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End mentioned this cool cat game to me about a week ago, and I just bought it today. You play as a cat who eavesdrops on people and navigates some household dysfunctions and whatnot; it looked pretty fun, and it’s even tagged as interactive fiction! Also, the first thing that you see when you open this game is End himself playing with a cat!

Diving into the first chapter, the game starts with my shriveled owner dying of cancer while I snore at the foot of his bed, which I guess sucks, but I’m pretty apathetic about it since I’m a cat. After that, the game fast-forwards to some kind of fancy party, and in my very first interaction, this kid picked me up and called me a fattie. I guess it’s nice to know my dying (now dead) owner fed me well.

I wandered around the party a bit and listened to some slanderous gossip about my dead owner being in a satanic cult, then headed into the next room over to swat at a puddle for a few minutes, right next to an electrical outlet. And after a bit more snooping, I discovered that this was actually a funeral for my dead owner, which I feel makes that satanic cult stuff even MORE inappropriate. Naturally, I did the most catlike thing possible and licked my own feet while listening to his family grieve.

After that, I sniffed at the corpse a bit before realizing there was a mouse in the other room, so I really didn’t have time to spend with these people now. But, rather than encountering a mouse in the next room like I wanted, I discovered a bunch of ghost people throughout the room, including ghostly versions of the family I was just with. I guess they’re not REALLY ghosts, but memories, and I watched as my dead owner went through and dismantled them all by calling out their alcoholism and liberalism and whatnot while sucking down a cigar.

And then, the mouse finally showed itself!

As a cat, I decided to give chase. Sadly, it ran under the sofa and I couldn’t get to it, so instead I just stared at this thing for a while;

And then harassed this bald man who was just trying to deliver some flowers;

And then harassed this lawyer;

And only then did I pick up on my mortal enemy once again, that dastardly mouse. I followed him outside and got confronted by a horrible gnome, before the mouse just ran through a tiny crack in the wall. I was determined to catch it this time though, so much so that I knocked over a trash can and used it to jump the fence.

Before I could catch the mouse, the kid who called me fat earlier popped outside to completely foil my plans and bring me back inside. That mouse is up 2-0 against me now. Once I was FORCED to go back in, I noticed that someone had put an empty food bowl out, which is pretty heartless if you ask me. Then, during a conversation between my owner’s daughter and one of his old friends, grandma showed up while I was busy licking my own leg, and it would seem she accidentally took two of her old person pills today instead of one, because she's just talking all kinds of crazy nonsense, so the maid who I knew for a fact was Mexican (even before she started speaking Spanish) had to escort her over to the dining room.

Anyway, I followed the other two around for a bit, into a nearby room where I decided to mess with the remote and turn on a news broadcast that happened to be about my old (dead) owner. This seems a little inappropriate to do at the guy’s funeral, but I am a cat. Then just outside after that, I walked in on the mansion’s repair guy getting scolded for not doing anything about the puddle that I was rolling around in earlier, and he won himself the world record for laziest man, claiming that the puddle was historical and therefore there’s nothing he could do about it. In a rare moment of selflessness from my cat self, I tried to drink the entire puddle, but there was only so much I could fit in my cat stomach, so I had to give up. The best part of the game so far was back in the main hall, as I was FINALLY given the opportunity to swat some fine china off of a table, and I did it immediately. Only after did I realize this was probably actually necessary for story progression since it got the Mexican maid lady to move from in front of the staircase, but I really just did it to be a jerk (I’m a cat).

Heading upstairs, I eavesdrop on a conversation between my owner’s grandkids, one of them being the kid who called me fat. He tried to show his older sister some old newspapers, but she was too busy checking Facebook and being a teenager to care. I decided the best course of action was to stand on the windowsill and annoyingly meow for a while, so the sister opened the window so I could go outside, but not before getting in a line about how nobody understands her and she’s so trapped and teenage things etc etc. She also must’ve known I was going to be less than flattering to her in this writeup because she shut me outside almost immediately.

No big deal, I just went to the nearest open window on the roof and climbed in to find- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGH! A pooping lawyer! I didn’t want to be around a pooping lawyer!

TMI, dude, god. And OF COURSE the window closes behind me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he got on my case telling me to scram, but when I went over the door to leave, he made a big show about telling me I was stuck in there with him and he wouldn’t open the door for me until he finished, while making just the most atrocious, foul grunting noises and occasionally turning green. After scratching him a bit he let me go, but that whole segment was pretty traumatic. I hung out with the old dude who was friends with my DEAD owner for a few seconds before the lawyer showed up again just to call me fat and be mean to me. The time gap between this and him fighting for his life in the bathroom was so small that I guarantee this dude didn’t wipe or wash his hands, disgusting, even by my cat standards.

So, this guy here;

This is my dead owner’s son who I now think probably NEEDED to get bullied for his alcoholism, because he was like one second away from just downing an entire bottle of whiskey he saw sitting on the shelf, before who I presume was his wife walked in from the kitchen, which I then headed into to socialize a bit, getting my fur all over everything while the people were trying to prepare food. If anyone at this event was allergic they are definitely dead now, not that it makes a difference to me since I’m a cat and all.

Anyway, after the woman on the left accidentally terrorized me with a suspiciously cucumber-shaped snake, I went to leave the kitchen only for the lazy repairman from earlier to walk in to throw back some beers, and of course, it’s only the alcoholic guy who has a problem with this, smh. It came to light that said alcoholic is an actor, and the repair guy was like ‘acting? You probably wear makeup while you're acting, lolgay’ and left with his beer. I headed out of the room and discovered through my weird cattish ghost-memory vision that in the past, my owner’s oldest daughter used to hide food from the younger, adopted daughter so she couldn’t eat at the dinner table with them. I am 90% sure the older one is a grown adult here.

Anyway, I got pretty hungry after all that (because apparently according to multiple sources I'm a Fatty McFatfat), so I headed back into the main room to find that some dude was standing in front of my food bowl. It is only with the aid of my obnoxious meowing and my DEAD owner’s adopted daughter that I was able to have my dinner. She pet me while I ate while talking/acting crazy and sounding insane, but I’m willing to look past that and the fact that she’s dressed like a lumberjack at my dead owner’s funeral.

