First time I played I couldn't finish it. I stopped at the pest control chapter, was playing with my grandma who had terminal cancer at that time so it got too close to home to keep playing it... As a suicidal person, like Susan herself, and battling with this invisible desease I can connect with every single aspect of this story, the way it was composed, the enviroments and characters, and the love of my life Mitzi, like they nailed everything from a point and click perspective, the puzzles are interestings and mostly fun to go with, the references are great, I just can't get enough of it. I feel like I missed out by taking such a long time to finish this one, but I love it.

What a fucking game. It was definitely a lot darker and grittier than the other pieces of media I was consuming at the time, but man if it wasn't utterly captivating.

I think I can attribute my understanding of my own struggles with mental health to Susan, actually. She begins the game in a horrid state: cynical and depressed. Life has dealt her shitty hand after shitty hand and she is all the more bitter for it. As she encounters the absolute worst that humanity has to offer, it'd be easy for her to spiral even deeper into her cynicism.

But this doesn't happen. Quite the opposite, in fact. And it's in that juxtaposition between grimdark and the very human interactions between Mitzi and Susan, as well as all the minor NPCs that Susan helps along the way that Susan's character really shines. Why is it that so many of us continue living on even when life seemingly does everything it can to ruin us?

For Susan (and for me, as I eventually grew to understand) it's the few relationships we cherish that gave her hope. She wants to help people. She wants to be a positive force in people's lives so that they don't have to suffer as she did. And that is a sentiment that deeply resonated with me.

Great game with a distinct, and stunning visual style that hasn't left me nearly a decade later.

Have you ever held a game so close to your heart that you can't bear to read negative reviews on it?

I'm not going to be the person who says "This game saved my life!", but I will say The Cat Lady did a lot for me.

I was 11 or 12 when I first watched a playthrough of this game. For the most part I was much too young to really understand the subtleties and overarching messages, but by that age I was already struggling with my mental health. I won't get into details, but I was already extremely depressed and deeply contemplating taking my own life.

I vividly remember watching the early part of The Cat Lady, where Susan wakes up in the afterlife and meets the Queen of Maggots, and it shook me to my fucking core. It scared me. It was the first time I'd been faced with the concept of suicide meaning I'd wake up somewhere bleak and terrifying and sinister and revolting, that it wouldn't be an escape to somewhere peaceful and relieving at all. I couldn't get it out of my head, couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of something like that being real - I was a kid with a very overactive imagination who often had night terrors at the slightest glimpse of a Scary Thing or piece of media, and my brain took this and ran with it.

And I was too scared to go through with it. I was, unironically, too scared to risk meeting this fucking maggot lady.

And, God, was I pissed at this game. I hated it. I was so incredibly angry that it had scared me away from what I'd been viewing as a solution. If I just hadn't watched it, if I just hadn't experienced this story, I would've been able to do it.

My memory of it and my fear faded over the years, and I would go on to indeed attempt suicide several times. The last time would be the worst, and I ended up in intensive care for two weeks with doctors trying to save my internal organs from shutting down.

And then I came out the other side. That was two years ago now, and I can now say with full honesty I don't want to die anymore. In fact, sometimes I'm even brave enough to call myself happy. I'm engaged to a wonderful fiancee, I have a solid support network of amazing friends who care about me, my confidence is growing, and I'm proud of who I've become and am becoming.

And so I played this game again.

The Cat Lady is heavy on the heart. It's not a light game you can play on stream, or sink into to take your mind off reality. It's a visceral and real look into the psyche of a depressed, bitterly suicidal woman, and it doesn't make her palatable for you. Susan is resentful, she's cynical, she's reclusive and messy and often rude. But her journey, through her mission and her friendship with Mitzi and her backstory unfurling to the player and her love for her cats and her mental health and her path to learn to live again - it's so, so special. It's really something for a game so unabashedly raw and unfiltered to leave you with a sense of genuine hope and optimism and appreciation for life when the credits roll.

At 11, I hated The Cat Lady for forcing me to live, and now at almost 24 I love it for being here while I learn to do it myself. It took us 13 years to do it, but Susan and I climbed that insurmountable cliff side by side, and for that I'll always sing this game's praises.

Susan Ashworth is literally me... I said to myself as i started playing through the game. But as the narrative kept going i kept thinking. About my life, my mental health problems, my future, my past. Is it actually true? What kind of person is Susan really? What kind of person am i? This game sure made me ponder about... well, a lot of things.

Now, having just finished The Cat Lady just a few hours ago, all i can say is that i wish i was as strong as Susan. But i think we can all find that strength within ourselves, according to my interpretation of the game's message.

