Game

The Cat Lady

2012 · Linux · PC (Microsoft Windows) · Point-and-click · Puzzle · Quiz/Trivia

90IGDB player score
162 ratings

Previously Take

A 90 score from 162 devoted raters — the math of a game with a real following. Horror that commits — its own thing atmosphere, real dread, and scares that aren't cheap. Best experienced alone, preferably with nowhere to be.

About this game

The Cat Lady is a single-player horror graphic adventure and the second entry in the Devil Came Through Here trilogy, following Downfall and preceding Lorelai. It is a puzzle-based adventure played entirely with the four arrow keys, so characters move left and right between scenes while the up and down keys handle interacting with the environment and inventory. Dialogue is fully voiced, and occasional dialogue choices can shift the story and its ending slightly. The game deals with mature themes including depression, suicide, murder, and illness, alongside moments of humor.

Susan Ashworth is a chronically depressed woman in her forties who lives alone in a rundown council flat in England, keeping company only with the neighborhood stray cats she summons by playing the piano. Derided by her neighbors as "the cat lady," she has lost hope for the future. After an attempt to end her life, Susan awakens in a strange afterlife and meets a mysterious figure known as the Queen of Maggots, who offers to help her reclaim her happiness. In return, Susan is sent back to the world of the living, changed, and given the grim task of ridding the world of five dangerous individuals known as the Parasites.