That’s about it for tonight; I think there’s a total of three chapters and I’m only partially through the first one, but I’m interested to see where it goes. The lore and character interactions of this game so far are very fun, it's honestly very rich and deep; The game is super cute, ominous, charming, and atmospheric all at the same time.

There is nothing worse than being trapped in a room with a pooping lawyer. Except maybe the sad plot twist that's surely coming.

You see, the dude is an "actor" who wears makeup while he's "acting", he has long hair, and seriously considers drinking an entire bottle of whiskey every time he's found alone with one. It's clear to me what the plot of this game is, the dad is Jeff Hardy.

I'm reasonably confident this game has no more pooplawyers going forward. One is vile, but two would just be weird!
Also, I have yet to see any vehicles in this game. There's really no way to tell if it's Jeff Hardy until he starts driving.

I like the concept of this game, it's basically just a story being told and the cat thing is almost secondary. That said, being locked in the bathroom with a pooping lawyer sounds like hell whether you're a human or a cat. And wearing a lumberjack outfit to a funeral is based. 

The cat is a very creative vehicle for the rest of the story. And so far, I'm inclined to side with lumberjack aunt on matters like that.

No wonder End was advertising it if he gets a cameo.

This game looks so very much like my thing I might actually hold off on reading future updates to avoid spoilers, I definitely would like to play soon.

Not just any cat gets to have their catfood bowl blocked by Bill and Hillary Clinton, how prestigious!

It definitely seems like it'd be right up your alley! You'd probably absorb the story better than I would, I've mostly been favoring the cat aspects. It's on a sale right now, if that interests you.

He really does look like a well fed cat in that last picture.

You're a very fat cat

Picking up where I left off, I finished eating my food because apparently according to four different people now I’m some kind of fatty fat cat.

I headed upstairs and watched the memory of a fight between Bernard (my DEAD owner) and Murray (lazy repairman), which seemed to have been pretty intense, but I dunno, maybe it was just Bernard’s lung cancer and dementia acting up. Either way, I’m beginning to respect the fact that this repair guy is still employed despite how little work he’s apparently done all these years.

I headed into the nearest room to snoop around, but immediately regretted my decision when I saw it was just Will (the kid who mocked my weight) and Addy (his angsty teenage sister) standing in the middle of the most horrible room of all time.

I jumped around onto the fireplace with little regard for my own safety, but that prompted a horrifically large spider to come out and start crawling around all over the walls. It kept ducking behind the animal heads and whatnot, so I had to chase it down, which only resulted in a lot MORE spiders popping out of a secret compartment... and I GUESS it revealed the existence of some creepy Egyptian tablet.

But I guess I jumped on the rhino head one too many times, because it collapsed and scared the kids off before they could finish reading it.

Afterward I caught back up with the family + the disgusting lawyer, who was trying to convince them to sell the house ASAP, but the family was kind of split on this decision because of some ‘sentimental value’ mumbo jumbo that I don’t understand because I’m a cat.

This scene was a pretty interesting insight into the family dynamic; Liam (dead owner’s son/alcoholic guy) was all for selling, probably because his acting job grants him zero money and he needs it for booze, while Shannon (dead owner’s morally questionable daughter) wanted to seek other options to preserve the family legacy.

Dawn (lumberjack aunt) didn’t seem to care for either side, really. I don’t know, as you can see in the picture I was a little busy.

After that I detected someone bawling their eyes out and went to investigate, but I ended up getting a post-it note stuck to my butt in the process. The crier was revealed to me as Liam’s wife, Farah, who I guess is upset because her husband’s a broke alcoholic and she’s also the only brown person in this house.

Anyway I tried to get the post-it note off of my butt which seemed to resolve the issue on account of me being a goof, glad that Liam’s depressed wife is happy now and Addy got her coveted 8 Facebook likes. This entire segment is just peak gameplay, I’m tempted to rate this game a 10 off of this alone.

So then I headed downstairs after that wholesome little interaction, and got chased around by Lorraine (dementia(?) grandma) who’s been talking crazy from the start. Please do not comment on how fat I look in this picture, it was the only picture I got from this part of the game so I had no choice but to include it here. This is my first storygame so please please please be nice to me in the comments.

I snuck around a bit to get past her which led to a brief chase that genuinely made my heart drop even though I guarantee I could take this literally ancient human in a fight. After that I tracked down the main family again and snooped in Shannon’s purse, and discovered she’s pretty into botox or something.

Oh, and Addy has a speech impediment.

…this little creature here is onto me.

Anyway, Addy got angry at her mom for forcing her to do her speech therapy exercises in front of everyone and stormed off to the outside area, where that gnome is. I followed her out along with Liam, who decided to immediately start smoking while offering her some nice uncley advice. Overall, this was a pretty wholesome scene.

As nice as this all was though, being outside again also reminded me I needed to be tracking down that rodent from earlier, so I went back in to start looking.

In the process, I stumbled upon another memory vision in which Miss Nuñez scolds my now dead owner Bernard for his smoking. It ends with her putting his cigar out, only for him to pull out another. This was kind of funny, until I remembered that I literally watched this dude succumb to lung cancer in the first ten seconds of this game.

Next, in what was maybe the funniest part of the game so far, I snooped on Dawn’s laptop and found that she was playing a first-person shooter, but she modded it so that all the enemies look like Shannon. Lol.

After that I had to head over to the animal head room again because I guess once wasn’t enough. I dug around in the alligator’s throat a bit and found a lighter, which I then sniffed, which activated my cat scent-finding superpowers and lead me downstairs to-

THIS LITTLE GREMLIN GOT A LASER POINTER! WHO GAVE HIM A LASER POINTER!?

It started out all fun and games and then this MONSTER started waving it around like a crazy person! Since I’m apparently fat AND old, this tired me out so much that I fell asleep standing up while Liam outed himself as a huge nerd to get this kid off my back.

