall was all over the place, too, but that actually fit the mental illness that it was portraying. The pacing was glacial, too; there's a LOT of stopping to talk, which would be fine, but most of the conversation isn't particularly engaging. The puzzles were often obtuse, as well. I do have to give it credit, though, for those few moments where they actually remembered to be engaged with the subject matter, and when they didn't forget the actual plot they'd spent so much time setting up, and the artstyle was wonderful.

I enjoyed playing The Cat Lady. Like a few other folks, I didn't expect much, but it was relatively inexpensive, so I purchased it. I am so glad I did. The story is good, the mood is just right and the main character, Susan Ashworth is pretty relateable. While the art style put me off a bit, it fits the game. I did enjoy the soundtrack very much. It had some predictable moments, but I feel almost all games have those. For an indie title, it was very well done. While replayability is obviously very low, I did play through it three times just becuase I enjoyed it so much. Give it a try!

This game caught my eye since it has got good game reviews, it has localized into my language and I haven't played many adventure games. So I gave a try with this one. The game controls are simple: four directional keys and the Enter key. Nothing more is needed, and thus you can easily get into how the game works. And I also like there is no frustrating pixel hunting like in many point-and-click graphic adventure video games. So the game challenge is done right: figuring out how to handle the hotspots, not finding them desperately. The game visuals looks quite dated but they are suitable for this kind of game on the other hand. Grim, stylized and low colored. It looks so much like in some older flash horror games. The voice acting is pretty okay but it's nothing special, and few dialogues are totally muted for some glitch. It's nice to see the game is localized in my mother language which is rare, but the game localization is quite lacking unfortunately. Some translations does not match with the dialog, there are some spelling errors, few texts are overlapping and few texts are not localized at all displaying them in the source language instead. Also the readability of the texts are not so good because of the font style and the weak contrast between the texts and the background. This game was not that scary for a horror game. There was really no tension or any suspension to keep on toes. The gore and the sexual content was not really shocking or anything very noticeable despite the warning. And the story of depression and being suicidal went quite sidetracked in the last two chapters. Anyway, I had good time with this game. If only it would have more replay value, like real choices that affect the game storyline.

Excellent and scary story with some really fantastic puzzles. I didn't get tripped up enough to look any answers up, but also didn't feel like the puzzles were too easy. Perfectly balanced in that regard. The art is pretty rough around the edges, but despite that it works really well and the atmosphere and mood are just right. The only major flaw is that some of the dialogue exchanges are way too long and often redundant. Over explains. Definitely a must play for point and click lovers, assuming the themes aren't too heavy for you.

very very very good game