Copycat (PC)

I remember how utterly baffled I first felt when I learned that when some people had their pet run away or pass away, they sometimes would buy an identical pet and try to pass it off as the original to family members. For something like a fish it feels like a trick that could work, but with a dog or a cat, the animal can have such a unique personality that I found it hard to believe the plan would even work. Pretty much the only reason it could is because such pets couldn’t explicitly voice they weren’t the pet the person knew, but in the narrative adventure Copycat, we get a look at a feline’s thoughts that put into perspective how heart-wrenching and strange it can be to learn you’ve been replaced by a doppelganger.

 

While Copycat is said to be the story of a cat replaced by another, the story actually begins with you in the role of the replacement cat. The cat of an elderly woman named Olive ran away, and looking to fill that hole in her life, she goes to the shelter to adopt a new one. You’ll get to pick which of the six cats you want to play as, the newly christened Dawn welcomed to her new home. Olive is lucid enough to know this new Dawn isn’t the one that ran away though, and the beginning of the game is actually focused more on this new Dawn coming to know her owner and living situation. At these early parts, you essentially play Dawn in character as a hesitant feline with a lot of baggage from former owners. You are given options on how to interact with Olive, but despite the woman being a patient and friendly sweetheart, your cat needs time to learn that herself. You’ll be asked to pick between options like biting or scratching to show displeasure, early tasks involving trying to sneak food you’re not supposed to eat or spread a little mischief around the house. It is a little fun to knock things over and make a mess in Olive’s two story suburban home, but it also stings a little that you’re doing it to a woman who not only treats you with unconditional care and understanding, but one who’s own health is on the decline and Dawn just can’t see that due to her perspective.

Dawn is portrayed relatively realistically in terms of what she can do and understand save for a moment or two where you wonder how she can parse the meaning behind something like a sign. While it can feel a little rough in those early moments where you want Dawn and Olive to come together, the game does take an interesting and intelligent approach to presenting Dawn’s thoughts in providing us a secondary perspective on her actions. When you’re exploring an area, Dawn’s own opinions will appear as floating text near objects, the player starting to get a gradual reveal of her history as well as being able to better understand an animal’s perspective since she’s still learning how exactly she’s even meant to navigate a human space filled with things she has no context for. The truly brilliant addition though is the voice of a Nature Expert, a voice that at first is used mostly to humorous effect as he will describe Dawn’s sometimes mundane actions as if you were watching a documentary about a big cat out in the wild. While initially used for the amusing juxtaposition of Dawn tearing up toilet paper or scratching up the couch with descriptions of how cats evolved to be master hunters, as Dawn’s story develops, the Nature Expert actually becomes more like a piece of her conscience. The house cat wants to be a wild cat at first, mistrusting humans and rankling under the rules imposed on her, but as she learns the perks of domestication, you have the floating text of Dawn’s thoughts and the narration of the Nature Expert start to disagree and almost talk with each other. With Dawn even having surreal dreams of her living in the wild adding to that side of the pull, already Copycat gets off to a good start with an interesting representation of a cat trying to come to grips with what she wants out of life.

 

However, the name of the game ends up eventually coming back to bite Dawn, or at least, the Dawn we came to know so well. As our Dawn starts to have the freedom to go outside a bit, one day, the original Dawn slinks its way back into Olive’s care, and through a set of circumstances, you end up viewed as some stray as the first Dawn now ends up being the cat invited in the house instead of you. The early parts of Copycat are often heart-warming, comedic, but already poised for some tragedy as you can tell Olive is in a rough way, but when the old cat comes into the picture and you’re left out on the street, the game really starts clawing for your heartstrings. All of the game’s early set up about the pull of the wild versus the comfort of a loving home comes into focus as Dawn is left to fend for herself, the Nature Expert now truly serving his role as some sort of companion rather than mere commentator as we now are truly grappling with the reality of the situation.