Oh, great! I can’t even get upstairs to go to bed, the CLINTONS are blocking the way!

I was left with no choice but to head over and sleep in the stinkin’ library while these two were chatting over wine. I then awoke HOURS LATER and they were still at it, and they hadn’t even finished their drinks. I guess it’s nice that I know at least one of my dead owner’s kids can control themselves around alcohol.

I decided to leave and go do cat things but I guess that was too much to ask for, because those two just followed me out into the entryway. Truth be told I was a bit relieved they followed me because I dunno if I could’ve taken another solo run-in with crazy grandma.

Karl (the old dude who was friends with my owner who I will remind you is now dead), decided to leave for the evening while Dawn went to have dinner with the family. I wonder if Shannon will let her sit down at the table this time? Either way, I followed her in so I could get my hair all over the food.

Ok, so I guess Dawn does get to sit down, but nobody, not even Liam himself, thought it would be nice to get a chair for Farah to sit down!? Dude, no wonder she was sobbing earlier. It’s not like they ran out of space either, look at the gap between those two chairs! All while she cradles her 4-pixel baby, ridiculous! You’re seriously telling me she couldn’t have had grandma’s chair?? THE WOMAN TRIED TO EAT ME! I am irrationally angry about this.

To retaliate against these people I decided to ruin the entire dinner by jumping on the table to eat their turkey, but my plan was foiled and I was moved away while watching as Liam downed like ten drinks throughout the conversation. Tensions got pretty high between the family as the topic of selling the house came back up, and then grandma started her ramblings again to make things even MORE uncomfortable.

I overcame the odds and snuck onto the table again, but I only got like one mouthful of turkey before Shannon began shrieking and ruined everything again. This made me really want to play Dawn’s modded shooter game.

Addy dumped me with Murray, out in some crusty disheveled greenhouse or something and he IMMEDIATELY started to abuse me while drinking an entire bottle of wine. This treatment is just getting ridiculous! I am an old cat, my old fat cat bones cannot take this.

With some sneakiness I managed to knock over his poopy little statue, which prompted him to literally kick me across the room. Deciding I’d had ENOUGH of this, I just headed outside to hopefully find solace in catching that mouse...

Nevermind it’s creepy out here. :(

Ah, but luckily, someone left their window open! It’s just Shannon’s ugly husband smoking, and then he ticked off the maid by being too lazy to put his own cigarette out.

…aaand then the lights went out. But as a cat I have night vision, so this was no problem for me. Good luck, humans!

Before I could leave to investigate this though, the family showed up again. While they chatted amongst themselves I happened to notice a RODENT out of the corner of my eye! I tried to catch it but it ran off, and I accidentally slammed the window shut and scared all the humans in the process. Oh well.

After I broke like six vases and scared the family by playing piano while trying to catch the rat, they finally caught me. Dawn seemed okay with the fact that I’d just destroyed the room, but I’m pretty sure Shannon is gonna start wanting to put me down soon.

I will admit, at this point I was beginning to grow uncomfortable with how often Liam was drinking. Dude was Murray-style just destroying this entire bottle after already drinking his weight at dinner.

… Oh. And I guess, maybe my dead owner might have been a cultist after all. Huh.

Things started to get really weird as Liam started sloppily yelling at a painting of his dead dad, so I retreated out to the hallway where grandma jumpscared me by shuffling around like a possessed person. So then I ducked into a DIFFERENT room, and was relieved to see Dawn. Thank goodness, I get to be around someone who ISN’T acting like a lunati-

REEEEEEEEEEEEE

Ok so I'll just retreat back into the hallway and-

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

These folks crazy, so I pulled a cat move and just headed down into the plumbing system to chill for a bit.

But sadly, my chill time was cut wildly short when I discovered that the rat was down here too!

The chase sequence was fun but ultimately unsuccessful, as I guess I was too fat to go past this box here. I was also too fat to wriggle my way out, so I meowed obnoxiously until someone pulled the tile up from above my head to rescue me.

Apparently the exact part of the floor I got stuck under was some kind of hidden Bernard compartment, and not only that, the box I was trapped against contained the deed to an extremely expensive piece of Californian land. I singlehandedly saved this family from potential financial ruin to wrap up Chapter 1, even though all they do is DRINK and kick me. If that’s not an ideal family pet, I don’t know what is!

You've put on some weight since the last update, Sherb.

Caught him on Tape

Chapter 2 kicked off with a memory of the family at dinner while I played under the table. This is back when Addy was still in a high chair and didn’t do things like lock me outside on the roof. During this sequence it seems that Liam’s family bought into his acting career more at this point in time, celebrating his new gig, but in the present day people seem to just be like ‘ok, cool, so when are you going to start making rent money?’

Of course this guy is playing a wine curator.

After that I went over into the kitchen where the maid and Shannon’s husband were so kindly preparing pancakes for everyone except me. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I didn’t get any of the special breakfast, Shannon got all snippy with me because I was swatting her lipstick around on the floor and Will used it to draw on his face going ‘ooga booga I’m a shaman!’

Naturally, I knocked it off the counter a second time afterward and scratched myself without a care in the world while I was reprimanded.

And then I might’ve done it a third time, but apparently that’s a lesser act of mischief than trying to eat the turkey last night, because she only got moderately upset. Addy got annoyed because Shannon didn’t buy her tickets for something she was trying to go to with a person named Beth. Shannon didn't seem very empathetic about it, either.

Half the family left the kitchen after this argument, which meant Murray got a giant stack of pancakes to eat. He needed that fuel so he could do nothing all day, I guess.

Then the rest of the people left, and they forgot a plate of pancakes, but it seemed like 80% of the family had no intention of eating at this point, so I figured I’d just help myself… or try to, anyway. I couldn’t reach them.

Shannon's husband then wandered around the mansion begging people to eat the food he spent all morning making, but I guess nobody bit. I would have felt bad for him, but not once did he ever offer me a plate.

