I’m on the last bit of Stray (BlueTwelve Studio), and I have mostly enjoyed my time being a cat. They have captured accurately the feeling of being a cat, I think, and I love that you can just take the time to sharpen your claws, lap water from a puddle, or curl up in a ball and snooze. You can also have a few specific NPCs pet you, which is really sweet.
I almost quit the game, though. I’ll tell you why. I mentioned in the last post about my difficulty collecting the things I needed to make progress. I finally realized I had been in both places before, but I just hadn’t looked around thoroughly enough. In one case, the item was under a mess of papers on the floor, which means I didn’t push them around enough to find it. In the second case, it was that I missed the safe that was nestled on the bookshelves. I had the keys, but I had forgotten about it when I didn’t find the safe during my first walkaround.
I could say this is my fault for not looking closely enough, but it’s not completely my fault. I have spatial issues and the camera controls aren’t terrific. Or rather, it’s easy to miss cues if you swing the camera around too quickly. In addition, it’s not always clear why you can jump on one ledge and not another. It’s frustrating and I wasted hours trying to find these two items.
It’s somewhat on me because I could have just looked it up, but I didn’t want to. My brain was like, “YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND THIS YOURSELF, YOU DOLT!” When a game is cozy, I feel extra pressure to figure it out myself. That’s just from me, though. It’s not as if anyone is saying, “Do this yourself, numbnuts.” That is what my brain is telling me, though. “Why are you finding this so hard? Anyone can do this!” I know that’s what people with disabilities are made to feel, and I have to say, it’s corrosive.
I know it’s me a lot of the time. Rather, I know it’s my issue and not the game. Just like my shitty reflexes (we’ll get to that in a second) is me. I try to keep my mouth shut about it, but it makes my enjoyment of a game really take a nosedive if I can’t find a way around it.