Drip. Drip. Drip.
The slow pitter-patter of rain, a soft echo that reverbs with each consecutive drop.
The foreign sensation against warm skin emanates closure while still being cool to the touch.
It dances off your skin, and in moments like these, you can only wish the rain was everlasting.
But it does not stop, it grows harsher by nature, giving you a chilling feeling.
Soon the gentle synchronized taps turn to drenched dissonance.
You cannot help but let a shiver escape from your lips, the same way the clouds cannot help but release their waterworks.
The only way to escape the sky’s grief is by taking shelter.
To push through cumbersome doors, as the once miniscule flicks of rain trail down the facade of a nameless building.
This building provides warmth and closure in stark contrast to the frigid drops outside that no longer can.
This place is warm, cozy, and safe. It shields you away from unpleasant feelings, just like a home should.
But there is more to a home than just that. Home is not just a place that provides, but a place where we are needed most.
And this is taught all through the story of a cat, Copycat.
The Video Game Copycat
Copycat was released on September 19th, 2024, by Australian indie game studio Spoonful of Wonder. It can be found on platforms like PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox, Switch, and Steam.
The game takes a creative leap by placing players into the perspective of a shelter cat, freshly adopted by an elderly woman named Olive. With intricate graphics and a deep understanding of needing and being needed, it is easy to get engulfed in the game. It is narrative-driven, with an immersive and thoroughly thought out story wrapped in hurt and comfort that leads gamers through a trail of ups and downs in search of the desired “happily ever after.”
Playable on both computer and controller, the controls for movement and interactions are displayed on the screen all-throughout the game, making it easier to learn and, due to its sketch-like design, does not disrupt the gaming experience. Playing as the shelter cat, the initial objective of the game is to try to escape Olive’s house. Players will familiarize themselves with Olive and her home, and accustom themselves to the routine set out for the shelter cat, from meals to playing outside. As players progress through the game, they will be met with rhythmic minigames that largely test players patience. These minigames are all cat related, from catching fish to leaping at butterflies, which not only helps the shelter cat bond with Olive but also helps highlight the feisty but playful nature of the shelter cat. There are also no game-overs in the minigames, so players are permitted to make mistakes.
The rough beginning
Upon joining the game, players are met with a single quote, etched against the solid black screen: “Home is not about where you live, but where you are needed most.” A quote that players will intermittently reflect on as they ponder the semantic meaning of home throughout the game.
Then the screen fades in, and players hear a shrill voice speak as someone trudges through the shelter. The game will temporarily allow players to view the cutscene from Olive’s perspective. As Olive slowly makes her way across the shelter, she speaks to the shelter’s staff, who curiously asks Olive if he had seen her a few weeks prior looking for her lost cat. A question which will play a major role further in the game.
Then the shelter’s staff leads Olive towards the cat adoption room, and that’s when the first wave hits. A quick high-pitched screech as Olive’s vision impairs and blinds the player with a neon light. A nauseating symptom of the undisclosed illness that Olive suffers from. This will not be the only occurrence that players will see Olive afflicted, and it will majorly impact the storyline as concern for Olive’s health grows.
Olive is given a moment to rest before she carefully chooses from a small collection of cats, the first of the many choices that the player will make throughout the game. To make choices in this game, players must interact with the aforementioned buttons that appear on the screen. Though most choices give you an unlimited amount of time to make a decision, other urgent decisions are time-limited. The choices players settle on will determine the response they receive. However, it will not impact the ultimate output of the story. This means that regardless of the player’s decision, all players will reach the same ending.
The adoption
After selecting from the array of cats, Olive is tasked with signing adoption papers. These papers list out terms and agreements for adopting a shelter cat.
She signs the following:
“I give my full consent that my adopted cat will become a part of my life moving forward.”
“I agree to treat this cat in a humane, loving and respecting manner.”
“This cat will live under my roof and have a place to call home.”
By signing these agreements, Olive assures the shelter cat, whom she names Dawn, a home.
This, however, becomes an issue once Dawn’s thoughts reveal that she has no desire to be a housecat. Dawn pictures herself as a ferocious wildcat, and she heavily desires to escape from Olive’s home. “Call me any name you want, Lady. I’m not going to remember,” Dawn thinks. These thoughts, like the choices, pop up on the players screens and let players understand the gears in Dawn’s head. Thoughts instruct players, acting as a guiding conscience. These thoughts also help guide players into preceding scenes.
As players progress further into the game, Dawn is repulsed by the idea of settling down into her new home, so she turns to her mischievous nature to illustrate the daring wildcat that she is. From smashing china, splattering food on the floor, and covering the whole house in paint, Dawn does just about anything that could get on Olive’s nerves. This is where the “Nature Expert” comes in. Starting off as just a narrator from a wildlife documentary, the Nature Expert narrates Dawn’s movements and interactions and implicitly tempts her to act out in order to prove herself as a true wildcat. He is one of the main voices that players will listen to, and he acts as a protective consciousness.
New-developed feelings
Dawn continues to act out, until one day she discovers Olive languidly collapsed on her bathroom floor, her illness afflicting her once more. Dawn, hesitant on what to do, comes to terms with her wildcat nature, and decides to comfort Olive. This very decision became one of the integral turning points of the game, helping to build an intimate friendship between the two. Slowly, Dawn learned to think more softly of Olive, though her clattering messes still followed her. She began enjoying the little things, like the playful games and the meals set out for her. Though Dawn had not realized it herself, she was starting to build a sense of belonging from the safety and comfort of Olive, and her home. Their home.
