The Cat Lady (2012)

The story of Susan Ashworth is one that will stay with me for a long time. The game was a visceral experience that I sometimes struggled with purely because of how close to home it hits for anyone battling depression. While the gameplay style is simplistic and borderline visual novel territory with a few point and click interactions with the world, the beautiful backgrounds and stylized character artwork lend themselves to the dark themes that dominate the foreground. The sound effects can be somewhat generic. However, the music is where this game truly shines. The story is not for the faint of heart and touches on many uncomfortable subjects including mental illness, substance abuse, tragic loss and death. The game does suffer from a few technical flaws including mismatched subtitles, poorly recorded voices and an error which causes swapping windows to crash the whole application. However, it is worthwhile to endure simply to experience Susan's story in all its violent, horrifying, miserable glory.