One morning in mid-July, silence descended upon my household, punctuated by meows.
As a parent with a children’s home for the summer holidays, this was an unusual occurrence and I soon wandered downstairs to investigate what was happening. “Stray” was released, my partner had bought the game and just as quickly my child was on the case.
Specifically, he was on the cat case. In “Stray”, a video game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, you play as a cat. A slim orange striped cat who is a stray in a neon-lit underground city populated by robots in the wake of a disaster. Reviews of the beautiful adventure game have been 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 named it one of the best games of the year so far.
These agree with the reviews from my home, both from people and animals: our cat, also an orange tabby, joined the ranks of felines fascinated by games. The ending of the game (which my son would like you to know he clocked in at five hours – so much for my quiet working hours) has provoked more complicated reactions, but as far as going through the game, going through the world, maybe every world : it is clearly better to be a cat. These days, being a cat might be the best thing of all.
At the beginning of the game, a group of cats explore an abandoned facility. You, the lead cat, get separated from your group after falling down a chasm that leads into 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 named 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 it dark city and into the light of the surface again.
Sure, you have no thumbs, but you’re wearing a cute little backpack.
That’s the story, and this is the world: forever at night, like the novel-turned-film “The City of Ember,” crossed with the alleyways, dive bars, and puddles of “Blade Runner.” This is a complex and labyrinthine place. All the better to be able to wiggle, wriggle and whip your way around it. Sure, you have no thumbs, but you have a cute little backpack on and B-12 to help things along.
Stray (Courtesy of Annapurna Interactive) Why do we all prefer to be cats? You can tear up s*** in “Stray”. You’re just a cat; you don’t own property. You can jump into plastic milk crates, knock over crates; like a real cat: knocks over cans or bottles. This doesn’t really serve a purpose in the game. But maybe as in life: it’s stress relief. You can get into trouble. But because you’re a tiny little cat, you don’t want to get into trouble to take out some of your frustration or your boredom. It’s there, so why not overturn it?
There is a playfulness and freedom in being a cat that is missing in our lives.
You can wander in the “Stray”. One goal is to go very high in the city, so you climb from rusted tin roof (no words if it’s hot) to swinging steel beam to fence tops. You fit into small spaces and you are agile and nimble. You can take that leap. We have been dealing with years of concerns and restrictions around our movements and human interactions due to COVID. Now monkeypox makes any dance night seem dangerous, and air travel has become increasingly unsustainable. But in “Stray” you can move. You can move almost anywhere you want. You can stretch. It’s good for you.
You answer no man. Literally. You have no boss, no pet owner. There are no people in the underground city of “Stray”, and B-12 and Momo act as the Tin Man and Scarecrow sidekicks of “The Wizard of Oz”. They are there to help the fuzzy Dorothy of you, to jog along the bricks with you. And yes, you can weave between Momo’s metal legs like my real cat who nearly trips and murders us every morning when we go downstairs to give him breakfast.
Stray (Courtesy of Annapurna Interactive) One of the joys of “Stray” is these small, realistic cat behaviors that mostly serve no narrative purpose. Weaving between legs, knocking things off, meowing (it can draw the terrifying, swarming Zurks, which are basically giant tick robots that can kill you, so use this feature wisely), and yes, scratching. I watched my partner use the scratch feature in the game as we sat on our sofa which has tragically been scratched by our own cat. It’s more fun in the game.
Stray (Courtesy of Annapurna Interactive) Being a cat reminds us: it’s OK to have fun, just plain fun. We all need hobbies. We all need to take a break, as even the intrepid cat does sometimes just to mess around.
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My son pointed out that if you weren’t a cat, the game would be pretty sad. The backstory of “Stray” is intense, apocalyptic, and there’s the ending, which has drawn mixed reactions. But you are a cat. You start out separated from your family, as so many of us have been since 2020 and continue to be: delaying weddings, missing reunions, leaving offices, never meeting new friends.
As a cat, you do whatever you can to get home, including jumping between buildings. You also do what you can to help. Sure, your companions are robots, but they’re your robots, and you trust each other.
There is a playfulness and freedom in being a cat that is missing in our lives as humans; there is also an optimism. The cat is tough, determined and expectant and does what we all hope to do: survive.
