Stray

The game’s beginning is the same for all players: you start out above ground, travelling in a group of four other cats (your friends? Your family? Who knows!) and accidentally tumble down into the walled city.

It doesn’t take long for you to find an apparently derelict laboratory and load up a drone, called B-12 (like the vitamin) with an AI consciousness which explains that it used to help a scientist but has suffered catastrophic memory loss for unknown reasons. The memory loss is something from which it is still slowly recovering. You take the B-12 with you, as he (it?) is useful for a number of reasons (for more about which, see below), tethering him to you with a cute little backpack.

As you play, B-12 will occasionally reveal odds and ends of memory as they are recovered. These have the effect of tweaking your story arc with new revelations and ideas about where to go next. B-12 agrees to help you, playing as the cat, returning to the surface and its companions and they set off only to find that there are no humans left – but their robot companions have remained behind and thrived.

The walled city is populated by robots, viruses and machines (such as drones), and you are aided by your own personal drone, B-12 as you navigate through the streets. It’s not all fun and friendly robots though, there are threats too.

Zurks are a sentient cat-hating (or loving, depending on how you look at it) bacteria that will swarm and overwhelm the cat while Sentinels are lethal security drones tasked with keeping strangers out of the walled city and its inhabitants firmly in the walled city. These two enemies will try to kill you whenever they come across you, so you will quickly learn how to evade them.

The robots in the world, who have picked up quirky humanisms that they can’t quite explain – such as ‘hairstyles’ made from nests of wire, can offer you quests or reward you with unexpected treats. One of these is Morusque, who plays music if you gather sheet music as you travel, later presenting it to her.

To easily and quickly defeat the Zurks, you can fit a Defluxor to B-12 which wipes out the bacteria – but this can only be used for a short while before overheating and leaving B-12 out of action for a while as he recharges. Sentinels can be avoided by simply staying out of their sight lines, which are clearly indicated for you with glowing lines.

But not everyone is bad or indifferent to your plight: there are a group of robot companions who want to escape the walled city – and the sentinels, of course. Gather some of the Outsiders around you and B-12 and prepare to go on adventures. It is a strange game – strange, but great for cat lovers with authentically realistic feline movements, sounds and actions!

The Nitty Gritty

In this game, you have no weapons, no avatar, no armour. What you do have is a cat’s body. And if you have a cat in real life, don’t be surprised to find your own feline watching your gameplay with fascination as has happened to many people playing the game – there’s even a whole twitter account devoted to it! It can be found at @CatsWatchStray.

You must climb, leap across platforms, and forge new paths by actions such as upsetting paint cans – in typically cat-like fashion – jumping into buckets and clawing at anything that looks interesting. You learn to operate vending machines which open up new vistas for you too.

While some of the game is linear, there are open world sections too, where you can indulge your inner cat and get curious about the world around you. As you play you can nap, meow and make friends with NPCs all of which can give you certain bonuses. As you play you will collect badges which will then appear on your cat’s backpack.

With the lack of combat, the game is a pleasant relaxation with some moments of high tension – for example as you find the hidden switch that will help you escape the otherwise inexorable crowd of Zurks threatening to overwhelm you.

What Can B-12 Do For You?

B-12 does more than simply offer company and conversation, is can also:

Translates language so you can communication with the other robots

Provides useful light in dark places so you can plot your route or just see what is there

Acts as an inventory with a storage space contained inside of it

Aids gameplay by providing hacking skills to open new areas and help you to solve puzzles