Copycat Review (PC)
Summary: A tear-jerking exploration of belonging and love through the eyes of an adoptive cat.
4.6
Home is where the heart is.
The indie game industry can produce some weirdly specific genres on occasion, among which, there seems to be a genre developing of games where you can be, very specifically, a cat. Stray, Little Kitty, Big City and the upcoming Peace Island come to mind, and there’s even a game about the cat/buttered toast paradox, called CATO: Buttered Cat. So the subject of this review, Copycat, is certainly neither without precedent nor peers in its oddly specific field. Releasing this month as the inaugural title from Australian dev house Spoonful of Wonder, Copycat follows the tale of, well, a cat named Dawn, and the adventures she gets up to in a new home, and on the city streets. Dawn is given that name by her new owner, Olive, an elderly woman seeking a friend in the twilight of her life. During a visit from her adult daughter Mae, Olive mistakes a similar-looking cat for Dawn – who replaces the real Dawn, leaving her to survive on her own in the suburbs.
The two halves of the game are very different from one another. In the first half, where Dawn has just been adopted, she is initially reticent, plotting to get out of her new home as soon as she can. Slowly warms up to Olive as time goes by, and as the game progresses you learn more about both, with Olive suffering from the ill health and loneliness that come with old age, Mae being a worrywart, and Dawn’s instincts being shaped by her situation. Dawn acts much as you’d expect a housecat to act – your objectives thus are simple; nick some food, knock things off a table, scratch Olive’s sofa, hunt small critters, all the while being narrated by a nature documentary host, who serves as a sort of inner voice for Dawn’s animalistic instincts. While it can often feel a little railroaded as you don’t have much control over what Dawn does on occasion, it is rather endearing at least. I quite liked the early parts of the story when Dawn’s letting her wild side take over and tribal music begins playing in the background. It adds to the conflict of Dawn settling into life with Olive with her animalistic instincts, honed by bad experiences in the past – and with all this in mind, the second half comes as an emotional wallop in the face as Dawn, just starting to come to terms with Olive, now actually does have to survive in “the wild.”
It’s in this second half that the game’s main themes really come out in full force. Losing Olive to an impostor sees Dawn reflecting on her purpose and place in life, and suddenly she starts to appreciate what she had with Olive all the more, especially as most of the other humans she comes across treat her with indifference at best and scorn at worst. The way the game ties together themes of family, belonging and love into an overarching main idea of “home” really struck a heartstring with me in particular, and in the process paints a surprisingly empathetic and realistic picture of what house-cats must go through when abandoned. One p[articular moment that stuck with me hard is when Dawn, pondering her situation, ends up in a crisis of purpose just sits in the middle of the road, declaring she’s tired of looking as a car rapidly approaches. As someone struggling with mental health issues myself, I could actually see myself in Dawn and her own struggles – perhaps that’s part of why the game struck a chord with me in particular.
The plot and theming are driven home by top-notch voice acting, a wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack courtesy of Daniel Bunting and a slightly stylised graphical style that treads the line between realistic and whimsical. It reminds me of other arty games a little bit, but hey, it plays very nicely with the VO and music, bringing you even deeper into Dawn’s mind as she manoeuvres the world around her.
Final thoughts
Arty games like Copycat are two a penny, but clearly this one is one that’s had some serious effort put into it. Atmospheric and poignant, Dawn’s chronicles will tug on your heartstrings like a Spanish guitarist – and most likely make you want to hold your own cat as close as you can if you have one. Amidst the many cat games that the industry has birthed, this one is definitely one of the finer felines of the litter.
About the Author
Edward Gosling Ed has been playing games since he was in primary school, and now has a Steam library of over 2000 games, only a fraction of which he has actually played!
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