I’m going to start this blog with a confession. For most of my life, I didn’t like cats. I thought I was allergic for the longest time. That is, until I went to a friend’s house and he asked if I wanted to take home the cat that had been loving all over me. I said yes immediately. My cat O’Malley is now 5 years old and he’s as sweet as can be.
So now that I’m certified “Cat Crazy”, my husband shows me a game where you can play as a cat. You can run around, climb on buildings, and meow at robot people. How cool is that? We bought the game and started playing together.
We begin our journey with Stray on my husband’s PC. Instead of playing on keyboard and mouse, I prefer to play with a controller because it’s more tactile and I don’t have to remember too many keys. Stray controls from a 3rd person perspective, which means you’re basically looking at our cat buddy’s butt the whole time. You can run by moving the left joystick forward and jump by pressing “A” on the controller. That’s honestly most of the controls. There are more controls, but they’re very contextual, meaning they pop up to let you know to press them. You can meow by pressing “B”. That’s my favorite.
Stray has a very unusual way of telling its story, but that’s what I love about the game. There is no spoken dialogue, so most of the story is conveyed through “speaking” to our little backpack robot buddy and talking to other robots. There’s a bit of reading, but that’s never bothered me. They do make little squeaks and noises when they’re “speaking” to you, so that helps from it being monotonous. The environment also tells its own story. It’s a fantastic, decaying, almost sewer like city that never really gets old. As cute as this video game may be, it does have a dystopian atmosphere. Playing as a cat makes you think of all the dangers that could arise in the wild. Oddly enough, any dangers that occur makes you feel extra protective of your little buddy. There’s plenty of things to play with and do. I loved playing as a cat. Running around, jumping on stuff, knocking things over onto robots, scratching carpets, and taking naps.
As we finish playing, I think of the last question of who this is for. It’s for people who love silly indie games with a wonderful story. It’s for people who like a shorter game, or just like to run around as a cat for a while. You could say it’s a game for everyone, really. It’s a fun game with easy controls and a great story. If you like to play games casually or seriously, I highly recommend picking up Stray.