Stray is an adventure game where you play as a stray cat trapped in a cybercity inhabited by robots. It’s a video game with simple gameplay but unique ideas that keep you eager to explore, with situations and mechanics exquisitely designed around the fact that the game’s protagonist is a regular cat. It’s a short but well-thought out game that many will likely pick up simply because of the novelty of getting to play as a cat, but will fall in love with the world and characters BlueTwelve studios has brought to life.

The game starts with our cat protagonist traveling with the rest of his feline companions in the wild until a wrong attempt at a jump leads to him/her falling down into an underground city run by AI robots. Then it becomes a journey of finding a way back to the surface. With the help of a trusty robot called B-12, as well as other friendly robots you’ll meet along the way, this cat gets into all sorts of situations that gradually reveal the secrets of the city and those that live within it.

Robot city tour

The game’s controls are easy to grasp, but leaping is limited as all of the platforming is dictated by the presence of on-screen jump button prompts. You're not free to jump around anywhere you want, as traversal requires reaching where you want to climb, then pressing the jump button once the prompt appears. This results in awkward situations during intense chase scenes, as most of the time I found myself waiting half a second to get the prompt to appear in order to make a jump, resulting in a not-so-smooth transition from running to jumping.

It’s something to get used to and serves as the only sense of difficulty, as most of the game is relatively easy. Chase scenes are pretty straightforward as the only possibility of death occurs when you hit a dead end and don’t react fast enough to make the correction. The puzzles that block your path aren't that challenging either, but rather entertaining, as they take into account that you’re a cat, resulting in unique solutions or situations you rarely see in other adventure titles.

Even the game’s levels were designed with a cat in mind, having climbable areas like stacked boxes, walls with climbable ledges only meant for a cat, or a gondola contraption perfect for a cat to use to quickly descend to lower levels. Certain entryways also felt uncommon, such as metal bars, an obstacle that would usually be considered as a blocked path in most games, but since you’re a small feline here, you can simply slip in between the bars.

Early on, the game also makes smart use of its environment to lead the player through the right path, like neon lights or colored ledges. You have a designated “meow” button, allowing the player to let the cat make a faint cat sound that will usually trigger different reactions from those around you. It came to a point where I’d press this button each time I entered a new area out of curiosity as to whether something would happen.

Livin’ that cat life

In fact, Stray does a lot of things that let our cat hero simply be a cat. You can scratch specific carpets or walls, play with a ball, sleep in unusual places like on top of a robot or inside a bookshelf, or suddenly jump atop a table, shocking two mahjong-playing robots and ruining their game. There’s even climbable areas in certain rooms and areas that serve no purpose, but because you’re a cat, the fact that you can go there for no reason at all makes sense to me, because I’ve known cats to express this kind of behavior, often lounging or chilling in high and unusual places.

The game stays grounded in the sense that the game really just has a smart normal cat going through this adventure. He has no special ability that makes him stand out. He’s just an unfortunate cat that’s trying to reach the surface, and is luckily enough to be assisted by a trusty robot companion. B-12 helps you by hacking doors or protecting you from threats. There are times where I had to suspend my disbelief, as it might be silly to imagine that this cat can understand what he/she needs to do to help, but thinking too hard about it would ruin the simple beauty of what BlueTwelve has created.

Stray has two sides when it comes to its tone and ambiance, as parts of the game are very quiet and somber. These sections feel like brief tours of a lost world now reclaimed by nature. The reality of the current state of the world just leaves you wondering what happened to humanity. On the other hand, there are loud and bustling towns filled with robotic sounds and bright lights, populated by machines doing their daily tasks. Both sides are accompanied by a fantastic futuristic soundtrack that was composed and paired up nicely to complement this 4-6 hour campaign.

The town sections are a treat to explore, as there are so many narrow pathways and hidden areas waiting for any eager cat, rewarding those who take the time to explore, providing additional context with regards to what happened to create this rich world. I was always left wanting to know more, and was therefore willing to do certain tasks asking me to get specific items, or to search for the combination for a locked safe.

With just robots to interact with, the bulk of the conversations in Stray are packed with robotic sounds accompanied by gestures. Each robot citizen you meet was well-characterized by their movements, the emoticons in their head display, and written text, perfectly bringing out their personalities without any voiced dialogue.

There is a sense of combat, but this is the game’s weakest link as the only real threats are these small alien-like creatures called Zurks that come at you like a swarm. At a certain point, you’ll be given the ability to battle against these creatures, but with your being a swift cat, it was so easy to outsmart or outrun them that I barely engaged in combat, making these segments end in minutes and leaving the impression that the combat was added just for the sake of injecting some kind of threat into this world.

Conclusively, Cat-egorically Competent

It’s been a while since I've been this engrossed in a video game world, but Stray is a journey that wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t explored through a cat’s perspective. I sucked in as much of the game as I could because it was a joy to do so, and I was left emotionally invested towards the end. Some will be turned off by Stray’s short campaign, but there’s enough here to make the experience feel complete. Its likable characters, rich world, and smart situations designed for being a cat do the heavy lifting here, leaving the player with an impression that lingers on well after you’ve finished the game, making this a title that will easily stand out in the crowded gaming landscape for years to come.