Developer: Spoonful of Wonder
Platforms: PC (Reviewed)
Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Spoonful of Wonder, Nuuvem Inc., Neverland Entertainment
Copycat is an indie narrative-driven game that was developed by Spoonful of Wonder. Copycat is published by Spoonful of Wonder, Nuuvem Inc. and Neverland Entertainment. Copycat is a uniquely made game that has similarities to the known cat game, Stray. Copycat is currently available on the PC. In this game, you play as a newly adopted shelter cat named Dawn living with an old lady, Olive, and the home has been taken by a copycat.
Copycat is a single-player game where you control a newly adopted shelter cat, who explores its home and goes through the emotions of identity, jealousy, and relationships. This game makes sure that you go through every emotion while playing it. It is a semi-open world game where you walk at your own pace, exploring the house/neighbourhood, knocking things down in the house, hiding in boxes, climbing trees, and fighting dogs. You get to play mini-cat games that include hitting the feathers with Olive. Copycat is a short narrative game with roughly 3–4 hours of gameplay. Throughout the game, a nature documentary narrated your every move, which made the game even more enjoyable and interesting.
The controls for Copycat are very simple. Everything is mainly done with movement keys (WASD) and the F to meow, shift to sprint, and ZXC help for other mini-games that were played throughout the game. These controls make it extremely easy to play this laid-back game.
The art style of Copycat is a soft pastel colour palette; the colours try to hit every emotion that the game is trying to go through. This gives it a warm, melancholic feel that aligns with the different emotions. The characters and environment in the game are simple yet detailed with their expressions and how they feel. Copycat’s art style is like a kid’s story-telling book. I think the visuals and cutscenes for this game were made really nicely, as you get a feel of something that looks almost realistic with a sense of cartoonishness to it. The details of the environments, weather, and atmosphere themselves really do a great job of capturing how you would see the world as a cat. With the visuals, the melodic, jazzy music that is accompanied by the story is really nice. Throughout the game, there’s a good diversity in the score, spanning jazz, lullaby music, and tribal music.
Now the gameplay for Copycat was something I found so enjoyable. It’s a narrative-driven game that is heavily focused on storytelling, and you get to decide how you will progress through the game. At first, it’s almost like playing a simulator game where you play as this house cat who tries to escape but eventually grows fond of their owner. Olive, Dawn’s owner, is someone who is struggling with her health and is quite close with Dawn as she’s the only one there for her. Eventually, this doesn’t turn out for the better as Olive’s daughter comes to visit to take care of Olive’s deteriorating health, and this takes a toll on Dawn as well. Without going much into the story, as it is truly something you need to experience on your own, this gets quite rough. A lot of the story embodies the bad choices that the people surrounding Dawn make and takes a huge toll on the narrative. For the gameplay itself, you get to control Dawn in third-person, and some instances have switches to first-person that give the player an immersive feel. I do have to say that I really like the animation in some cases, like, for instance, when climbing over things that make you feel like you’re a cat. I do have to say that it does just feel like a walking simulator where you play as a cat, but I like that the developers added a bit more to the game that gets you to be stealthy and time your jumps, almost like a little cat parkour. Having the variation of the light puzzle games is really fun because it mixes it up from just running/walking as the cat. The puzzles are nothing too challenging but are definitely a nice addition. Something else I really liked about the game was how you had the option to pick certain actions, for example, scratch or bite, that made you think like a cat in the instance. For a short narrative game, I think Copycat does do it justice by creating a heartbreaking story that allows players to really embody a cat.
Copycat is a game where you can take on the perspective of a cat and explore the neighbourhood you have been brought upon. You get to follow an unexpectedly rough story that can bring tears to some people’s eyes. You’re a cat who wants nothing more but to explore the ‘wild’. Take on little puzzles and traverse through the eyes of a cat. If you’re looking for a game that you can wind down to, then be sure to check out Copycat.
Overall: 7/10
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