I have always liked cats as far back as I can remember. I was lucky because the housing projects where I lived throughout most of my youth were also home to numerous stray cats, so there were many options to pick and play with. I remember when I was 7 or 8, I would get out of school and pick a spot with several cats and kittens and would spend hours there. Most of these cats were playful and also liked to curl up on your lap and sleep. I would let two or three of them sleep on me. So, you can imagine my excitement when I saw a video game where I could play as a cat.

Stray – a single-player adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive – was released on July 19 and I for one couldn't be happier. It is a quirky little game. It is a unique game. It is a beautiful game.

Catwalk

Don't expect big studio quality from Stray as it is an Indie game at heart, however, it knocks most Indie games out of the park with the degree of effort, attention to detail and graphical vistas that BlueTwelve Studio has put on show.

The game, simply put, follows the story of a stray cat who falls into a world populated by robots, machines and viruses and sets out to return to his family.

It visually looks stunning. The dystopian setting of the game is a picturesque trip from its dark environments at points, and its neon-infested city streets at other points, to its littered rooftops, its canals plagued with overgrowth, and all other locales with their unique looks all of which put on a show, brimming with detail and high fidelity and panache. All these vistas capture the gaze of the player, one after another, like models on a catwalk.

The cyberpunk feel of the game at times so much in accordance with its visuals, piques the interest of so many while also scratching the itch of playing as a cat that I imagine most of us have wanted to do at some point in time.

Speaking of catwalks, BlueTwelve Studio appears to have perfected the art of the cat and its walk with the stray's movements so precisely resembling that of a real cat as those with felines at home would attest. They have gotten so many details of the cat right: From the walk, to the talk – though most meows our cat bellows leave more to be desired – to the eccentric mannerisms that most cats display on a daily basis.

Cat got your tongue?

After we – the cat – fall down into the abyss and get separated from our gang – or family – of cats, we wake up to find ourselves following a series of monitors. Someone is trying to grab our attention, or maybe something rather. It points in the direction it wants us to take. When we finally reach our mysterious helper we discover that it was artificial intelligence (AI) trapped in a computer. We help migrate the AI into a new body – thus it becomes a small flying, drone robot companion, called B12.

It is strange but nonetheless telling that B12 can understand our cat. It shows that technology and information had reached such an extent before whatever dystopian apocalypse occurred that robots are able to speak with animals.

So, under the guidance of B12, our adventure begins, our quest to reunite with our pack. Meanwhile, B12 suffers from memory loss, so our other main objective is to help B12 remember its past.

Moving through the abandoned streets, we soon get our first encounter with a phenomenon that quickly explains the lack of life in these dark corners of Earth – I'm assuming it's Earth where the story takes place, however unrecognizable it may be.

This world is seemingly infested with what can only be described as weird, crawling face-huggers of the night. Now, when we first see one of these creatures – a few of them actually – they appear harmless. On the contrary, they seem frightened of us, scattering as we move forward. However, in our second meeting, we see the menace that they can be as a drove of them start chasing us.

We survive by the skin of our teeth in this first encounter with what will be the main hostile enemies of the game – they are called "Zurks." Thus, we arrive at the first large, semi-open-world section of the game. After escaping the Zurks we enter a neighborhood that seems safe from the infestation of the dark alleys. Here we run into our first humanoid robot, a disheveled one at that – trust me robots can be disheveled.

A concerned look overcomes his face – yes, that should probably read "its" but these are robots that are indistinguishable from humans apart from all the metallic bits and the digital eyes – and he raises the alarm, mistaking us for a Zurk. Traversing through the neighborhood, anyone who sees us runs away hurriedly in a scared fashion, locking doors in our face. Soon we end up at the feet of the neighborhood's guardian robot who recognizes that we are not a Zurk for sure though he in turn believes we some kind of a small robot.

Here we learn a little bit about this world we inhabit. While the city is completely devoid of human life, their robotic servants, Companions, remain. In the time of humanity's absence, the Companions have grown self-aware and have built their own society among the ruins of the city, but they likewise are trapped underground.

By the way, we are unable to directly communicate with robots, or Companions – or rather we can, but we are unable to understand them as they speak a foreign language, one that robots have invented themselves – so, B12 assumes the role of our interpreter, helping us understand the Companions, and vice versa.

In the end, the Guardian allows us to stay in the neighborhood, in this safe haven surrounded on all sides by infested ruins. So, we continue our search for a way out.

World in cat-a-strophe

The developers began imagining the world of Stray back in 2015. The setting was heavily influenced aesthetically by the Kowloon Walled City – an ungoverned and densely populated de jure Chinese enclave – which they thought was the "perfect playground for a cat" due to the various paths and views.

The contrasting elements like the "small, organic, and lively" cat against the "angular and bold" robots posed great importance to the developers and their hard work is on display for all to see. This underground settlement is a world of contrasts, green against red, organic against robotic, human against nature, life against death.

The gameplay feels very much akin to watching a real cat, which speaks volumes in terms of the developers' ability to perfect the mannerism, movement and aura of cats – which owners of the feline kings will attest to.

The design of the gameplay experience was specifically inspired by the BlueTwelve Studio founders' cats, Murtaugh and Riggs, and the studio's in-house cats, Oscar and Jun. Among them, Murtaugh, which was a former stray cat found under a car in France's Montpellier, was the primary inspiration for the game's protagonist. Meanwhile, Oscar, a furless Sphynx, provided an effective reference for animation.

All of these, the perfection of the cat, the enjoyable gameplay, the bleak setting, the bittersweet story, add to the making of a great Indie game. Don't twist your expectations, this is not a AAA game – the informal classification in the sector used to describe the tier of games with major publishers, high budgets and incredible marketing behind them. This is an Indie game, and all the implications of that label apply.

The gameplay although enjoyable is not very sophisticated, the story although interesting is not very long, the world although enchantingly beautiful is not very big.

What Stray can boast among numerous other smaller-budget games though is that it is one of the best-made Indie games, one of the best looking and one of the best polished. Visually, not many other games this year will please your eyes with their dazzling vistas as much as Stray.

The passion of the developers is undeniable and squarely visible at the center of the stage.

So, in yet another entry in this irregular series of video game critiques that pitches Truly Embarrassing Arts and Truly Electric Arts – which spawned from a pun on Electronic Arts – Stray with its passion lands surely on the Electric side. Its most important factor is that it allows us to play as a cat.

Let's leave it at that and catch up on another terrific journey through the realms of video games in our next TEA session – though I must warn being careful with tea around cats, particularly ones that are playful.