Whenever I run the game the screen just turns black before the program minimizes. When I click on its icon on the toolbar the screen turns black again and then the game minimizes again.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the game. This did not solve the problem.

I tried changing some of the settings - by changing it to run in a window rather than fullscreen I was able to reach the main menu of the game, but the game did not recognise user input and I could not start a new game nor quit (without using task manager).

Any help would be much appreciated.

I haven't played this yet, but I thought I read that the menu can only be interacted with via keyboard. For some reason, the mouse isn't recognized.

Oh alright. I just checked this out and the only keys that work on the main menu are the up and down arrows and enter.

On my Windows 7 (64 bit) laptop with Intel/Nvidia setup, the only compatibility option checked is "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings".

Have you tried to run any other game made with Adventure Game Studio? There's a lot of freeware ones if you want to try.
The Cat Lady is fully controlled by keyboard (left, right, up, down, enter to be precise) - so you won't see a mouse cursor for the whole game.
If nothing else helps, try PMing Mark (m0ds), the publisher. You'll find his posts in this section.

Thanks for the replies guys :)

I fiddled with the settings a bit, and now I can play the game in a small 800X600 window. That's certainly an improvement, but it's a shame that I can't play it fullscreen for maximum immersion.

I downloaded another AGS and got the same result - can play it, but not fullscreen.

So it's probably another case of this issue:
http://www.gog.com/forum/the_cat_lady/monitor_says_out_of_range_when_launching_game
But still, try to contact Mark - maybe he'll be able to help you.

Not beyond what is already said and done I can't, sorry.

Game needs graphics card with full screen support for 800x600. That's the solution, one I can't fix for people, sorry ;)

I wonder how it would work on a virtual machine with such card emulated.