It’s rare for a game to offer a whole new perspective on how we might experience a familiar setting, and even more rare is a game that confidently has all the mechanics designed around. it. Stray, an adventure puzzle game in which you play as a cat, not only delights you with its presentation, but in many ways it moves away from the usual puzzle mechanics to focus on abilities and limitations of the main character. It’s a consistently satisfying adventure with a captivating story of companionship that rarely misses a beat throughout its well-paced run.
You play as a feral cat who is quickly thrust into a world entirely below your own after a false incident occurs in the early minutes of the story. Alone in this neon-lit city beneath a giant, immovable dome, you quickly befriend a small drone that becomes a trusted companion throughout. your adventures and be the key translator for all the other sentient robots living in some of the areas you will visit. This drone, called the B-12, also gives you more options for interacting with the world around you, such as being able to hack doors to open them, kill people Dangerous carnivorous aliens with purple beams of light or illuminating dark and dreary roads as you explore them.
Outside of B-12 support, however, Stray showcases the full range of possibilities a cat can bring to you in this situation. You have plenty of mobility to move around, with contextual buttons on the accessible surfaces allowing you to easily jump up, down, and around wherever you want. This approach allows each leap to look incredibly good, with detailed animations that make your movements look natural and ballet-like. most cats do when navigating their environment.
You can chain these actions together for a quick and fluid feeling of platforming, creating quick momentum as you hold down the jump button and pan the camera around to guide you along a jump sequence. leap. There are rare cases where you might accidentally jump off where you originally intended, and others where diving from a tall perch can be a bit more of a hassle than getting up because you need to rotate the camera. to see a platform to jump to . However, these moments are so fleeting that it’s hard to break the thrill of being able to easily get around.
Throughout Stray, you’ll alternate between small central areas that you can freely explore and more linear, more focused sections, and both highlight your abilities in different ways. The verticality of the hubs helps you understand the limits of how high and how far you can jump, and provides neat secrets to find as you begin to explore the little routes that only a cat can. can navigate. Linear sections often focus on speed, requiring you to start stringing together jumps while also challenging your understanding of what’s and isn’t possible given your small size . The ups and downs between these two playstyles give Stray a delicately balanced tempo that allows it to introduce new tools for the B-12 or new enemies to overcome while never letting the greeting go too long. their pick-up, as well as allowing you to enjoy the freedom to move around your world at your leisure when things sink in.
Your mobility is the key to solving many of Stray’s puzzles. Most of them rely on defining a path to a goal, through a series of jumps, or building a path with jumps by moving different elements around the world to create a path. In other cases, you’ll need to find objects to tuck into the propeller so you can pass through, or use your claws to pull parts of the environment down to reveal a new path to uplift. Most of Stray’s puzzles are contained in small areas, which makes finding solutions relatively simple. They’re never too challenging, but they’re not trivial either, so dealing with them consistently keeps you satisfied. In the later stages more complex scenarios involve some light stealth and dexterous movement around a space, arriving at just the right moment when you’ll have a solid grasp of how you’re allowed to move. in Stray’s world.
However, there are some set pieces that are not as interesting. These mostly happen in the first half of Stray’s adventures and usually involve having to make your way through groups of enemies that quickly jump and stalk you in large numbers to take you down. It’s not that the puzzles involving these creatures are poorly designed, it’s that they often require you to run around clumsily avoiding these enemies, rather than giving you strategic ways to deal with them. with them. This is due to the fact that these predators can sometimes jump much higher than you previously believed, making the safety of birds perched vertically feel inconsistent. There are only a handful of these, but they are undoubtedly the weakest part of the journey.
Stray’s distinct hubs are often introduced after these disappointing pieces, with each hub packed with rich details despite their relatively small size. There are plenty of robot dwellers to chat with (if only by proxy via your drone companion) and smaller side stories to explore, many of which fill the void of the core story concerns a world that has not seen humans for thousands of years. The touching moments between some of the characters do a great job of complementing the core theme of companionship through the prism of these sentient AIs discovering family traits for themselves, while also dissecting the lack of empathy their makers have to let things get into the state in which you find them. It is delicately told and culminates in a satisfying conclusion that doesn’t leave any questions, but instead allows you to reflect on the relationships you’ve made along the way with passionate love.
Exhibition room
The centers themselves are also visually striking, with a high level of detail packed into their structure. The neon sign through the dark illuminates every crevice with a bright, colorful light, accentuated by eye-catching reflections from puddles in the street. The shops and stalls all have distinct designs that you can choose from by navigating around them, whether it’s just from the low angle of the little cat protagonist, or on the shelves rows where there are many obstacles that can be pushed out of the floor. Outside the city’s boroughs, the cold and wet sewer system is unwelcome and unpleasant, with some surprising elements at times that make Stray feel as though it’s about to become a game. horror play. Each new area you’re introduced to is instantly fascinating to wander around and I enjoyed spending a long time picking them out.
Stray’s ultimate strength is how its overall design showcases the protagonist’s unique perspectives and abilities, but it also doesn’t rely on this to be the sole distinguishing feature of the entire life. adventure. A lot of the fun during Stray’s run comes from how well each scenario is designed for its feline hero’s abilities and how empowered it to be able to navigate the stunning hubs. and derelict cities with additional agility provided. Its puzzles are frequently satisfying to solve, and they all serve to make for a gripping story with a satisfying ending, whose tempo is only mitigated by some of the slightly worse combat situations in the game. first half. Thankfully, they’re not popular enough to detract from the otherwise gripping adventure Stray has, and that it tells a story that will likely linger with you long after the game’s credits are over.
You play as a feral cat who is quickly thrust into a world entirely below your own after a false incident occurs in the early minutes of the story. Alone in this neon-lit city beneath a giant, immovable dome, you quickly befriend a small drone that becomes a trusted companion throughout. your adventures and be the key translator for all the other sentient robots living in some of the areas you will visit. This drone, called the B-12, also gives you more options for interacting with the world around you, such as being able to hack doors to open them, kill people Dangerous carnivorous aliens with purple beams of light or illuminating dark and dreary roads as you explore them.