Copycat does start straying away from playful mischief once you become a stray yourself, the game’s narrative still linear but featuring moments where you explore the Australian suburbs and nearby locations to try and fend for yourself or find some way to return home. This is where Copycat’s gameplay starts to make itself a bit more goal-oriented and require a bit more work to clear. Early on you may do button mashing minigames or poke around a space, but when you’re out of the house, you might get into tiffs with animals where you need to input a set of displayed commands quickly or you’ll need to time a button press to help Dawn pounce or snarl properly. There are running sections where you need to weave through objects to avoid losing speed and even stealth sections that really aren’t too hard thanks to being straightforward tests of moving when something’s not looking. If you do mess up though, most of the time you just get a chance to try again, the minigames feeling more like ways to energize the action briefly or help construct a moment like when you try to catch your own food. The choice system where you just pick from a set of options is usually the more interesting form of involvement, able to see how characters react to short term choices that don’t alter the narrative too much, but having some interactivity does better immerse you into the role of being a cat without coming with any actual difficulty so you can pursue the interesting plot mostly unimpeded.

 

It is probably for the best the gameplay wasn’t made to be much of a skill test, as there are a few little technical issues, usually in terms of regular movement. Leaping up onto objects sometimes detects in odd ways, Dawn sometimes floating on air briefly or hooking onto an edge in a weird way. Your cat won’t be moving as believably as it does in a game like Stray despite behaving more realistically than that feline, but this kitty’s tale is far more personal and doesn’t go for easy outs. It’s a game that can be heart-wrenching, leave you worried as it can sometimes take bold directions a more saccharine game might have avoided, and there’s also the looming question behind the very name of Copycat. Neither your Dawn or the original are really at fault for wanting to be by Olive’s side, but she’s not healthy enough to take care of two cats, a narrative element that makes rougher moments more impactful because it’s hard to figure out how the game can satisfyingly find an ending for all characters involved. It’s hard to resent the simplicity of the interactive side when the story is so gripping, but it’s also still nice to have those moments of light play to break things up and help push the story in new directions so it can shift its tone at understandable and important moments, especially since the game isn’t trying to be oppressively sad and benefits from bits of levity or hope.

THE VERDICT: An undoubtedly emotional ride that can make you feel warm and fuzzy or anxious and concerned, Copycat concocts an excellent way to portray the call of the wild and the appealing comfort of domestic life for its leading feline. Dawn’s own thoughts are portrayed believably while the Nature Expert helps the human player have a guiding voice to narrate and almost converse with the cat as her life is turned upside down. While the gameplay side of things often amounts to brief amusements and mischief rather than compelling activities, the story balances the heart-wrenching and heart-warming with its strong window into a cat’s mind as she tries to come to grips with how a cat views the human world.

 

And so, I give Copycat for PC…

A GREAT rating. Copycat can be a tear-jerker or even get you to gasp out loud, but it can also earn some laughs or help you feel the warmth of the moment, all because it builds up its animal lead to have an endearing and understandable personality. You can get those lovely moments of Dawn opening herself up to Olive but also can easily accept that some of that early meanness shown towards the sweet old lady is warranted due to Dawn’s past and the general attitude an animal might hold towards a stranger. The cat misunderstanding human living can be both a source of humor and drama as they can’t quite grasp the context behind things like pet ownership. The Nature Expert, voiced superbly by David Molloy, is truly Copycat’s ace in the hole though. While not a true character, more a filter for a sort of instinctual drive in Dawn, he voices thoughts that could have gotten messy for Dawn to voice in her small floating text observations while he can also expound on situations a bit more since he provides a human perspective on her thoughts in-game. He’ll cheer you on, doubt your actions, or make his own recommendations as the representative voice of the wild while also still being on Dawn’s side, but the windows into Dawn’s true opinions show an effective perspective evolution for the feline. She grapples with her thoughts and we know her better because of it but it doesn’t pull us out of being a house cat because of the ways it’s portrayed, moments able to better set their tone since we can have this abstract narrator and the more grounded actions shown in a realistic setting. Dawn always acts like a cat, never doing anything outlandish or too human, we simply have a new way of understanding her and thus can feel the emotions of moments that are uniquely feline but now viewed through a relatable lens.

 

Copycat’s gameplay side could smooth out some elements like Dawn’s movement during exploration and the minigames could muster up some more involved challenges, but this narrative adventure is definitely a story game first and even those minigames feel concocted to better help the game keep its footing in enhanced reality. Dreams can lead to things being a bit stranger for more unique and surreal visuals, but Dawn’s life leaning so realistic leads to a narrative that carries you through many emotions as you become connected to the character and the outcome. While it’s no cute cat simulation game, Copycat uses its breaks from reality well for a story bound to resonate with pet owners who might even appreciate their pup or kitty a bit more after seeing the world and our relationships from their perspective.