Tieing in The Cat Lady and Downfall [[[[[[spoilers]]]]]]]

[DogeBoi Mk VII]

After having seen both The Cat Lady and Downfall, a lot of questions started to rise in my head, so i thought we could try and find out what everything means in both games to find out what has happened.

First of all, let's try to tie in stuff from both games and start out with the timeline.
When did either game take place?
Well from an interview from the creator of these games which can be found here (( http://alternativemagazineonline.co.uk/2013/07/12/interview-in-conversation-with-remigiusz-michalski-harvester-games-the-cat-lady/ ))
He mentiones that "The way I see it, The Cat Lady takes place shortly before the events of Downfall. Joe’s already on the way to crazy-land, but he’s not completely insane just yet."

Now i could just say sure it's true and call it a day, but some stuff bothers me, if it is SHORTLY before downfall, at LEAST 6 months passes since The Cat Lady ending and downfalls start, because at the end of most endings it took 6 months for Mitzi to die, and according to Downfall, Joe killed everyone in the appartment.

And to be honest, i think The Cat Lady pretty much halfway through has Downfall play out too halfway through the story, because at the end of Chapter 6 you see Joe electricuting his wife, which he did not start doing in Downfall till the end of the game, even if the game was mostly Joe's fantasy, i can tell he was not busy with electrocuting her from the start, i think he was doing that after Ivy's obesity kills her because of him overfeeding her and he tries to ressurect her.

Now why i think this takes place during the Cat Lady is cause the corpse of Ivy during the electrocution is not burnt, and in 2 of the three endings in Downfall, the corpse is burnt.

Now, more to connect is the Queen of Maggots, she wanted to help Susan stop the people who are senselessly killing, but for some reason she helps out Joe Davis out.(indirectly though)
This to me seems like a bit of proof that the ending of Downfall might also be something in Joe's head, meaning maybe what we saw in the end was still his mind and he never went on an actal rampage... it would explain for one thing that he could effortlessly kill multiple armed military soldiers (with soldier training of course) with just one shotgun on his own.

What confuses me, is that if The Cat Lady took place BEFORE Downfall, how did the hole in the floor appear in Joe's room, not to mention that the hole leads to the flat below and not the basement where in the Cat Lady it was implied that behind a wall there Joe is busy torturing Ivy.

And one final thing i want to adress...
Joe davis had his gun when he was facing Susan, and according to Downfall he did not have it till later in the game, but again this could just be part of his mind and he had it all along.

I am SURE there are a TON of things i missed and i will later adress whatever i missed by commenting, but i hope this topic can lead to a few discussions so we can tie in what happened between those games, everyone good luck trying to solve this together, i think we can do this, and Rem, if you are reading this, i love your game and the thought put behind it.

[Chudah]

I think you're putting too much thought into connections that may not be there.

I've always took it that Rem put in Joe Davis as a cool homage to Downfall, and it's nothing more than that ("it just happened" is what he says in the interview). In my mind, Joe's story doesn't intersect with Susan's, but the concept around his character is creepy as hell, and that fits in well with The Cat Lady's atmosphere and story. As for The Queen of Maggots, I take it as Rem's re-imagining of what and who she is for The Cat Lady story (he goes on to explain that she's a personification of Susan's illness later in the interview, and that is nowhere close to what she is as a character in Downfall).

Even if The Cat Lady takes place before Downfall, though, I'm thinking that's just where Rem places Joe's psychosis at that point in the story. This is where Joe is in his insanity before Downfall the game started, if not physically where he resides.

There are too many inconsistencies for both timelines to exist at the same time with the same characters. Trying to mash them together to create a coherent chronology of events for both stories weakens what they are individually. The Cat Lady is much more powerful when you go into it assuming the ending we see is the true ending; Susan's changed and is able to move on with her life. Her being murdered months down the line by a crazy neighbor completely destroys any sense of hope we're left with.

[DogeBoi Mk VII]

Yes, i completely agree that there are too many inconsistencies between both games to tie it all together, that was the whole reason i tried to link it together to try and make sense of it all.

