Cats and the Other Lives

I'm very fond of cats so when I discovered this game, I knew I had to play it. The storytelling is beautiful, the pixel art incredible, and the simplicity of the controls and your interactions in the game is refreshing. You get to do all the classic cat things, including being a menace, but you also witness the story of a family drowning in tragedy through the eyes of a feline companion. I highly recommend this game if you enjoy puzzles (with hints available if preferred), a good story, and, most importantly, cats. I must warn you, though. This game might hit you hard in the feels.

I don't go out of my way to leave reviews too often but I had to for this one. Absolutely loved it, way more than I thought I would when I decided to take a chance on it. By the end I felt like I knew each character, they were all very well developed. The story was excellent too, from the preview pics of the cat and 'ghosts' and whatnot I thought it was going to be a lot more..."out there", but it was actually incredibly down to Earth and so much fun to experience through this rather unique delivery system (being a cat). The extra little things, like scratching this or knocking over that, really add to the feeling of being a part of the house/family when they comment on it. If you like a slow burn, great character development, and a relatively realistic story to relax to, then I can't recommend this game enough.

ASPER FOR THE WIN

This is not a ghost story. It starts out acting like one, it sets up all sorts of hints and scenes and setting pieces to lead the person playing the game to think that there's some supernatural, possibly even satanic force at play somewhere in this story. But then the chapter changes and instead you're in a story about generational trauma and a rich hippy trying to grapple with the blood money of his family. Then the third act, you start to realize that this game thinks that misdirection, interruption and annoyance is how you tell a good story. After the amount of pointless interruptions, frustrating mini games, and absolutely baffling moon logic, what finally made me quit was the most hamfisted way a character was compelled to give their backstory; by creating a D&D character. This is not a good game. The "gameplay" elements involve such joys as "There are only two intractable items in this room and you need to activate one of them at a specific time and hope that the game decides to actually have it work before you have to do two more other "now click on this. Now click on this" actions in order to finish chasing after that story hook you were following, "There is no logical reason for this NPC to be blocking your path, but they are now and you have to do some moon logic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ involving multiple steps that make no sense, requires perfect timing and makes you wait a full minute at least for the "puzzle" to reset", "Time to make the mouse cursor zoom around the screen so you can't control it so you have to click randomly in hopes that maybe you'll get the timing right so you can even pause the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game" and other similarly annoying, tedious and time wasting interruptions of what would otherwise be an enjoyable exploration. Also you can't take if off full screen. There are no options other than adjusting the volume. It's only autosave, so you can't even do a save and quit, you have to instead spend time running around to find an open door so you can trigger the autosave. If this were just the first chapter, I would have given it a thumbs up. Heck, even chapter 2 was pretty solid, if full of increased interruptions and "action sequences" But the opening of chapter 3 went and absolutely broke all suspension of disbelief. What follows is a parade of ".. Um... what? That's not how that works, what are you even--" moments padded in frustration that destroyed all positive feeling I had for this game and resulted in me noticing every flaw I had overlooked in the first two sections. I did not finish this game.

One of the most heartwarming games I've ever played. A short but incredibly beautiful story about a family cat.

You're an aging, overweight housecat and your master has died. His family comes together in his home for his funeral, each bringing with them their own baggage, drama and ghosts. An intriguing family history unfolds around you through glimpses of the past only you can see, as you follow the family around around Mason Manor, solving minor point-and-click puzzles and simple mouse-waggling mini games. Its more of a visual novel/interactive story than it is a true adventure game; while the game relies on you to execute certain actions in a specific order to proceed, it's largely very linear. Most doors are closed to you (cats don't have thumbs) so you wont waste a lot of time rubbing your inventory (cats don't have pockets) against every interactable prompt. Most available actions have an immediate and necessary result, with a few exceptions (scratching furniture, playing with toys) so puzzles aren't difficult to solve. Good story and good, sympathetic characters. Very satisfying when the truth unfolds. Bittersweet ending. I cried and cried and cried. If you're sensitive to (implied, non graphic) pet mortality, be forewarned. (Also I guess warnings for death, suicide, drugs, dementia and more...but the pet death is what wrecked me personally.)

A BEAUTIFULLY short and sweet point and click game, about the importance of family, the acceptance of grief, and what we make of the pieces thereafter, ALL from the perspective of the family cat.