Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Season three of the Gaming Backlog Book club. We just wrapped up season two about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in time and had a quick fun romp through both the arcade and Super Nintendo versions of it in co op by way of the Cowabunka collection. And we are now ready for season three.

This will be another quick bottle season where we play a game that is short enough to be completed in a week.

So coming up for season three we we will be playing through Stray.

Stray was released in 2022, developed by Blue 12 Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, which tends to publish quirky and offbeat indie games with interesting subtle stories most of the time.

Not sure what experience you’ve had with any of their releases, Alex I have.

[00:00:46] Speaker B: Played Looking through what they have published, I have played what Remains of Edith Finch, which was a very unique sort of puzzle game.

[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that in itself is very much referred to as a walking simulator and that one actually deserves the title. Unlike Death Stranding.

[00:01:04] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Yeah, from what I remember, yes it does.

Other than that, I don’t think I’ve played much. I’ve heard of Outer Wilds. I know that’s a big like one of their bigger titles. That’s something that’s been on my backlog to play. So. Right, that might be one to play later.

[00:01:20] Speaker A: I’ve played Journey, Donut County, Flower and what Remains of Edith Finch. My backlog also has other Annapurna published games. Ashen, which is a cartoony soulslike cocoon, Lorelei and the Laser eyes neon white 12 minutes, the pathless Kentucky Route 0 and especially outer Wilds, which yes, is supposedly one of the best puzzle games, time loop games, examples of video games as an art form and definitely best to go in blind is what everyone seems to say. I’ve watched a review of it. I know that the expansion DLC is supposedly amazing, so play it all as one package. That might be a future game for the podcast.

[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it could be definitely. Kentucky Route 0 and Donut county are two other ones for me. Just personally on my backlog that I also would like to try.

[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s they have a good sort of suite of interesting indie games and you know, it’s nice to get through something a little bit more relaxed in many cases. Or Indy’s a great place to play puzzle type games as well. So Stray is a 3D platformer of sorts. I feel like it flew under the radar a bit when it released, but I’ve had my eye on it and I’m curious to give it a shot.

The very simple setup of the story that I’ve seen is that you play as a stray cat that ends up in a walled city full of robots and machinery and tries to return back to the surface. So I guess the setting is somewhat underground. I don’t know if there are any actual humans in here, but that’s about as much as I know. Outside of that. What do you know about this going in, Alex?

[00:02:56] Speaker B: I don’t know. Just probably about the same amount as you. I don’t know too much. I do remember seeing like for a trailer or very clip of it when it first came out, which was quite sad of the cat that you play as, like with his friends and his buddies. And then all of a sudden he kind of like a pipe. He’s walking along a pipe and it breaks and he falls down into like a sewer.

And then I guess that’s where you start the game. I just saw like that quick clip a few years ago, like not long after it came out.

But stray’s also been one that’s always just intrigued me. My wife and I own three cats. We are big cat people. I love my three cats. And so to be able to play as a cat in this and kind of just wander the streets and jump around hopefully on anything you kind of want to. And maybe.

I’m sure there’s probably other little cat things that you can do. Just probably bat around, bat around things or play with just random, random little objects that are around. But yeah, I’m very intrigued to play this and just play as a cat and see what it’s like.

[00:04:03] Speaker A: You want to share your cat’s names, Alex?

[00:04:05] Speaker B: Sure. Yes. My cats are Sherlock Watson and then our youngest one is Marmite.

[00:04:13] Speaker A: Cool. Yeah. On. On my end. I haven’t had a cat in a long time, but back when my sister was six years old, she asked for and received a cat for her birthday. It was around with us in the family forever across multiple moves and coexisted with our eventual dog.

It just so happens it was actually an orange tabby cat, just like the one here that we play as in stray. So maybe I’ll get some flashbacks.

It was always funny stories with little kids. So my sister asked for a female cat and had chosen the name Polly. It ended up being a male and it was named Polly. Anyway, so we had Polly the male cat. Very good to have around for that period of time.

[00:04:56] Speaker B: I also. That’s another reason actually, I wanted to play Stray the cat. And this is very similar to we also have an orange cat. Marmite, our youngest one is an orange cat and he is that typical orange cat behavior.

[00:05:09] Speaker A: I don’t know that I don’t that I know what you mean except for my own experience so. Which I can’t totally recall but I guess I’ll find out here.

