The Cat Lady deftly depicts events and emotions I've experienced-the defiance toward doctors, the feelings of worthlessness, the mistrust of anyone attempting to get too close. I've survived a suicide attempt, and I spent years in and out of hospitals as I traveled the road to recovery. It's hard to recognize beauty when you view it through a blackened lens. You then find yourself in a foggy mental purgatory you must explore to move the story forward. To solve one early puzzle, for example, you must allow a psychiatric nurse to inject you with God knows what. I was never stumped, but nor was The Cat Lady a complete cakewalk, though it isn't the challenge that the puzzles present so much as the atmosphere they create that makes them so interesting. Progressing is a matter of wandering from left to right with the arrow keys, accumulating objects, speaking with others, and solving puzzles by using those objects in particular ways. But Susan is not inclined to share much about herself, and so early events, such as her reaction to a bouquet of flowers, are subtle mysteries that later become enlightened. The first of seven chapters effectively simulates Susan's confusion as she awakes in the hospital to find a sweet nurse at her side.
The Cat Lady draws important parallels between Susan's suffering and the monsters she's been sent to annihilate. And as anyone with depression might tell you, internal demons cannot be painlessly subdued. These monsters are incredibly, terrifyingly real, but they represent the depressed individual's enemies. Rather, The Cat Lady draws important parallels between Susan's suffering and the monsters she's been sent to annihilate.
It's important to note, however, that as shocking as some of these scenes are, they are not gratuitous, though at first they may seem so. That first gruesome glimpse of bloodshed is an emotional bludgeon, and The Cat Lady smartly balances moments of quiet sadness with similar scenes of rage and misery throughout the game. And in return for her services, Susan receives the "gift" of temporary immortality-a gift that, for the suicidal, is a horrific curse. The drops of blood you shed, however, are more than a few. Just a few drops of blood should seal the deal. There are monsters lurking in the world of the living, and if she hopes to find peace, Susan must vanquish them on behalf of this hag, this obstacle between her and her final rest. The old woman Susan encounters in this odd afterlife wants to strike a bargain, and Susan finds herself powerless to resist. One person's art is another's tragedy.īut even in death, Susan cannot find comfort. If you're Susan Ashworth, life isn't fair-even after you've exorcised the most harmful demons from your soul. The surreality of The Cat Lady's characters is most evident in two women that provide Susan plenty of grief-one of which you meet after Susan has already decided that death is preferable to the grief of living. It's a weird and striking look, and one that allows certain sequences to land with a weighty thud, leaving you feeling anxious, shocked, or melancholy. She and other characters move gracelessly, and simple facial animations simulate only the vaguest of lip motions. Susan looks as though she's been cut from a magazine and superimposed onto old Polaroid photos. The surreal field you traverse in the opening minutes is at turns beautiful and horrific, just as you might term The Cat Lady's overall visual language. And it is at Susan's end that the story begins. The Cat Lady is Susan's story-a story of painful tragedy and cautious redemption, disguised as a horror adventure game. A bouquet of flowers is a symbol of love, unless you are Susan Ashworth, for whom they are a reminder of loss. Unless, that is, you are Susan Ashworth, the Cat Lady.
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