Kathy Rain
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Heavy subject matter runs throughout, including suicide, abortion, child abandonment, committing a parent to a mental institution, catatonic victims, and a manipulative cult.
Cigarette smoking appears, and a hallucinogenic flower called the Red Scythe is central to the plot and shown affecting people's minds.
Twin Peaks-influenced psychological dread — supernatural visions, a recurring sinister figure called the Crimson One, and a nightmarish underworld sequence.
The plot involves kidnapping and art theft, and the player breaks into a church, is jailed, and escapes.
One scene depicts a threat of sexual assault against a character before it is interrupted.
Profanity in the sardonic protagonist's dialogue at a moderate level.
Stylized pixel-art confrontation, including Kathy knocking out and subduing the antagonist priest; no gore.
A young character's death by drowning is treated as a suicide, and the antagonist is found to have hanged himself in prison.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
Kathy Rain is a 1990s-set point-and-click mystery adventure in which a strong-willed journalism student returns to her small hometown after her grandfather's death and investigates the strange circumstances around it. Gameplay is dialogue and inventory puzzle solving rather than action, but the story turns very dark: it touches on suicide, abortion, mental illness, a manipulative local cult, and a hallucinogenic flower, and builds to a supernatural psychological-horror sequence. There is cigarette smoking, profanity, and a single unsettling scene involving the threat of sexual assault.
How it's framed
The game treats its bleak subject matter — suicide, trauma, abandonment, and abuse — as serious emotional weight the protagonist must confront rather than as spectacle. The cult and supernatural elements are framed as menacing antagonistic forces the player works to expose and stop, and the heavy personal history is presented through the lens of the heroine coming to terms with her past.
Details
- Developer
- Clifftop Games
- Publisher
- Raw Fury
- Released
- May 5, 2016
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