It's one of those games that are really cute, simple, charming and thankfully: short. As you take your first steps inside your new feline body you're instantly struck by the cuteness of being a cat; hungry to explore the incredibly atmospheric world around you. Yet pretty quickly you start asking yourself: "is this really are there is?"
The game feels aware of this issue as it tries to keep your attention by introducing short lived gameplay elements and puzzles that are about as simple as a tutorial stage. But the game isn't going for gameplay complexity. No. It's goal is to keep your attention long enough for the story to unfold as your exploration brings you deeper and deeper into the city.
The strongest part of the game is definitely it's moody and neon lit atmosphere that is only heightened by the soundtrack. It really brings the futuristic city to life as you encounter it's robot inhabitants acting like humans in a post-human world. Almost like it's a coping mechanism to help with they're loss of purpose. They live within class-structures simply because the humans did it before. The're robots that shiver because their cold, yet they have no real perception of temperature. The're robots that smoke without lungs, and robots that act drunk without really drinking any alcohol. It's like AI-generated art, but on a behavioral and societal level.
This unfortunately, isn't the path the story is interested in exploring. It's more interested in getting out of this city than to examine it's inhabitants and their behavior. And this is why I called the game thankfully short in my opening sentence of this review. Because a simple game like this only benefits from being short as there isn't really enough to keep it going any longer. It's better to end it while it's still interesting than to artificially prolong it's lifespan way beyond it's natural limits. Thankfully, this is something that 'Stray' is aware of since it knows that cuteness and cats will only take you so far.
The game feels aware of this issue as it tries to keep your attention by introducing short lived gameplay elements and puzzles that are about as simple as a tutorial stage. But the game isn't going for gameplay complexity. No. It's goal is to keep your attention long enough for the story to unfold as your exploration brings you deeper and deeper into the city.
The strongest part of the game is definitely it's moody and neon lit atmosphere that is only heightened by the soundtrack. It really brings the futuristic city to life as you encounter it's robot inhabitants acting like humans in a post-human world. Almost like it's a coping mechanism to help with they're loss of purpose. They live within class-structures simply because the humans did it before. The're robots that shiver because their cold, yet they have no real perception of temperature. The're robots that smoke without lungs, and robots that act drunk without really drinking any alcohol. It's like AI-generated art, but on a behavioral and societal level.
This unfortunately, isn't the path the story is interested in exploring. It's more interested in getting out of this city than to examine it's inhabitants and their behavior. And this is why I called the game thankfully short in my opening sentence of this review. Because a simple game like this only benefits from being short as there isn't really enough to keep it going any longer. It's better to end it while it's still interesting than to artificially prolong it's lifespan way beyond it's natural limits. Thankfully, this is something that 'Stray' is aware of since it knows that cuteness and cats will only take you so far.