[00:05:16] Speaker B: Orange cat behavior just means that they’re just little dicks all the time. Most of the time.

[00:05:21] Speaker A: Good stuff.

[00:05:22] Speaker B: Just anything that will annoy you or you don’t want him to do, he’ll do.

That’s orange cat.

[00:05:29] Speaker A: Well, we’ll see if.

[00:05:30] Speaker B: And also just no brain cells.

[00:05:32] Speaker A: Oh great.

[00:05:33] Speaker B: One brain cell. One singular brain cell. That’s it.

[00:05:36] Speaker A: We’ll see if our one brain cell orange cat in spray is capable of much beyond that. Then other details that I know about this. Obviously you’re a cat in a cyberpunk neon lit world full of robots with TV monitors for heads that use emoticons on their screens to express their emotions. I know that you have a dedicated meow button, so that should be interesting. You do typical cat things on your journey most likely and that’s about it. Also that you’re just a standard cat, not a cat with special abilities or powers or anything of the sort that you might expect out of a video game or a cyberpunk video game.

I’m not. I think the main motivation of this cat obviously is just to get back home which seems to be the case for many, many anim or pet out of place out of their usual place and home in most media. So should be a good time. What makes this something you’re interested in pulling up from the backlog and starting now?

[00:06:34] Speaker B: I think as I said earlier just.

I think it’s something. It’s a shorter game. It’s another as you said, like as we’ve kind of stated, like a palate cleanser sort of another. Just a short one after.

After going through death stranding.

[00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:06:49] Speaker B: Also just being a cat owner, this game has always just been intriguing to me.

[00:06:54] Speaker A: Right.

Right. After an extensive wild story like death stranding and a quick blast from the past beat em up like turtles in time, this seemed like a nice, relaxing, heavily atmospheric game to just chill to for a few hours and recharge the gaming batteries before trying something else more intense.

Also, meowing at robots in a moody CD seemed like just the right ticket for that.

[00:07:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m intrigued with the meow button. I might be spamming it because I’m curious to see if my cat’s.

[00:07:24] Speaker A: You’ll have to record that situation let’s see how they go.

[00:07:27] Speaker B: Well, I’m curious on if they might just.

They might just sit on the coffee table or on the back of the sofa and just like watch while I play. And I’m just curious if like I’ll just be watching and then if I hit the meow button and if they’re gonna react or jump up to the tv.

So if they do.

[00:07:45] Speaker A: Any chance of them running away? Yeah. Either way you’re getting a reaction. So that’s a fun, entertaining experience for them.

[00:07:51] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So if I can, I’ll try and catch and record any of the reactions if there are any funny ones.

[00:08:00] Speaker A: Well, I want to see that. Send it my way.

Now I will be playing Stray on my Steam deck both because it was discounted during the Steam summer sale and and also because it seems like a good game to play through all cozy in bed. Where are you going to play it?

[00:08:16] Speaker B: I’m playing on my PlayStation.

I actually.

So this is a game actually I bought when it first came out. I bought it physical from. I think it was through Im8bit, I believe it came out through.

[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yep.

[00:08:30] Speaker B: So I actually bought the physical back then but again I haven’t. Yeah, I haven’t played it.

So I’ll be playing on PlayStation and probably what I’ll do is I’ll probably be playing it on big TV but if need be like I’ll also just put it onto the portal to play as well since again it’s also probably just a good handheld game.

[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like the graphics are just, you know, high end enough to make it probably look good on a big screen and but not so super polished like something like Death Stranding where you need to play it on a big screen. So I think pretty much any option that you have available and wherever you feel like playing, it’s really the right answer.

[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah, this also, it may just be more just all of it on the big screen TV because my wife might also be someone else who’s interested in watching and watch me do this as a cat.

[00:09:21] Speaker A: That makes sense.

Sweet. Well, it seems that Stray is fairly short and can be completed in about five, somewhere between five and eight hours. So this should be a good weekend or a couple day playthrough and give you some time for other games or hobbies or activities before we chat about it in the next episode. If this palate cleanser sounds like a good time to you, then please join us in our playthrough of Stray this week and we’ll catch you next time for our post Play Chat.

[00:09:48] Speaker B: Thanks everybody for listening.

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