Stray

I recently played a game called Stray and here are my thoughts about it: For context Stray is a new that came out in 2022. It follows an orange cat (so you know it will be good) in a dystopian society. From what I can gather the human race is gone due to a sickness, and robots have taken over the world. The humans crated a world underground to protect them from the virus that infected their world. When you first get into the game you are introduced to the cat, when you and your cat friends go out and adventure for something you fall and make it to this undercity. From there you have to make it home.

As you play you meet B-12 a doctor who uploaded himself to the network to survive, but something got stuck and he sat there in an error for a long time until the cat shows up. From there you must help the robots out (as they too want to go into the “outside” as they have lived in a windowless city their whole lives). The game captures the ideas of an orange cat perfectly. You have things to climb on, jump over, sneak under, scratch at, meow at, and knock over in true cat fashion.

The thing that I like most about this game is the way that it is created, you are the cat. The story is warming as it talks about friendship (the cat rescues b-12 in several scenarios and vice versa). It does make sense thinking about it a bit more. In a world where biological organisms are no more, with the exception of these rouge bacteria that have the ability to eat organisms and robots and the cat of course. There is going to be no sense of compassion or empathy. Something that can be found everywhere is the idea that those who can breathe, think, and act on their own have the ability to show compassion. Animals are a great representation of this.

I have two dogs, Toby and Sam (plus the four guineas) they show compassion all the time. When ever someone has had a bad day the dogs will come up running, wagging their tail. Once they have settled in the dogs will start to cuddle with them (although Sam will pretend that her being next to you is a coincidence). There is a sense of compassion that goes into that. It is always something that I will always love. The cat in Stray shows compassion by freeing B-12 though parts of the game.

The game is also beautifully written, at times I laughed and I almost cried at the end of the game. It is an amazing game and I will always love it.

My computer on the other hand was not a big fan of it. The GPU would always start spinning it’s fans up loud and would get 30 FPS, but it was still an amazing experience and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Stray is on all major platforms PS 4 and 5, Windows, Xbox, MacOS and Nintendo Switch (sorry Game Boy or Sega Dream Cast fans, I don’t think it’s available for you yet)

If you are looking for a heart warming game, then I highly recommend this one. It does have some “scary” parts to it. For example the rouge bacteria will try to attack you in some parts of the game but you are equipped with a weapon. There are also a ton of puzzles that you must solve and it can give you a good challenge.

Here is one of the best parts they brought in a cat named Lala to voice act the cat.