I left the sad sack behind and sniffed around in the library a bit, where Addy was reading a bunch of books. Everyone in this family is such a nerd.

Then out in the hallway, I found a phone that I think belonged to Shannon’s husband. It seems like he and that Beth person mentioned by Addy earlier were at odds. I think this is Addy’s older sister, but I could be wrong. I would ignore this guy and his stupid soggy pancakes, too, for the record.

The sound of a baby crying caught my attention, but the door to the room was closed, so I had to sneak out to the roof just to investigate this commotion.

I headed into the room and-

Liam and Farah were just making out while the baby screeched and ruined everyone else's morning, wow. I was expecting a wholesome scene where I’d have to do something goofy to cheer up the crying baby, and instead, I have to see this! I did end up having to be the one to solve this problem anyway because the parents just sat in bed and complained instead of doing something about this. I really need to start getting more credit around here, I’m the only one in this house who gets anything done.

After consoling the baby I got out of there because I was hungry, so I went downstairs to have lunch (because OF COURSE I did, right?!)

Then I went into the library and watched some memory of a college toga party, where the guys had some pretty interesting things to say as the only black character walked in.

However, my not-racist dead owner was very kind to him!

Outside, Will was guarding a door so that nobody could get in and see what Addy was up to in there, so I got in this box and ended up smashing the vase on the left. Then the maid came by and blamed Will, but I don’t really see what the big deal was, I’ve broken like ten vases since I started this game.

Inside the room, Addy was messing around with some slides and a projector that belonged to Bernard, and Karl showed up and was like ‘uh be careful with those young lady, you might stumble upon some old images of your grandfather and I in some inappropriate situations.’ It sounds a little gay to me, but I dunno. The weird part is that this only made Addy even more interested in the slides. Anyway, Shannon showed up and ruined Addy’s fun in typical Shannon fashion.

Addy snapped at her mom, who got all offended and demanded that she apologize. I managed to calm the situation by swatting at the projector a few times and cycling through pictures from my old owner while Shannon watched on judgmentally.

And then, uh… yeah, I don’t know what’s going on here. Drugs, it seems.

So Addy stormed out of the room, and Shannon went to follow, but she got a phone call from the mother of some bully at school that I guess Addy beat up or something. I was a bit surprised when Shannon stood up for her daughter here, maybe I misjudged her (but only slightly).

I ended up outside while eavesdropping on this, where I discovered some other cats! I wanted to follow them, but I ended up being too fat to climb up.

Luckily, I managed to trick the repair guy into being my stool by hiding his ugly sweaty hat behind the wood.

Ah, finally, in the company of some people who really get me.

And then that moment of peace was destroyed by this rancid lawyer showing up again.

I want this man dead!

He headed inside and informed Shannon that the Californian land that I just found the deed for in the last chapter was actually worthless, after we all previously believed it was extremely valuable. I found this to be extraordinarily fishy. This poopy lawyer guy is some kind of villain, I’m sure of it. He immediately went back into his preposterous talks about selling the house (of my DEAD OWNER) as soon as possible, and even had a potential buyer lined up to come see the house that very day!

Dawn seemed to share my suspicion.

I followed these two up to the study after that...

...and I have to say, Dr. Carmichael (Shannon’s husband) is also a suspicious guy. He was wanting to sell the house from the start, and for some reason he and the lawyer kept conspiring together, even though he’s the least relevant person to this sale since he’s not even one of Bernard’s kids.

After that I went downstairs and this goober was talking crazy, so of course I had to go investigate.

To be fair to him, maybe that’s not crazy talk, because Dawn was the one talking about resurrection and some Cassandra Blackwell near the end of the last chapter. The maid didn’t buy it, so I had to go check this happening out on my own, but the door was closed.

So I just headed into the next room over, and ran into my arch-nemesis, the rat, again!

It was an uneventful encounter and sadly he got away, so I just pulled a cat move and headed out to the roof so I could go and sneak in on whatever Dawn was up to. As it turns out, she was not a crazy witch! Just a Dungeons and Dragons player. Finally, something I could get on board with. Furthermore, I think she was also the DM, which is even cooler.

Even though I do like Dawn, I decided to swat her dice away and chew on her headphones a bit, which I guess didn’t go over so well with her. It LOOKED like everything would be fine, until some fat idiot named Mark on the other end made this suggestion;

Dawn didn’t go for it, though, luckily, instead she just left to go get some wireless headphones. Phew. I can only be tossed outside so many times, I’m an old cat.

Instead, I just went outside of my own free will, where this crow wearing an apron challenged me to a duel. I really try to stick to battling that rodent, but this guy was throwing rocks at me, I had no choice but to fight back.

So, I chased him up a tree, but he and his gang were waiting up at the top. They didn’t put up a fight though, just flew off as soon as I charged in.

So I headed back inside to the study through the window, where Addy was rooting through some drawers. Shannon entered, and it looked like it was time for a mother-daughter heart to heart, but Addy just walked out right away. I followed them out, but only after I looked at the document Addy was rooting around in, and uh, geez. That's pretty bad, huh?

Related to that, I witnessed a memory of Bernard talking to Lorraine (who in the present day is crazy grandma), while drinking whiskey and seeming pretty troubled about all those dead and disabled people. He even referred to his family's mining company as the infamous 'Meat Grinder' and went on to talk about the lack of safety procedures, so I guess occurrences like that might've been common.

I didn’t end up catching up to wherever Addy and Shannon went, so I just headed downstairs where Dawn was refilling my food bowl. I started eating and she was all ‘woah, slow down there, fatty.’

Anyway, Addy popped out from nowhere and asked what Aunt Dawn does for a living, to which she jokingly said that she’s an arms trafficker. Then she revealed that she actually just makes video games, which didn't really surprise me, I've known for a while that Dawn is a cool nerd type. Addy was pretty impressed by it, while I was just chowing down nonstop throughout the entire conversation, no wonder I’m so fat and everyone comments on it all the time constantly.

That's about where I left off for tonight. I'm not sure, but I believe that's a little more than half of Chapter 2, and then I'll probably do all of Chapter 3 in one big post. So, hopefully looking at 2 more thread updates after this.

