One morning in mid-July, silence fell over my household, punctuated by meowing.
As a parent with a child going home for the summer holidays, this was an unusual occurrence, and I soon ran downstairs to investigate what was going on. “Stray” had been released, my partner had bought the game and just as quickly my kid was on the case.
In particular, he was on the cat business. In “Stray”, a video game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, you play as a cat. A slender orange striped cat lost in a neon-lit, underground city populated by robots in the wake of disaster. Reviews for the wonderful adventure game are mostly positive. Video Games Chronicle described it as “essential” with “one of the most beautifully designed worlds we’ve ever seen in a game”, while The Verge called it one of the best games of the year so far.
These match my home’s reviews, both human and animal: Our cat, also an orange tabby, joined the ranks of felines mesmerized by the game. The ending of the game (which my son wants you to know finished in five hours – so much for my quiet work time) has produced more complicated reactions, but as far as walking through the game, walking through the world, maybe each world: it’s clearly better to be a cat. These days, being a cat may be the best thing of all.
At the start of the game, a group of cats explore an abandoned facility. You, the main cat, get separated from your group after falling into a chasm leading to the underground city. Humans have disappeared from the city for a sad reason, but their robots – which have become self-aware – remain. A small drone called B-12, which has the consciousness of a human scientist, accompanies the cat, aided by Momo, the leader of a group of humanoid robots (called Companions) determined to find a way out of the dark city and into the dark. light from the surface.
Sure, you don’t have thumbs, but you’re wearing a cute backpack.
That’s the story and this is the world: Eternal Night, like the novel that became the movie “The City of Ember,” interspersed with the alleys, dive bars, and puddles of “Blade Runner.” This is a complex and labyrinthine place. All the better to be able to wiggle, wiggle and prance around it. Sure, you don’t have thumbs, but you have a cute little backpack and B-12 to help with things.
Stray (courtesy of Annapurna Interactive)Why would we all rather be a cat? You can tear up in ‘Stray’. You are just a cat; you have no property. You can jump into plastic milk crates, knock over boxes; like a real cat: tipping over cans or bottles. This doesn’t really serve a purpose in the game. But maybe like in life: it’s stress reduction. You can get disaster. But since you’re a little cat, you won’t get in trouble if you take some of your frustration or your boredom out. It’s there, so why not turn it over?
There is a playfulness and freedom in being a cat that is missing from our lives.
You can wander in ‘Lost’. A goal is to get very high up in the city so that you climb from a rusted tin roof (no word when it’s hot) to a swinging steel beam to the tops of the fence. You fit into small spaces and you are agile and agile. You can make that jump. We have been dealing with concerns and limitations about our movement and human interactions due to COVID for years. Now Monkeypox makes every dance night seem dangerous and air travel has become increasingly unsustainable. But in ‘Stray’ you can move. You can go almost anywhere you want. You can stretch. It is good for you.
You don’t answer to anyone. Literal. You have no boss, no boss. There are no humans in the underground city of “Stray,” and B-12 and Momo function as the Tin Man and Scarecrow sidekicks from “The Wizard of Oz.” They are there to help the fluffy Dorothy of yours, to jog along the stones with you. And yes, you can weave between Momo’s metal paws like my real cat who nearly trips and kills us every morning when we walk downstairs to have him breakfast.
Stray (courtesy of Annapurna Interactive)One of the delights of “Stray” are these small, realistically feline behaviors that usually serve no narrative purpose. Weave between legs, knock things off, meow (that can attract the creepy, swarming Zurks, who are basically giant drawing robots that can kill you, so use this feature carefully), and yes, scratching. I watched my partner use the scratch feature in the game while we were sitting on our couch that was tragically scratched by our own cat. It’s more fun in the game.
Stray (courtesy of Annapurna Interactive)Being a cat reminds us: it’s okay to have fun, just have fun. We all need hobbies. We all need a break, as even the intrepid cat sometimes does only to mess around.
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My son pointed out that if you weren’t a cat the game would be very sad. The “Stray” backstory is intense, apocalyptic, and there’s that ending that has sparked conflicting reactions. But you to be a cat. You start separated from your family, as so many of us have been since 2020 and still are: postponing weddings, missing reunions, leaving offices, never meeting new friends.
As a cat, you do everything you can to get home, including jumping between buildings. You also do everything you can to help. Sure, your companions are robots, but they are your robots and you are dependent on each other.
There is a playfulness and freedom in being a cat that is missing from our lives as humans; there is also an optimism. Sloppy, determined and expectant, the cat does what we all hope: survive.
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