Intro

Back in February 2024, I wrote 56 short demo reviews from Steam Next Fest and even though games funded through publishers always have the budget advantage over indies, it’s usually the latter that win me over. This was the case with Copycat as well, with the game ending up just short of the highest tier but with the complete story now being apparent with the full game, I can safely say it is one of the best games I experienced this year.

Story

Copycat is marketed as a narrative experience and the small dev team consisting of three people delivered on that promise. Easily the strongest point of the game, this game’s story takes the player on an adventure to see the world through the eyes of a cat while offering the additional comprehension through our ability to read and understand what people are talking about.

This element takes a little bit away from “living the cat life” but once again, Copycat is a narrative-driven game with a cat protagonist, it is not a cat simulator.

As for more specific explanations on what the story does, it slowly draws the player into the life of Dawn, a cat who is found at a shelter. She is an adult cat so there is a significant portion of life behind shrouded in mystery already, glimpses of which are shown if you are curious enough during exploration. Copycat avoided a rather annoying trope many games fall for these days since fragmented pieces of the backstory are not the main conduit of storytelling. Instead, they are spices that make the main course taste that much better.

Speaking of the main course, the story is told properly – through Dawn’s direct interaction with other characters and environments. This allows for a cascade of storytelling elements to impact the player in real time so when Dawn experiences love, care, confusion, rejection or adversity, so does the person in front of the TV or monitor.

Additionally, it is easy to form a bond with Dawn so everything that affects the cat will also have the impact of seeing a dear companion in trouble, relief or twists and turns, leading to a proper emotional rollercoaster.

All of this is complemented with another layer, one we could call a side dish that also enhances the main course. That layer is the audio design.

Audio and voice acting

Spoonful of Wonder, the studio behind Copycat, was initially started in 2021 with Samantha and Kostia as the only two developers. In 2022, the team expanded to three as Dan came along to take care of the music side of things.

And take care of it he did.

Dan managed to capture what a cat in Dawn’s position would feel as you go through different periods of rest, struggle and success, resulting in an audio interpretation of those moments as well as the general atmosphere while the cat is just exploring around. Background music is fantastic throughout the adventure, successfully painting an auditory picture that immerses the player further into the serene, and at times chaotic, suburbs.

While the voice acting is mostly restricted to humans reacting to cats, Spoonful of Wonder didn’t cut corners in that aspect. Each character’s voice is done with great care to project their personality, whether it’s elderly and kind Olive, an alcoholic neighbor or someone with inexplicable love for certain cats and disdain for others.

Considering that games with dozens of millions of dollars behind their development can contain voice performances that are the auditory equivalent of a sleep-deprived boulder, it is quite impressive that such a small group produced a game with spot-on voice acting. Within three years, Spoonful of Wonder went from a vision and no coding experience to a releasing fully-fledged game with elements that trounce their equivalents from AAA games.

Gameplay

With so much praise, one could start thinking I would rate the game 101 out of 100 but it’s true that Copycat has parts that didn’t blow me away. After all, there is a limit to the burden three people can carry.

First, the game length will likely turn many potential players away but clocking at around three hours for a playthrough, I found it to be a great measure for what Copycat has to offer. A shorter adventure filled with excitement and emotions is better than a stretched out slog that takes 100 hours to beat. If the latter were the case, I would be playing Ubisoft games instead.

As for the gameplay itself, it didn’t impress me as much as story and audio design did but it is by all means serviceable. Players will go through open world exploration, sidescrolling, mini games and endless runner scenarios in Dawn’s adventures. While these parts will not earn accolades at the level of Elden Ring, they were fun enough and there wasn’t a single moment I was bored throughout the game.

Among the gameplay sections, I would grade the open world exploration the highest since this part properly embodies what a cat’s daily life can look like. Dawn will embark on all sorts of shenanigans and anyone who has a cat will relate to the chaos they can unleash. This game lets you finally be on the other end of the things. It’s you who gets to snatch the food, ruin toilet paper rolls, push things off the shelf and so on. I hate it when my cats do it but I absolutely indulged in every opportunity for mischief in Copycat.

It was glorious.

Graphics and art style

Constraints of a small studio with a limited budget usually manifest themselves as below-par graphics, animations and visual effects. All the things bigwigs in marketing would hate.

Thankfully, Copycat wasn’t made by a big company that has a marketing department. It was built by a small team of passionate people who didn’t let budget restraints stand in the way.

Graphics are obviously on the indie level but they do the job just fine, owing to a great art style choice.

What may appear dated in that department simply reminds me of the late 2000s and early 2010s, back when more games were made with passion and studios focused on the right things instead of the bullet points imposed by bean counters. There are enough polygons for cats to portray cats in an almost realistic manner and the same goes for dogs, humans, environments and everything else.

All of this is wrapped in a beautiful art style that is reminiscent of an era when not everything had to be hyper realistic and games could just be fun and whimsical. It has combined with the background music perfectly to create a serene atmosphere that has periods of curiosity, bursts of chaos and tense moments. It sounds a lot like an animal that sleeps 12 to 16 hours a day, is quite curious and often creates abrupt chaos with series of frantic actions.

Performance

Both the demo and the review build proved to be really stable and the game ran smoothly, without frame drops.

Loading screens, while numerous, would pass quickly even though I installed the game on a hard drive instead of SSD.

I noticed some instability when alt tabbing but since this is already a short adventure, it may not be that much of an issue in the grand scheme of things. Overall, it was smooth sailing.