Fat fuckoid gerbil!

How did it even get fatter? 

I mean he's eating all the time.

I thought this was cat game not gopher game!

 

I was so confused by the togas until I read that it was a college party. Anyway, as a cat you are in perfectly healthy shape and you seem ready to hunt! I say you go after the lawyer first, Dawn is cool

Continuing on with Chapter 2, unfortunately I was immediately greeted with the lawyer’s presence once again. He’d brought over a rich author who was interested in the mansion, mostly because of the idea that the mansion was haunted.

Oh, great. As it turns out, this guy was allergic to cats. He noticed me right after sneezing all over Shannon, and frankly, I don’t see this situation turning out well for me. But really, my hair is probably embedded into every single surface of this manor anyway.

The three of them headed into the dining room, so I knocked the author guy’s coat onto the ground so I could shed all over it. I’m not saying I want the guy dead or anything, that’s a fate I’d like to reserve for the lawyer, but I do need to run any potential buyers off. This is really more of my house than anyone else’s, after all.

After that, I followed everyone into the dining area, where I was immediately hate crimed just for being a cat. Whatever, I wanted to jump out the window anyway.

I headed outside for a bit and pranked everyone by scratching at the other window, before my trickery was revealed and ruined by Shannon. Since she’d opened both windows at this point, the author guy was like ‘gee it’s cold, gotta get my coat!’ So, I followed them back to the entryway to watch this guy die.

So then as soon as the coat went on, the guy went into allergic shock, and I suddenly realized that he might ACTUALLY die. I was just kidding about that!

The author left on his own while nobody offered any kind of help during this medical emergency, but oh well. Hopefully that put an end to his wishes to buy this place.

So after ruining that guy’s entire week and potentially ending his life, I headed over to see what Will was up to, and as it turns out he was playing with an action figure. Naturally, I was overwhelmed by the urge to steal it, so I did!

Then I ran out into the hall and hid, and this kid must not be very observant, because he didn’t spot me here.

He headed outside, and I followed. I honestly don’t even know what I’m doing with this action figure, but stealing is really really funny.

So apparently, the humans are now gonna go to some reception. The kids don’t seem too enthused, and they also lock me outside, so I guess I could assume that I was not invited to this gathering. Whatever.

I’ve been slowly learning more about my dead owner throughout my journey, particularly the fact that he was super depressed as a young adult because of how nasty his family’s business practices were. And that he had a bit of an obsession with Egyptian lore. And he was always surrounded by hairy dancing hippies.

In this particular flashback though, Bernard seemed ready to leave behind all his hippie friends, having outgrown them in favor of being miserable about the evil of the world and his family.

After that, I dug some holes in the backyard and witnessed another flashback of Bernard’s kids in their youth, excluding Dawn, who I think got adopted later on. It was Shannon, Liam, and their older brother, Thomas, who from what I’ve gathered disappeared a long time ago. I think this was the first time in the story I’d actually seen him, and he was digging for worms in the yard for a merit badge, while Bernard stared eerily out the window from his study. According to Shannon, he didn’t leave his room at all at this point in time.

The door to the house was now open, so I went back inside and learned more about the upcoming reception. Apparently, it was to honor the memory of my dead owner, so of course I WANTED to attend, even though I didn’t have any fancy garments for the occasion. Dawn even changed out of her lumberjack clothes for this one (kind of) so you know it’s a big deal. Shannon wasn’t impressed though.

Right before they all left, Liam took a sneaky swig of alcohol before tucking it away in his coat. Then, Addy very kindly reassured me that I’d be okay on my own while everyone went to the reception, and that the house wasn’t haunted. Uh, I’ve been here for my entire life and you’ve been here for maybe a day and a half, but thanks. Nice change of pace from you locking me outside all the time.

After everyone left, I heard this loud thumping going on from somewhere, so I tried to investigate. By this point, the house was dark and creepy, so I had to go into Liam and Farah’s room to spill some oil on the ground and calm my nerves.

After that I got to see a pretty wholesome and simple flashback between Bernard and his father, which was a nice change of pace from watching them fight constantly in pretty much every other one of these flashbacks. Up in the study, I then found another Egyptian tablet!

Then I went to the library where I watched some more flashbacks, this time of a much more hopeful young Bernard. I discovered that that Californian land itself was known to be cheap all along, but really, it was what Bernard was trying to do there that was important. Most certainly something to do with all this Egyptian mythology stuff.

These flashbacks continued down into the dining room, where I learned more about Bernard’s plans. The land itself was in Death Valley, and I guess the idea was that he was trying to establish some flourishing utopia in the middle of a wasteland.

This Aaru place seemed pretty interesting, but it hasn’t really been mentioned by Bernard’s kids in the present day, so I’m guessing it didn’t ultimately pan out as he’d wanted. They’ve gone into a bit of detail in this story about just how bad the land really was, and that it was also far from the rest of civilization.

This chain of segments was really nice though regardless, and it was accompanied by some pleasant and upbeat music. And then…

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Why is she here!? I guess the family neglected to take her to the reception on account of her dementia outbursts. Now that means I have to potentially die!

This led to a pretty spooky bit of gameplay where I had to hide in the darkest areas of the hallway while following her so she wouldn’t see me. Despite Lorraine’s constant attempts to chase me and potentially attack me every time we’re alone, I do feel pretty bad for her. It’s pretty much been confirmed at this point that she’s just reliving the worst parts of her life in her head on an infinite loop, including things about her missing son Thomas and less than happy marriage to Bernard.

I managed to get deep enough into the hallway to duck into the only open room, where- oh great, straight from crazy grandma to the cult!

It seems like this group of people were Bernard’s closest associates while founding Aaru, and uh, let me just be the first to say that I think Mike’s choice of location may not have been so perfect. Just a thought.

