Stray is a game in which you play as a cat in a world of cyberpunk and robots where humans have long since become extinct. I won't tell you about the plot. The game is extremely pleasant and meditative, while playing you just get high and relax. It’s as if she was created to go into this sweet, incredibly beautiful neon world after a hard day and just relax.
The style resembles a mixture of cyberpunk, biopunk and hippie, which is a huge plus for me personally. The whole game is incredibly beautiful and filled with a lot of gorgeous landscapes. The graphics are also very good. I would also like to note the incredibly realistic main character in terms of sounds, appearance and movements. By the way, the realistic movements were created due to the fact that the authors did not animate the movements from scratch, but used a motion capture suit on a real cat.
The gameplay is quite simple and monotonous, tied mainly to parkour, but although, as I said, it is monotonous and simple (literally just jump where you need to, you can’t even fall), it plays extremely nicely and, in my opinion, doesn’t get boring . Although it seems to me that the stealth in this game is a little unfinished. The game also has riddles, they are simple, but you still have to think about them a little so that they won’t let you get bored, but they won’t bore you either.
As for the sounds, I can only say one thing – it’s awesome. I’m ready to put forward a petition to give the composer a Grammy. The music here is something alien. Sounds like a mixture of dreamcore and electronic music. At the same time, she will manage not to get bored and always set the right mood, be it tenderness, relaxation, or fear. If it were up to me, I would add all the sounds to my playlist, but unfortunately they are not available on Yandex music.
There are also a lot of cool details in the game, like the fact that without any purpose, in the midst of completing a task, we can start sharpening our claws on a tree or carpet. Naturally, the game has a huge number of cute moments. But with all of the above, there is a philosophy to this story, and if you think about it a little, you can really get carried away, but since I didn’t talk about the plot (because it would take too much time), I also didn’t talk about the essence of this message. I can tell you. And the plot as a whole is quite simple, but addictive, and although, as I said, the game is as enjoyable as possible, the end is very sad (if everything is ok with the cat).
In short, this game really stuck with me. Stray is the most meditative and pleasing story to the eye, ear and heart. According to me, the game is 9.5 out of 10. I took half a point for the shortcomings of the gameplay and for the length (the game is a bit short for me). Also, special respect to the authors for the fact that most of the proceeds from the game went (and maybe still goes) to the fund for the protection of homeless cats.