I really enjoyed this game overall, even though I think it started stronger than it finished. It does both surreal themes and more grounded point and click puzzle gameplay really well. Ch 6 is a big highlight, as exploring the whole apt building with this mystery as the motive was very fun and interesting. Early chapters like 1/2/3 feel a lot different, less grounded and more avant-garde. You don't really know what's going on, you're trying to understand who you are and what is actually real. I think both of these styles of storytelling work well, and mesh well for the most part too. Some parts of the dialogue do tend to drag, and the ending felt a bit... disappointing? Not for the reasons why the game tells you it should be, but just that overall it feels a bit rushed and contrived. There is a lot of build up and then the ending happens, and then there's a time skip and some exposition that feels necessary... but it also leaves you with the feeling that you missed out on something more emotionally impactful.

I will also say this game would have definitely appealed to me more as a teen, just bc the themes are a bit early-2010s edgy lmao. It gets mildly cringe at moments because of this, its... just a bit too earnestly emo lmaoooo. But so am I, so 🤪 it was giving "fuck the world" teen vibes for sureeee

Also I have to note that there was a long, drawn out moment of ableism, which was very uncomfortable but also tracks with the release year and also the edgy teen humor vibes. Very unexpected and icky, although I understand the context of when this game was made. Mayyybe doesn't track with modern sentiments tho

Overall this is a fantastic game that I enjoyed playing, even with all the jank. I will say though it feels very of its time (or even earlier than its time) and was hard for my modern computer to run. The biggest issue was that alt-tabbing caused crashes. But that was my only annoyance.

Nejdospělejší titul jaký jsem dosud hrál. A zároveň i ten nejdepresivnější, nejvíce psycho(logický), zdaleka nejlépe napsaný a to především během lahůdkových dialogů. Není moc her (a ostatně ani filmů), kde by dialogy působily jako skutečné rozhovory.

Že především na indie herní scéně vznikají v posledních letech tituly, které se nebojí dělat věci po svém jeden tak nějak očekává. Že vzhledem k minimu prostředků se snaží udělat z nouze ctnost též, ale že se skrze toho dosáhne nefalšovaného artu (kdybyste mermomocí chtěli přirovnání tak jde o specifický mix starého dobrého Kinga, Lynche, Refna, Davea McKeana a Bena Wheatleyho) , který má co říci jak po umělecké, tak i herní stránce, tak toho bych nenadál. Vizuální stylizace je ve vší své černobílé znepokojivosti nádherná, dabing je prožitý jako žádný jiný (a to dabovat čtyřicetiletou šáhlou ženu bez sebemenší ochoty dále žít, tak aby nepůsobila jako parodie sebe sama, není žádný lehký oříšek) a tak nějak prostě není co kritizovat.

A o čem to je? Byla by škoda cokoli vyzradit, ale když to chcete vědět, tak je to o marastu v našich životech a odvrácené stránce našeho pokolení formou psychologického horroru. Že jsem doposud nezmínil nic o hře jako takové? Pravda pravda, no tak vězte, že jde o adventuru, která si sice vystačí pouze se směrovými šipkami a enterem a přesto se v každé ze sedmi kapitol hraje zcela jinak a jde v ní o něco jiného. Zároveň jde o adventuru, která nabízí možnosti volby a díky omezenému prostoru i minimu předmětů je za každých okolností přísně logická, ale rozhodně ne lehká; umí potrápit, ale nikdy se to nezvrhne v „použij vše na vše a doufej, že se něco ujme“.

Catwoman, ehm... Cat Lady není příjemný zážitek, ale je to sakra silný a působivý zážitek, ze kterého jsem stejnou měrou psychicky vyšťaven jako naprosto nepokrytě nadšen.

Some story elements here were wonky. The opening with the Queen of Maggots misdirected to what the story would be like and what the focus would be on. Other elements of the story are so surreal I have to wonder if they're metaphorical or in the character's head so the extended opening set me up for the wrong expectations.

Judging this story's portrayal of depression is hard because I didn't get a strong essence of what Susan's problems are really like aside from she's lonely and traumatized. As a series of vignettes about sadism and horror– this game works very well. I like the aesthetics and thought that the dour environments were very realized.

I also like the simple controls and presentation. Using the keyboard exclusively– a handful of keys– worked well with the game's stripped down attire. The music could be a little goofy but it was mostly excellent taking from a broad handful of genres.

I've been marathoning a video games podcast and when I got to their episode of The Cat Lady, I decided to check the game as I have heard a lot of good things here and coming away from it, even if I had played more titles this October, I can't imagine me any other potential game giving a more affecting horror experience.