So far, from what I’ve gathered, it seems that Bernard’s ultimate goal here was to leave behind material possessions and his family’s legacy of greed and murder, to create a happier world to live in, full of aspen trees and away from other settlements. This segment is eerie, but also pretty sad with the knowledge that this project DEFINITELY did not work out.

I went out to the roof and ended up witnessing the memory of Bernard trying to get Lorraine on board with bringing the whole family over to Project Aaru, but she refused.

Bernard decided to leave anyway, which led to a whole lot more messiness. All while Thomas there on the right watched and listened, geez. I’ve been a big fan of my dead owner throughout this story, but this part is a little rough. I can’t believe I’m siding with Lorraine after not one, but TWO hallway chase scenes.

I headed back inside, and got to see a nice Christmas flashback. Bernard wasn’t there, since he was off at Aaru at the time, but he sent the kids gifts- Thomas got a fur hat, Liam got a toy tractor, and Shannon got a dollhouse.

For all his apparent evil deeds and business practices, it was nice to see Uriel (Bernard’s dad) taking care of the grandkids while his son was off prancing around in Death Valley.

FINALLY, the family got back home. I was about to go crazy interacting with all these memories. Liam was sloshed, as expected, and the first thing he did now that he was home was grab another bottle and start chugging away while he could already barely stand upright.

I’m with Shannon on this one man, this is ridiculous! Even I, the cat, could see that!

Oh boy, I thought it would stop there, but this only escalated once he finished his bottle. Shannon got on his case about being such a sloppy disgrace all the time, even suggesting that maybe it’s about time to stop this whole unpaid actor gig. He did not take kindly to it.

And dear god, it kept getting worse. Shannon lit this man on fire.

…and then Liam tried to attack Shannon, but ended up hitting Farah instead. Uh oh.

This was definitely not something for the kids to witness, so I selflessly offered to go upstairs and keep them company while the family sorted this whole situation out.

I hung out with them for a bit, and then they immersed themselves in Addy’s mobile game, so I briefly dropped in on Shannon and Carmichael, before ultimately deciding I’d had enough of the Mason family for one day. So I pulled a cat move and went into the vents.

Here, I discovered what I think was Murray’s stash of some kind, including cans of beans and that little statue from earlier…

And I got jumpscared as soon as I exited out from that screen, because Murray started lunging for me like a madman.

I just barely managed to escape from his sweaty grasp and got upstairs, where Dawn was comforting a sobbing Farah.

I got pretty tired after everything that had happened- allergic authors, 32,000 flashback scenes, and wife abuse. So, I went back downstairs to go to bed. This family is pretty out of control and I needed to rest up for the next series of dysfunctions that will inevitably unfold.

I didn’t sleep long though, because I was awoken by a thundering sound from upstairs. It was in a closed off room, so I had to go through an open window in Liam and Farah’s room to get there. Neither of them seemed to be staying the night there anyway.

So, I headed out the window and into the room where the noise was coming from, and- Oh. Oh, god!

Why do the worst scenes always happen in this bathroom!? First the pooping lawyer, now this! I found a knife near his hand, which only confirmed what I’d already suspected- Liam had slit his wrists.

Now, I don’t approve of the guy smacking his wife so hard she flopped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, but as the family pet it was my duty to get someone’s attention here. I managed to alert Carmichael to the situation, and he got Miss Nunez to unlock the door.

Luckily, since Carmichael was a doctor, he took control of the situation and began working to save Liam’s life. He and the maid shut the door before I could get back in there to help, but whatever, that left me with some time to follow the lingering memory of Thomas Mason around!

I watched the kid sneak about the house a bit, pack a bag, and then…

Okay, this scene had a visual of the rope right outside of the window in very noose-like fashion, but it turned out he was just climbing down from the roof. Thank goodness, because I certainly didn’t need to watch a second suicide scene in just one night.

And then, I watched the memory of Thomas walking off into the snowy night. I think this is when he went missing, so uh, yeah. Yikes. What a sad conclusion to the second chapter! But at least I’m moderately sure that we’ve kept up the streak of nobody actually dying inside the house throughout the course of the story.

Really enjoying these reviews! Keep it up!

You're still too fat.

And so, the final chapter begins.

Things opened with Liam and Carmichael returning to the house, after presumably being at the hospital last night due to the whole suicide thing. They agreed to keep this whole situation on the down-low, before Carmichael told Liam that Farah still loved him despite him being a complete failure as a husband and that he ought to not screw things up (again).

But of course, we couldn’t just open on a TOTALLY positive note. The scene then transitioned into a flashback, where I learned exactly why Thomas disappeared; he left to look for his father in Aaru and never came back. By this point, it sounded like Aaru itself had become a dead project.

Lorraine scolded him and told him that it was his responsibility to find Thomas, which I don’t think ended up happening, unfortunately. This is pretty sad to think about, because assuming Thomas made it to Aaru at all, he likely ended up baking in Death Valley or something.

After watching all that, it was finally time for me to stretch my legs, maybe work off some of this weight that everyone keeps talking about.

I walked in on Liam in the kitchen staring at his bandaged wrists, and then he immediately hid them from me as if I’m not literally a cat. Plus, I was the one who found him bleeding out last night! You're not fooling me, dude!

Lorraine walked in and the two of them shared a nice and peaceful scene together while I licked my own leg.

That was sweet and all, but clearly, I needed some exercise, so I left the two of them in the kitchen and headed out the window to do some cardiovascular.

After that, I threw up on the roof, where the humans will never be able to clean it, to lose even more weight. I feel so much lighter already!

From there I was able to slip into the study where I got to watch as a desperate Bernard attempted to find his missing son. There were multiple flashbacks here that showcased that this went on for quite a long time, with a lot of people turning in bad information to try and steal the monetary reward.

It wasn’t easy to watch Bernard spiral again, but it eventually lead to an unfortunate scene, with a guy who was trying to turn in Thomas, but got the wrong kid. The kid was also in on it, and let me just say, this seems like a pretty mean trick to try and play on a dude with a missing child. The flashback rightfully ended with Bernard lunging to beat the dude senseless, and I really can’t disagree with that action.

