#53 - Stray is a very sweet little video game

Stray is a game that I’ve been very excited for, which has led to me purposefully dampening my hopes in order to not be disappointed. It was probably for that reason that I didn’t immediately play it upon release. I made myself wait a whole 72 hours, pause for applause for my incredible restraint show there.

The reviews from « hardcore gamers » are complaining about a lack of combat, which I had already rolled my eyes at, but then after playing the game I am…astounded that some people want this.

Like I know I’m a softy and having two cats certainly makes the game even more personal (there’s a mostly white calico and a black cat in the opening and I was immediately thrilled, called the cats in just to show them, they did not care but did snuggle so, I still win) but the idea that seeing animals in more anguish was wanted is…upsetting.

Like, spoilers for the first five minutes of gameplay, but the cat is in distress and I could barely make it. There’s a very short period where it’s walking with a limp and I almost cried. Video games are incredible mediums full of endless possibilities, but because so many of them are actually just stand-ins for military recruitment, and violence is easy to use as a replacement for narrative conflict, we have created a world in which a game about exploring is seen as boring. Even if the art style is beautiful, even if the point of the has nothing to do with violence, the vocal gamers demand it. It’s “not a real video game” without it. What an indictment of their imaginations.

So, I’m going to keep this brief (or, as brief as I can), and just say that I’m really glad Stray is as sweet as it is (and…it’s not that sweet, there is conflict in the narrative, it’s just not solved by making animals fight each other) and I’m excited to play it and I’m glad that cats now have a fun video game they get to be the protagonist of, 20 years after Nintendogs got their day. There is a market, a major market, of gamers who want this kind of game, and there is a distinct lack of interest in capturing that demographic from any of the major game houses. It’s not just that they don’t want to program women to be the main character in their games, it’s that they steer away from anything innovative by sticking to this weirdly rigid set of rules that their “fans” now hold them to.

(Nintendo is one of the major companies that likes to brag about the amount of women that appear in their games—when Ubisoft claimed that creating a woman-led Assasin’s Creed game would “double the work”, Nintendo dropped this “epic clap back” in which they showcased all of the ladies of Super Smash Bros. (Sidenote: now that YouTube has the “most replayed” info you can find out some really weird things about human psyche, and it shouldn’t be, but like still was kind of a surprise that the most replayed section of that video is the slow pan up Zero Suit Samuses’ body.) But…Peach has been around for literally as long as Mario, so why doesn’t she have a standalone game? I feel like they now give Peach these little #Girlboss moments that ring so hollow when they refuse to give her her own game and story! It’s great that she goes off on her own adventures at the end of Mario Odyssey—but wouldn’t it have been even cooler if I could have played those adventures through? Wouldn’t it be a fun subversion if she, in the words of The Cheetah Girls, got to rescue herself just once?)

It’s really fun to play as a cat in Stray. There is a certain catharsis in me getting to be the one to knock things off of a ledge. And you can instantly tell that it was made by people who spend a lot of time with these shrunken little apex predators. I’m so glad they didn’t put a bunch of extraneous violence in the game to appease faceless gamer bro’s. It’s a little more stealthy than my personal gaming style leans towards, but that makes sense! Cats are silent and stealthy, it’s like, their whole thing.

The most satisfying gaming moment I’ve had recently was the first time you get to jump in a box as a cat. BooBoo loves a box, or a brown paper bag, anything that she can nap in and claw at. And sometimes I look at my cats and feel like my heart is going to burst because I love and care for them so deeply, and it’s really cool that this game isn’t one that I have to avoid 90% of the gameplay in order to relax and enjoy it.

It’s by cat lovers, for cat lovers, and I love it.

Stray is available on Steam, PlayStation Plus, and the PS Store.