Kathy Rain

One of the games I picked up on Steam during the Summer Sale (still going as I write this) is a game I've wanted to play for about a year: Kathy Rain.

Kathy Rain is a Point & Click adventure game in the style popular in the 80's and 90's. It runs in the style of Gabriel Knight, King's Quest, The Secret of Monkey Island etc.

What's important to note is that although Kathy Rain looks and feels like a 90's game, it's made in 2016. This is important, as the game is a lot more player friendly than it's older cousins used to be. For one, there's no Moon Logic around. For another, you can't get stuck by using an item in the wrong place. The game, or rather the protagonist, Kathy, tells you if there's no point in asking a person about a particular subject or showing them an item. So there's none of that annoying repetitious “That means nothing to me,” spam that older games often had. So over all, it's a very comfortable and easy to use game. And there's no, what's known as pixel bitching, hunting for one pixel on the screen to find a clue in order to proceed.

That's not to say that it's a cake walk. Like all games in this style, there are lots of puzzles, some are really easy, others are fairly hard. I'm no expert at puzzle solving, but I managed to solve most of them pretty easily. A couple took some time, and I had to look up the solution to one. This one puzzle is the closest thing Kathy Rain has to Moon Logic, but even so, it's nowhere as bad as the old games.

The game is set in 1995, and follows our heroine, the eponymous Kathy Rain, a tough journalist-to-be biker. She heads back to her childhood town to discover what her grandfather was up to and to deal with some stuff from her past. This is the kind of story that could be explained naturally or it could be supernatural, ultimately it's up to you. I think the supernatural fits the narrative a bit better. Kathy is a fearless, snarky kind of person, which have annoyed some gamers, but I didn't mind. I think the game adequately explains her personality, and demonstrates that her attitude is more of a coping mechanism than a defect of character.

It took me about eight hours to finish the game, which I think is a decent length as it makes it easier to keep the whole story in mind. The narrative is pretty focused, but it doesn't railroad you either. There are humorous elements, sad moments, creepy happenings and more. I got a Twin Peaks vibe from it, but it's definitely its own thing.

Bottom line: Kathy Rain is an amazing game. I always liked the genre, but couldn't get past the borderline impossible puzzles and unintuitive gameplay. Kathy Rain is absolutely worth it, if you're even slightly curious about the genre of Point & Click adventures.

Until we meet again, have a great week!