As much as i would like to say both games are completely seperate, the fact that one scene got added in the Cat Lady where you see Ivy as the fat lady is what got me thinking about the connections between the games, if that scene was left out i would not have thought as much as i did not about the connections.

I also agree wth that the Cat Lady's ending is more powerfull on it's own, i want Susan to be happy and move on, and like you said, having an ending where Joe kills everyone does kind of ruin the magic of that, but i guess if i want to over analyze, perhaps Joes murder spree took place when Susan was with Mitzi in the hospital, looking out for her.

Anyway Chudah, thanks for the reply

[Chudah]

I can tell you, that scene with Ivy left me with a "what the hell was that?!?" icky feeling my first playthrough. Not sure if that's what Remi was going for, but it definitely creeped me out enough to buy Downfall and find out. ;) But can you just imagine playing Downfall in the Cat Lady world (graphics and controls)? That'd be just amazing. I really hope it gets Greenlit so we can see it remade.

[Priest of Syrinx]

I see two possible ways of explaining this:
1. Loyalty + Surrender ending is canon. Joe and Ivy flee from their apartament seen in Downfall, Joe finds safe haven on Helen Street. To keep integrity of his world, he arranges some parts of their new apartament to resamble the old one (like: makes a hole in the floor, builds torture room in the basement). Another loop begins.
2. Downfall ending was a halucination, just like everything else. Sophie represented Joe's memories of Ivy, Axeman represented Joe's brutality, Z his twisted mind, so maybe Billy (the police officer) wasn't a person, but another representation - of Joe's guilt and his desire to be punished? So, when we play as Billy, we are still Joe in reality and we see Joe as he sees himself in his moment of self-awareness: broken, twisted man hiding in the basement. There were no real murders, no cat ever died, doctor Frank Zellman sits in his office and waits for Joe to show up. All those murders just represents bad things Joe did to Ivy. Joe sees himself as a monster because of what he has done and imagines himself doing monstrous things, but all this happens in his head and nowhere else.

[DogeBoi Mk VII]

Julius.horst
1: i would have to say if that was the canon ending, we still got that Susan has met ivy before, she eve makes a remark how thin she is during the conversation with mitzi about what flats to check out, so it can't possibly be that downfall happens before the cat lady.

2: this is a really good one though, you got the representations right plus you gave the idea that the final bit is also part of what he is imagening, also like you said, no cat died, now that actually does make sense
cause the key he speaks of is in the cat lady in a cat STATUE, so that could possibly be it yeah, nice one man

[Priest of Syrinx]

1. Maybe they had two apartaments? I mean, Joe seems to be pretty border personality. Maybe one of those flats was Ivy's safe haven for the times of Joe's agressive periods?
If so, Joe might've moved there to 'try again' after he failed to 'save Ivy' the first time.
2. There is more :)
- Joe's flat interior looks nothing like the one we see in Downfall.
- In Downfall, the hole in the floor leads to the basement. In The Cat Lady it leads to an empty flat on the ground floor.
- In Downfall Joe's torture chamber is clearly visible right after entering the basement. In The Cat Lady it's hidden behind a new wall.
- In Downfall Joe's flat is the only one visible on that floor. In The Cat Lady Susan lives next to him.
- In a flasback Joe is seen mercy-killing Lucifer. So, Lucifer can't be hanging on the wall in that scene.
All comes to: it's a different place that Joe arranged to resamble his old flat or Downfall ending happened only in Joe's head :)

[DogeBoi Mk VII]

Out of everything you mentioned there, i actually forgot the whole scene where Joe was mercy-killing Lucifer, i mean, when comparing that to the scene where you cut lucifer open or that you see the cat hanging on the wall, the mercy-killing scene seems the most logical.

So with all of that thought through, i am seriously thinking now that the ending of downfall is in Joe's head now even more than before

[motheaten]

It gets kind of tricky when you imply that something is "happening inside the character's head" tho, this being the cat lady/downfall universe. Unless you subscribe to the idea that everything in both games is a result of the characters' respective mental illnesses (which gets pretty difficult to do considering how much of it effects the real world in a physical way) then it seems like there is an actual parallel/alternate realities thing going on. That kinda makes it more difficult to tie together individual details, cuz you don't know what's actually a reflection of the real world situation and what's just a symptom of the other side bleeding in, especially considering that people and physical objects can cross the boundary.

