Recommended by Texhs as part of this list.

The Cat Lady is an immediately striking game, it's monochromatic & semi-photorealistic aesthetic accompanied by an opening act that can only be described as uncomfortably candid and merciless in execution. For it's first 15 minutes or so, The Cat Lady calls to mind it's psychological horror contemporaries, however, it's the immediate swerve the premise of The Cat Lady takes after it's strong opening that lifts The Cat Lady out of its psychological horror niche and truly gives it character by placing it squarely in the realm of the exploitation film, a Silent Hill game by way of I Spit on Your Grave, a horror adventure not only about coming to grips with your trauma, but also about catharsis, of delivering justice to those who have wronged you and others like you.

What I found the most striking about The Cat Lady was its distinctly feminine attitude. Often does cheap horror use violence against women as a standard shock tactic, the standard positioning of women as a stand-in for innocence and the brutalization of their form/psyche as the ultimate "horror", quote-unquote, but rarely are distinctly feminine worries and perspectives used as a basis for tactful horror (in gaming, at the very least.) In the same way Silent Hill 3 strikes that chord of uniquely feminine fears with its focus on birth (God), the body (blood, puberty, the denial of autonomy by patriarchal organizations a la religion/The Order) and urban life (being approached by strange men in public, walking home alone at night), The Cat Lady focuses on similar topics and themes, the lead character Susan Ashworth made an immortal angel of death who enacts vengeance on so-called "Parasites", for the majority of which are men who hurt vulnerable women. These include doctors who exploit their seniority over female co-workers to enact violent and sexual fantasies upon them, repairmen who kidnap women while they're alone, and stalkers who feel sexually entitled to a woman because they tried to buy their hearts with material goods and get violent when denied.

But even outside the obvious violence, there's the more abstract forms of violence dealt to Susan: her past involving dealing with newfound motherhood alongside her misogynistic, immature husband who often made her feel like a lesser; Susan's present as a loner who's one source of joy is often criticized and threatened by the society she resides in, the entire hospital chapter that revolves around Susan and her requests/questions being denied by hospital staff despite her insistence, it's all so very purposeful in its implementation and execution. To loop back around to the I Spit on Your Grave comparison, it can feel exploitative, the way Susan and others are often victims of excessive violence to move the plot along, but the way Susan status as the player character lends our sympathies to her and gives her character and meaning, the way each parasite she takes out is firmly established as a villain and never given any sympathy or justification for their actions, it's all done to ensure catharsis, to criticize, to enact a vengeance that often goes undelivered in the real world. It makes The Cat Lady stand out among its horror contemporaries for it's shockingly mature sensibilities, despite the schlocky one-liners and cheesy soundtrack that are plenty abound.

While The Cat Lady can be quite heavy-handed in its messaging and tone (the entirety of Chapter 3 being a "DON'T HAVE A BREAKDOWN" mental health puzzle is borderline comical), it has a lot of material that resonates to this day. It's treatment of mental illness (accidentally using spoiled milk in my coffee and suffering a mental breakdown aside) is sympathetic and quite accurate to reality, and the main villain of the game's latter half being a targeted observation and take down of imageboard culture, the blackpill philosophy and the way it exploits the vulnerable into radical real-life action is something that I both was not expecting to see in a 2012 game and also still ring true a decade later. It's these touches, this sympathy and focus on catharsis and finding meaning despite tragedy that makes The Cat Lady such a thoroughly engaging experience and a genuine horror standout even a decade later.