The sweet moment comes to an end however, once Olive’s daughter, Mae, kicks Dawn out of Olive’s house. Despite the act sounding wholly malicious, Mae had her concerns for Olive’s health, and felt that caring for a cat was reckless for an elderly woman who faltered in caring for herself. Nevertheless, the way she dealt with her concerns were unjustifiable, and endangered Dawn as she was left to fend for herself on the streets. Dawn feels pained and aggravated by Mae’s abrupt dismissal, and this feeling only deepens, once Olive discovers Mae’s decision and mistakens an identical stray cat for Dawn. As both Olive and Mae walk back into the house with a brand new cat in Olive’s hands, Dawn’s thoughts cry at Olive’s mistake, but it is no use because only the player can hear it.
Dawn is beyond aggravated at this point, she’s furious and awaiting to erupt on this stray cat. She makes numerous attempts at breaking into Olive’s house, soaring from window sill to window sill, traveling across thick pipes attached to the house, searching for an entrance. Instead, she bears witness to the affection that the stray cat receives from Olive. Her jealousy seeps at its brim towards this copycat. “For a stranger, that cat is oddly comfortable inside the house,” the Nature Expert exclaims. Little did the Nature Expert understand the truth in his words. It is this crucial moment where Dawn loses what she had that makes Dawn reflect on her own misdemeanor and realize Olive was more than her owner, she was family. She didn’t want to be a wildcat anymore, she wanted to be right at Olive’s side, right where the stray cat stood. She wanted to be home.
“I must show Olive I’m part of this family. I am still part of this family. Right?” Dawn thinks. She scavenges for things to prove her worth, and seizes a baby bird from its mother’s nest. Her decision to riskily capture the baby bird as a domesticated cat with no actual experience in hunting is a curious one. Instead of attempting to search through trash bins, or snatching items off of neighboring houses (though it would be notably harder for her), Dawn goes to obtain a bird for Olive. The bird, symbolizing protection and love, is offered to Olive as her part of the family. She hands it to Olive who is resting at her porch, expecting to receive the same protection and love back, but it was on that very porch that Olive realized the dilemma she had created.
The Reveal
“Didn’t you come in a few weeks ago looking for a missing cat?” the Shelter’s staff had inquired at the very start of the game. He was, in fact, correct. Olive, terribly lonesome, and pining from the disappearance of her feline companion [named Dawn], entered the animal shelter hoping for news about her missing cat. To no avail, Olive spent those weeks waiting without response, until she finally decided there was no point waiting any longer.
She needed company, whether it was her cat or not. So she walked into the same animal shelter, and adopted herself an identical cat, also naming it Dawn, who players play as. The “stray” cat that Olive mistakenly takes in, turns out to be the original Dawn, the missing cat that Olive was longing for. Olive guiltily expresses this to both cats, before picking up Dawn [the player] and taking her for a car ride, only to abandon her in a distant rural area.
This part is the most upsetting of the game, because rather than addressing the mistake that she had made, Olive decides to “do the right thing” and leaves Dawn somewhere foreign to find her own home. When Olive signed the adoption papers earlier in the game, she took responsibility for Dawn and granted her a home, regardless of Mae’s warning that taking care of a cat was not within her abilities. Leaving Dawn on her own with no situated home was a selfish decision, especially when leaving Dawn at the very animal shelter Olive had found her was a clear option. With this very decision, players are left pondering whether to despise Olive for her carelessness, or to sympathize over her illness-induced helplessness.
A torrent of questions floods Dawn’s mind as she processes what happened, and she begins to question everything she felt, from Olive’s love, to Olive, to herself. How could their love be so replaceable? How could she be so replaceable? Maybe if she had behaved better? Maybe if she tried harder? It’s because she was the copycat, a mere placeholder.
Do you stay or do you go?
What Dawn has to accept from there on out is that what she was facing was not just a mere mishap, but total abandonment. She was all alone now, forced into a home and then stripped from it.
As the game continues, players venture through the countryside, eventually making it to the city, and go through all sorts of adventures and emotional baggage as the story deepens even further.
The question of ‘what is home?’ constantly looms over Dawn, until she decides that the love and care that Olive caressed her with is irreplaceable. That home is irreplaceable, even if Olive tried to discard her from it. It was her home too. The belonging she felt was extraordinary and worth fighting for.
There’s a long way to go, with Olive’s conditions growing worse and Dawn’s safety and wellbeing on the line as she fends for her life as a street cat. Players have to decide for themselves between the floundering meaning of home and whether the final outcome was the happily-ever-after they wanted, not just for Dawn, but for the “stray” and Olive as well.
A unique game to try out
What makes this game stand out is the perspective that the game takes place in. Besides the fact that the players are in the body of a cat, they are in the body of the copycat. Players spend a majority of the game sympathizing with Dawn and Olive that once the “stray” comes into play, it’s assumed that the player’s character was the one wronged. However, this game plays it out differently. The game isn’t as black-and-white as the title might have alluded to, with characters (including minor ones) having their complexities and grey areas, which make it relatable to players as they play through a game full of resentment, loneliness, the fright of loss, but also acceptance.
With superb voice acting, intricate graphics, and heavy-hearted details that help dive into the waves of emotions that wash over Dawn, Copycat is such an interesting game that every gamer should try it out at least one point of their life. The typical gameplay is around 2-3 hours, so what are you waiting for?
As the rain finally begins to subdue, it’s time to part ways from the place that once granted you shelter,
but this is not farewell,
because no matter how far you are, the comforts of that small shelter will forever linger,
The same way your presence muffled its cold.
With superb voice acting, intricate graphics, and heavy-hearted details that help dive into the waves of emotions that wash over Dawn, Copycat is such an interesting game that every gamer should try it out at least one point of their life.