Stray
Usually, when reviewing games, I have my daughter as an audience. For Stray, however, my entire family took an active role in helping its furry protagonist solve mysteries. Most of all, my three-month old kitten, Qwerty, took a passionate interest in it. Qwerty constantly conversed with the unnamed in-game cat — a conversation I happily took part in by pressing the dedicated “meow” button.
For those of us who have lost a cat at some point, the game hits home a bit. Because Stray has an unnamed ginger cat who is trying to find its way home. Separated from its family, we have to guide it through an unfamiliar cyberpunk city, aided by a friendly drone, B-12. To find a way out of this lost world, the cat has to solve a series of mysteries and puzzles.
Stray is made by a small group of cat parents in BlueTwelve Studio. There are many things in the game to suggest it could have only been made by people who understand cats. You could, for instance, sense this in the way the cats in the game interact with each other.
The other protagonist of this game is the dystopian cyberpunk city that is filled with robots with screens for heads. When you are not knocking things off tables with your outstretched paw, you are happily delving into these robots’ lives, to piece together the story behind this lost city.
At its core, Stray is an adventure game played from the third person, sorry, third feline perspective. While there is no action in the traditional sense, Stray does have some exciting moments — like when you have to avoid the security drones. More often than not, you will find yourself maneuvering the furry hero, guided by B-12 (which looks like a controller), to find various ways to navigate the city and solve its various puzzles, which require some strategic pawing and scratching.
The game is designed to be an easy, almost meditative experience. At any time you can mill about and interact with things around you. Cat lovers will appreciate the nuanced movements of cats in the game despite a few animation stutters.
The city in the game is drenched in neon. When the going gets too hard, you can always curl up anywhere and let the game just play you some of its fantastic music. Stray is an aural experience as much as it is a visual one.
Stray is not a perfect game by any means. If not for its protagonist or its world, it would have been a pretty boring experience. Yet its design elevate it to a must-play game, especially if you are a cat parent. Stray is living proof that cats should be the protagonists of every video game henceforth.