I then got into Carmichael and Shannon’s room and knocked a phone off the end table. This woke up Shannon and lead to a talk between the two of them. I thought it was gonna be nice and wholesome, but it only seemed to further the idea that a mutual divorce was imminent for these two. Darn!

Out in the hallway, Lorraine was back to her old self, which is a shame. I then witnessed the memory of a phone call where she was informed, in the kindest way possible, that Thomas had not been found and probably wouldn’t be anytime soon, if ever. This was after multiple months of searching, too, that kid really just dropped off the face of the earth.

Lorraine started to rip her hair out, and I guess this is where she lost her mind, because she then proceeded to dial Madame Leonora’s Psychic Counseling. She’s been going on about this Madame throughout the story, and if you thought Lorraine wasn’t a sad enough character, she’s also been getting scammed by a phone psychic trying to get ahold of her son for like, forty years!

I decided to put an end to all this by stealing Madame Leonora’s flyer with her phone number on it, running downstairs, and burning it up in the creepy animal head room. I guess somehow Lorraine hasn’t memorized the phone number after all these years, because she got pretty upset by this. But really, I think this is what’s best for her.

My theory was immediately proven right as she peacefully fell asleep about ten seconds later. Freed from the world of phone scams and (probably) dead sons! And to think, I did her this favor after all those times she tried to chase and/or eat me.

I headed into the hall after that and comforted Shannon a bit, who looked a bit worse for wear given her rapidly approaching divorce. She was sounding a bit crazy and insane, but oh well, at least she was nice to me this time. This was a really nice scene, and a sad one too.

Uh, Shannon, don’t say that. We’ve still got like, most of this chapter to get through.

Oh, god, and then she called to see if that author guy was still wanting to buy the place. I thought I'd successfully killed his interest in the last chapter! And if HE shows up again, that means the lawyer probably will, too!

Karl overheard this and hurried downstairs to find Dawn, not liking that decision from Shannon. Hey man, I'm on your side, I live here!

Dawn accepted it, having not really cared about whether the house gets sold or not up to this point, but Karl insisted that it was a bad idea. Dawn was like ‘dude I’m barely even part of this, don't you realize how adopted I am,’ but after a bit more pushing she relented a bit, then left.

This dude really loved my dead owner.

I knew there was something gay going on there!

There wasn’t much I could do but leave him to his grieving after that, so I went to the kitchen where this snotty rascal ambushed me from behind. He declared himself an investigator and began following me around, which I imagine is going to be a real issue if I decide to head onto the roof or into the plumbing system again.

I can’t get away from him!

He sounds INSANE!

He chased me further, nearly cornering me, but luckily Addy showed up for the rescue. Apparently something was going on with crazy grandma.

I went into the other room and the family was super weirded out by the fact that Lorraine was taking a nap. She didn’t really sleep at all while she was in her schizophrenic telephone psychic arc, which is kind of horrifying, but I’m glad I healed her. Maybe now she’ll stop chasing me- speaking of which, I’m worried that runs in the family now after that scene with Will.

God, I am so good at this cat thing, it is unreal.

Back out in the hall the TURD known as Will was still trying to investigate me, even though I saved his grandma from her lifetime of torment. Nothing in this house goes appreciated!

I managed to get outside where Addy and Shannon bonded over some memes, which was really nice, even though Shannon was huffing cigarettes. I don’t know what it is with the adults of the Mason family and smoking cigarettes around Addy in this specific spot.

I looked at Addy’s phone after that and it turns out they were laughing at that video of me chasing around the post-it note stuck to my butt. I am seriously the only source of joy for these people.

It then suddenly dawned on Will that my fate as the house cat is going to be up in the air once that allergic lawyer officially buys the place. He asked his mom what was going to happen to me and she just vaguely said ‘we’ll sort it out.’ Maybe that lawyer was right and I’ll have to just become a fat street bum.

Woah!

Someone was finally fixing that leak that’s been there the entire game! Nice one, Liam. The game gave me no option to knock over his ladder- not that I wanted to, it just seemed like it would be a cat thing to do.

The house was crawling with movers now, and they blocked the staircase, so I had to go into the vents again and up to the study, where I encountered a bug most foul and noisy!

I failed to squash this bug, and it ultimately just led to me accidentally pulling out one of the nearby drawers. This drawer contained a Bernard recording about Dawn.

Their relationship hadn’t been seen much up to now, so I was pretty curious. Naturally, I had to deliver it to her. Half the house was packed up at this point too, making for some depressing visuals, these movers work ridiculously fast. The movers also got in my way when I was trying to deliver the recording to Dawn, so I had to sneak it into a box instead.

Despite the movers’ best efforts to keep me away, I still managed to get into a box and slip past-

Oh, come on!

Whatever, I got into the other room regardless. Take that, stupid movers! And I got Dawn to notice the recording, too! I am the undisputed MVP of this household.

I tried to follow her but ended up collapsing and sleeping on the floor here instead. Between this, me being an old cat, and the random puking on the roof earlier, I have a pretty bad feeling about this.

Despite the random nap, I got into the dining room just as Dawn started the recording. With headphones on, but I’m a cat so I heard it anyway.

The recording went into detail- maybe too much detail, with multiple mentions of bodily fluids- about how Dawn was brought into this world during a summer with a woman Bernard met while he was still with Lorraine, so that's another layer of depressing for grandma's character right there. So Dawn wasn’t adopted all along! Take that, flashback Shannon from Chapter 1!

Oh, and Dawn’s mom also died of cancer. That sucks.

Despite that, Bernard went on to talk about how much he loved Dawn, and it was probably the sweetest and most impactful scene in the entire game so far. I’m glad Dawn got that, she’s consistently been the coolest one.

Elsewhere, I learned that Liam and Farah are still okay despite that drunken fury from last night, so that’s cool. Liam hasn’t been drinking at all since he tried to kill himself, and this is also the first time I’d actually seen him interact with his baby at all.

