Let me get this out of the way first, I’m a dog dad – a pooch pal, a canine companion! Still, I can see where cat people are coming from. Unlike dogs, they live life on their own terms. They’ll play when they want to, sleep where they want to, and when they suddenly disappear for an hour and you find them hidden under the couch, yeah, they wanted to do that too! You have to respect the independence.
In Copycat, Aussie and Ukrainian development duo Spoonful of Wonder truly captured the nature of being a cat. I loved slinking around the world, sticking my whiskers where I shouldn’t, stepping in paint and prancing around the house leaving colourful paw prints everywhere – living my best cat life! I even gave my owner a few little scratches and bites when I was feeling a little feisty; they say never bite the hand that feeds you, but you’re a cat and rules don’t apply. The true persona of a domestic feline is encapsulated in Copycat, opening up a world of kitty chaos to the player.
Story: A Purr-fect Tale?
Copycat tells the tale of Dawn, a cat rescued from a shelter by Olive, a lovely elderly lady, after her previous kitty went missing. When you arrive home you’re unsure of your new surroundings and hide away in the garage. But through lots of cheeky cat antics, you grow to trust Olive and build a close relationship with her.
However, when Olive becomes unwell and is taken to hospital by her daughter, Dawn is left alone in the house for days. When Olive finally returns, her daughter throws you out of the house, blaming you for her mother’s illness. Alone and wandering around the big wide world for the first time, you quickly become lost. It’s here you stumble across Olive’s missing cat, who happens to look identical to you! Your doppelganger (the copycat) is welcomed back into Olive’s home, and you’re left staring helplessly through the window, wondering if you’ll ever have your owners love again.
The rest of Copycat’s story is one that you should experience for yourself. The emotional narrative explores some dark themes at times and pulls at your heartstrings, succeeding in bringing a tear or two to my eyes. The short story only lasts a few hours, but manages to have some unexpected twists and turns along the way.
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Interactive Story Telling: Dawn Has Quite the Purr-sonality!
Copycat is a fully voice-acted, narrative driven game, set in an everyday neighbourhood. A narrator in the vein of David Attenborough, recounts every event as they unfold.
Playing as Dawn, I got to participate in the story in small and simple ways, making decisions like whether to scratch my owner, or play with her. As well as making more heavy, heartbreaking choices that held more weight in the story. Though decisions that actually mattered were few, the game is quite linear overall. I feel I would’ve felt more motivated to reunite Dawn and her owner, if my decisions mattered more, which is a shame.
Even though Copycat is a narrative driven game, there are plenty of open world sections, filled with opportunities to be a mischievous cat. I really loved how the game broke up its story sections, giving you time frolic through the park, play with different balls, or even ride a seesaw. Or if I was feeling more wild, I would leap at butterflies, and catch birds in my claws. It all felt very fun and cat like. I took my time exploring these areas, but they did feel a bit bare bones, and didn’t hold my engagement for long before I was ready to move along with the story.
Gameplay: Stop Fighting! Just Hiss and Make Up
The story is cleverly delivered through different types of gameplay sections. For example, a section where Dawn has to run away from some dogs, played like an endless runner type game, moving left and right to avoid objects. There are also various 2D and 3D platforming segments for Dawn to navigate, allowing a quiet moment to reflect between story beats.
When dawn takes a snooze, you get to dive into her dreams and run around as a wild puma, the blocky and retro graphics adding to the dreamy vibes. It was super cute to play as the giant wild cat whilst chasing bunnies around, which is exactly what I picture my pets dreaming about.
Another area that captured my attention, was when I was sauntering through the streets, and happened across a group of stray cats nibbling on a dead rodent for dinner. As I headed towards them they decided to pick a fight with me. This opened up a “combat” scenario where I had to complete a quick time event, pushing various buttons before time ran out. Doing so correctly, meant I would take a swipe at my foes.
Graphics and Performance: Looking good, feline good
In Copycat, the cats are the stars. Right from the very beginning when I was selecting my kitty I could see that a lot of time had gone into crafting their look. While they’re not exactly photo-realistic, the developers really nailed the different fur patterns which reminded me of cats I had seen in real life.
The animation was also on point, masterfully capturing how cats look when they slink and prowl around. Walking along the fence at night gave me a real sense that I was a cat exploring my neighbourhood.
The game environments were well crafted, especially the lighting. The way in which sun rays would hit a room really added atmosphere to the interior of the house. Outside, the lighting from street lights was particularly bright and I loved this effect. Seeing your shadow cast on to rooftops as you slipped past a window was glorious.
The one graphical letdown of the game was its human models, they lacked detail and texture, giving a real uncanny valley effect. When Olive first brings Dawn home from the shelter, and tries to release her from her cage, you get a close up of her face, and I couldn’t help but think “If that face was staring at me I would probably want to stay in my cage as well”.
I played Copycat completely on my ROG Ally in handheld mode and had no performance issues whatsoever.
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Sound: Turn up the Mewsic!
The games composer Daniel Bunting did an excellent job putting the soundtrack together, comprised mostly of chilled piano tracks and funky jungle beats. I loved hearing the riffs play as I was cheekily running around causing mayhem. The tone of the music also changes when you’re in danger, for example when you get caught in a garden with a bunch of dogs and have to stealthily make your way past them, the music is more intense and darker giving you a real sense of panic.
The game’s humans are fully voiced, along with a narrator who helps tell Dawn’s story. This was a welcome surprise, considering that in many narrative based games, it’s up to the player to read the dialogue. I also appreciated that all the voices had Australian accents, with the daughter sounding especially bogan. As Dawn, you’re also able to meow on command, which is pretty handy when trying to get someone’s attention.
Should You Play Copycat or Stray Away?
Copycat is a cute narrative driven game with fun and playful feline mechanics. From whacking cat toys with your paw, to prowling through large open parks, there is a lot to explore in the games short runtime. Exploration could use more fleshing out though, I would have loved to see more things to interact with during these sections to fully feel immersed in the world.
The game generally looks great with beautiful lighting and amazing cat animations. With a fully voice acted script and delightful sounds the world does come alive. There is plenty interspersed between each story section to make you feel involved in the game, however, choices have little impact on the overall outcomes.
Though there are some deep themes ingrained in the story it never leapt to great heights. I did feel some connection with Olive and Dawn and even shed a tear or two, but the game didn’t allow me to fully build my relationship with the main characters. If the story had more impactful choices that affected outcomes, I feel I would have cared more about what happened to Dawn.
Is Copycat the purrfect game? No, but it has a lot of heart. If you enjoyed Stray and want more cat shenanigans then you can’t go wrong with spending some time in this world. Just be aware that this is more “Stray Lite” than anything else.
Copycat will be released on September 20th, on Steam, for $21.95. You can download a demo now if you want to check out the game before then.
Quest Daily scores Copycat:
7/10
A review copy of Copycat was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