Probably the "actual" answer is that the devs wanted to make a cool and creepy homage to downfall. The fact that you can't figure out the whole thing in-game is likely just to stop players from getting distracted from the main plot so close to the end and because vague = unsettling. From an in-universe perspective I like the theory that Joe is just essentially repeating the events of Downfall over and over, and the fact that downfall officially takes place after the cat lady is just acknowledging the fact that some of the endings allow you to break the cycle via Joe's death.

[Priest of Syrinx]

Originally posted by motheaten:

It gets kind of tricky when you imply that something is "happening inside the character's head" tho, this being the cat lady/downfall universe.

Fair enough. Then it might be happening in the Other World. Both Joe and Susan (and possibly Agnes, in her dreams) have the ability to cross between 'normal' world and 'other' world. Ending of Downfall happened in the Other World, just like the rest of the game. Billy wasn't a real policeman - he was a construct of Joe's mind, impersonating his desire to be punished. Only 'real world' segments of Downfall were Joe's flashbacks.
(yes, I'm overthinking those games)

[Motoki]

Originally posted by Chudah:

But can you just imagine playing Downfall in the Cat Lady world (graphics and controls)? That'd be just amazing. I really hope it gets Greenlit so we can see it remade.

And voice acting too, yes that would be awesome, but apparently Remi is moving on to a new game now. Still, I think a Downfall remastered someday would be most excellent. I'm sure there are things now in retrospect that he'd probably want to go back and change a bit too.

[Chudah]

Originally posted by Motoki:

Originally posted by Chudah:

But can you just imagine playing Downfall in the Cat Lady world (graphics and controls)? That'd be just amazing. I really hope it gets Greenlit so we can see it remade.

And voice acting too, yes that would be awesome, but apparently Remi is moving on to a new game now. Still, I think a Downfall remastered someday would be most excellent. I'm sure there are things now in retrospect that he'd probably want to go back and change a bit too.

Remi did mention that if Downfall gets Greenlit he would update with new graphics and voice acting. So it's not completely out of the cards.

[Boiler]

I've recently had a discussion with Remi and he revealed some rather interesting information about the matter:

Rem: ah, try not to read too much into it. The cop in Downfall comes running and says there are dead bodies everywhere and everyone's dead
Rem: BUT
Rem: he is basing that on taking a quick look
Rem: for all we know, Susan could've been on holiday
Rem: in the shop
Rem: out walking a cat
Rem: anything
Rem: OR
Rem: like someone else has said- it didn't really happen, except in Joe's head
Rem: I like that theory
Rem: although I guess I will have to explain that in my third game, which will most likely havve some characters back in the same way TCL did with Downfall
Boiler: So the entire game of Downfall takes place in Joes Head even the "Real Life" sequence in the ending with the Cops? Maybe it's possible that Ivy probably never existed either and he imagined her perhaps?
Rem: no, I think Ivy DID exist
Rem: otherwise he wouldn't have gone all crazy about her
Boiler: ah
Rem: but whether she's dead or alive, fat or skinny... that's a mystery

Well after all, it's a sigh in relief that Susan is still alive and she'll more than likely appear in the the third game perhaps.

[DogeBoi Mk VII]

Ohhh, now that is a lot of interesting information, i am sure the next upcoming game will have some awnsers for us

[Venoix]

I think the games overlap in their timeline.

Susan mentions to Mitzi that Joe Davis had a cat named Luchipher, but she hadn't seen the cat around lately. In Downfall, at the end, when you are the coroner, you find the cat pinned to the wall of the flat, or alternatively there's also the "mercy killing".

So, I believe Joe killed the cat during the time of Susan living in the flat. Who knows, maybe Susan could have moved out of the flat after Mitzi died - and moved on with her life?

[CHOPPED HOG]

What is "Downfall"? I can't find it on steam.