Lost, alone and separated from family, a stray cat must untangle an ancient mystery to escape a long-forgotten city.
Stray is a third-person cat adventure game set amidst the detailed, neon-lit alleys of a decaying cybercity and the murky environments of its seedy underbelly. Roam surroundings high and low, defend against unforeseen threats and solve the mysteries of this unwelcoming place inhabited by curious droids and dangerous creatures.
See the world through the eyes of a cat and interact with the environment in playful ways. Be stealthy, nimble, silly, and sometimes as annoying as possible with the strange inhabitants of this mysterious world.
Along the way, the cat befriends a small flying drone, known only as B-12. With the help of this newfound companion, the duo must find a way out.
Stray is developed by BlueTwelve Studio, a small team from the south of France mostly made up of cats and a handful of humans.
It's hard to pigeonhole this game into a single genre, as it changes so much as you progress. What starts out as a walking SIM-type exploration game becomes run-for-your-life, don't-eat-me-don't-eat-meeee; to stealth to oh-my-god-I'm-gonna-diiiie and back to exploration.
Story:
The day in the life of a cat turns to a story of discovery and survival when the environment betrays you and plunges you into the depths of a dysfunctional, heretofore forgotten city. With the help of a new friend, you must find your way out if you ever want to be reunited with your family... And maybe save the city along the way.
Our protagonist is a cat. A gloriously-nuanced feline in every way, from its curiosity to scratching up furniture to tripping the denizens of the city to its fuzzy little tail.
Gameplay:
The controls felt a little wonky to me -- a bit hard to get used to -- but in the end, messing with the sensitivity and simply playing the game made things feel more natural, and didn't get in the way of the enjoyment of the game.
I was confused by the tags on Steam at first, as the first hour and a half is entirely getting used to the environment and eventually meeting the companion who will accompany you for the rest of the game. Cyberpunk? Horror? Stealth? I didn't really see any of these at first, but they do apply eventually. You could argue that cyberpunk absolutely applies to the early gameplay, but it didn't really have that cyberpunk feeling that I had been expecting.
Movement is not limited to the ground, as our nimble friend must climb and jump his way through the environment. We even have some fast-travel options to speed things up!
There are a couple of very light puzzles, but nothing brain-bending.
Eventually we will discover the dangers of this city and will have to use our very best moves to evade certain death. Stealth will not work with these particular enemies, so those with coordination issues may have troubles progressing past a certain point in the game.
There are COLLECTIBLES to find along the way: Memories that will reveal more about our mysterious little bot friend, how this city came to be and how the place ended up in this state. These memories really add to the ambiance and the interest in the game, so I recommend seeking them out!
The 24 Steam achievements are made easier to obtain by the chapter select option. This also shows how many of the memories you've obtained per chapter, making it easy to know where you might have missed some!
Sights and Sounds:
This is a beautifully-crafted environment, with gorgeous plants, interesting characters and some truly breathtaking sights along the way. There is also a huge creep factor depending on where you are and what you're currently doing in the game. Alas, Steam reviews will only allow 3 images to show up, so I can't share some of my favorite screens here. Suffice to say, there's plenty in this game for those of us who love taking screenshots!
As for the sounds, they're nicely environmental, but I highly recommend making use of those sound and music sliders, as for me the music got annoying in parts.
There are a huge amount of mods for the game, from simple recolors to entirely new shapes, such as Gigi from Kiki's delivery service, various cartoons and even some dog/puppies! By viewer request, I switched over to the Garfield mod about half way through the game.
The Bad: The gameplay was too jarringly different in each area to have a natural flow and rhythm. It would have been much better if the types of play had been spread throughout the game, rather than concentrated into certain segments.
The Good: Our protagonist is delightfully cat-like, with beautifully-realized mannerisms that any cat-lover will recognize. This really offset the unease I felt from the lack of balance in the gameplay. The story is really interesting, especially if you take the time to find the memories spread across the chapters, and one element of final sequence really took me by surprise -- something I definitely can appreciate!
Overall, I feel that Stray is a flawed title due to the issues I mentioned above, but one that is still fun to play and experience. I'll give this one a thumbs up!
