Reviews - matneee

Good game for the price, certainly worth playing if you like adventures. It reminded me of Darkness Within 2, for those who've played it.

The devs have put together a world that does a good job of conveying it all a sense of "place", and it feels quietly convincing. Models are well made, the texture and terrain work is excellent, and it generally feels a lot more polished in those respects than most indie efforts do. The puzzles aren't particularly taxing but they're pretty good, and the story works well enough to keep you interested.

I did get the impression that the play area may have been designed first though, with puzzles added to it later. While it's a great place to wander about in, wandering about is actually what you do most of the time. There's a few key areas and they're quite spaced apart from eachother so you'll do a fair bit of trecking from one to another. It certainly doesn't spoil the game as such, but it felt like it was trying to artificially extend the playtime. Speaking for myself, I'd be happier to have a tighter game that plays for a couple of hours less - I don't have any expectations of games meeting a "minimum playtime" length, especially not at this price.

But, all in all, I'd recommend giving it a go.

An astonishing game - I've never played anything else quite like it. While this game is very much about the story rather than the puzzles - although I've got to say I loved the combination lock - the tone and sheer imagination put into that story is almost peerless. There's very little that's nice or comforting about much of The Cat Lady, in fact it can be downright nasty in parts. And yet by turns it's also moving, touching and even on occasion shows a remarkably human sense of humour. But above all, it's never less than utterly captivating.

If I had to split hairs and was forced to criticise, I suppose I could say that the voice playback quality is a little on the grainy side. I could say that the resolution is a little on the low side. But then again, the actual script and art design are truly excelent, so I frankly couldnt care less.

Ultimately this is a game that credits you with intelligence, maturity and empathy, that manages to tackle themes ranging from the fantastic to the repugnant, and yet somehow manages to do it with characters that are both down to earth and, ultimately, likable.

In short, games this good don't come along very often. If you're OK with the thematic content, it's practically essential.

While it starts out well - the exterior section is really quite polished - once you're past that it just seems to lose it's way. I hate to say it, but in the end it's actually quite dull.