Then I went to see Murray and remembered that he’s like, royally screwed. The new owner probably wouldn’t put up with how little work he gets done around the manor. Luckily, he doesn’t seem troubled by that, instead choosing to wonder what the heck a Dungeon and Dragon is. I don’t think he’s a big fan.

At least, not at first. Then he got curious and I got to see Dawn’s character, Cassandra Blackwell. Nunez and Murray seemed a bit confused by the nerdy explanations, but then it turns out Murray was actually super into it. Good for him, I suppose!

Oh boy. Murray getting the true DnD experience there.

Dawn gave him another chance and I swatted at the dice until it landed on 20. I am so forgiving to these people, remember when Murray kicked me across an entire room and chased me up a vent? Then, he decided he wanted me to keep interfering in his dice rolls to decide his race and class, and I can’t say I blame him, I’m a very lucky and talented cat.

Murray then told the background story of his character in such a way that you could kind of tell it was a reflection of himself.

Okay, I really, really feel bad about knocking that statue over earlier and calling it poopy now. Dang.

I went outside and- HEY!

That’s MY arch-enemy you’re talking about, you blue-wearing fattie! Get away from him!

I couldn’t believe nor accept this, so I chased the rat further outside and away from all the disgusting humans. He got covered in mud out by the gate to the point of complete immobility, so I licked the rodent clean as any good cat friend would do. Really, I always figured this was more of a Tom and Jerry situation than anything.

And then, off he went.

Then I watched a flashback to when Bernard and Murray met, and it was further confirmed that old lazy repair guy’s son did, in fact, die. Bernard, realizing they both had long-gone sons, invented a position for Murray on the spot so he could work in the Mason Manor. It was bittersweet.

Back inside I learned that Addy was also feeling pretty bad about this whole decision to pack up the house and let that sneezing author move in. I’m really not on board with the idea of selling the manor either- I’d have to leave, Murray and Nunez would be out of work, and half the family doesn’t even want it to happen in the first place.

Oh, come on! Again!? More chasing!?

Luckily he actually proved useful this time, and together we discovered an old drawing that a young Shannon made in Bernard’s room. But this punk wouldn’t let me see it, why can’t anyone just be NICE to me?

I pulled a cat move and made him fall into the chest to the left of the room, but sadly I didn’t get the option to then close it. So instead I just sniffed the drawing.

The drawing then got swept up by a gust of wind and went out the window, into the yard! I had to go down there and get it. Once I made it into the yard though, the wind got even more annoying and blew the drawing all around!

I was this close, just THIS close to snatching it up, when… a NET appeared from the other side of the wall and captured me! This is madness!!

Oh, come on! Of course, I got captured by some nerd! Just what I needed! The final chapter was going so well, too!

His friend reminded him that he couldn’t be doing all that on private property, to which he snorted and pushed his glasses up and pulled out a rulebook and went ACKSHUALLY, I CAN DO THAT!

Naturally, I pulled a cat move and escaped their vehicle with ease. But what wasn’t easy was the chase scene that followed- it was a long and harsh one, and these guys had GUNS, but I still managed to escape their evil grasp and make it back to the Mason household. Who’s fat now!?

Back inside, I was a bit too weak after all that running to inform the family I was back. As it turns out, Shannon loves me a whole lot, because she was on the phone and informed animal control that she was prepared to drain every penny of her savings to sue if they couldn’t find me.

And then Dawn made a harmless offhanded comment, which Shannon seemed to misunderstand, because tensions in the dining room immediately rose. Uh oh.

Liam and Karl attempted to be reasonable, but these two are ready to rip each other's heads off. You see? I’m gone for literally like, two minutes and this family just implodes!

Dawn threw a glass pitcher across the room, and despite how weak and old I felt, I managed to meow until I got everyone’s attention, which immediately diffused the situation.

Suddenly, as Shannon sobbed away, a flashback came up where it was revealed that she’d encouraged Thomas to leave to try and find Bernard when he was off in Aaru, the leave that Thomas never returned from, and Shannon had held onto the guilt ever since. She then totally broke down and confessed to what had happened.

Those two were literally five seconds from actually beating each other to death with silverware just a few seconds ago! Oh well, it’s nice that they didn’t end up doing that, but seriously, I can only carry the family’s collective emotional health on my back for so long.

Awww…

And with that, the final chapter came to an end. But, there was still an epilogue to walk through! And here, I got to see all kinds of nice things. Farah working on her painting…

Murray and Liam working on the old treehouse, and I reunited with my rat friend!

Those three cats from the other chapter were even hanging out in the windows. I guess they didn’t end up getting taken by animal control, thank goodness.

Then I went to visit with the kids in that creepy animal head room. Addy locked me outside like ten times and Will tried to investigate me over and over during this story, but in the end, those two were pretty alright.

And then, I headed back to the study to take one last cat nap- in pleasant company- to close out the story.

In conclusion, wow, what a great game! I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter, but Chapter 3 was just in a league of its own. The characters, the story, the rich lore, everything about Cats and the Other Lives was phenomenal. Even if you’ve been following along with this thread, I’d still recommend you get it for yourself, it’s an amazing experience and lots of fun. That’s not even mentioning that you get to be a cat, and an orange one at that, everyone knows those ones are the funniest.

FIN

Thank you Sherb, this was the second best Garfield fanfic I ever read.

This has triggered a primal hunger within me.

P.S @Killa_Robot if this is not a strong case for the cat trophy, I don't know what is

You can personally ask the trophy giver to see what they are. Begging for trophies will probably reduce your chance of actually receiving your own trophy.  (Source: Article)

I smell some begging and lasagna. 

Whatever you say, Chapter 3 animal control guy!

Rules weren't made for the mods.

That was beautiful, my goodness. Didn't expect a game where you play as a cat and spy on a family to have so many really sweet and emotionally heavy moments. From wholesome to grim to scary at times, to the DND stuff which was a nice little side thing. All of it was really well put together and the story was actually really nice. Didn't expect to get this invested in the story, thank you for posting it and sharing it!

 

Also looks like you dropped a few pounds, that cat looks very healthy and not at all like a garden rat!