No cat game !!! :xi-reactionary-spotted: (read @Awoo 's comment)
Hmmm I am not sure that this is the correct take. Let me preface this with a spoilers throughout warning and also that some of it is mishmash because I added in some bits and pieces from memory and cba proofreading for clarity.
First argument is that it lifts the aesthetics of the walled city, ok yes, so what? It's a cool setting and they make a different walled city with that as the reference point for how it might look. I'm ok with it given that the point is humanity had to build this walled city to survive something created by capitalism.
It's made pretty clear that the robots in Stray are poorly imitating humans. Their ideas of how humans behaved are wrong and this is quite explicitly stated. If anything I see the clothing and behavioural choices of the robots as an intentional commentary on what shit looks like when ignorant people imitate something without actually understanding it.
This author has zeroed only some of the robots while completely ignoring ye olde english bartender, the black-coded robots, the muslim robots, and so on. All are extremely exaggerated stereotypes. One of the robots is covered in tattoos. One wears a wig. There's a barbershop and yet nothing to barber, they literally just sit and pretend to do the barbershop stuff despite no haircutting. The clothing worn by robots is 1950s in some places and then 2020s in others.
The robots grasp on humanity is tenuous at best and that's deliberate, I think they got their understanding of humans from human entertainment, possibly videogames but can't confirm that. This theory comes from the large number of "easter eggs" present in the game, the doctor is clearly based on back to the future and even references lines from the movie, there are references to videogame lines throughout. All the robots in the prison are also named after famous crime bosses from movies. Given the fact that the robots have very tenuously imitated humans and that their grasp may have come largely through entertainment media I think it's not particularly surprising that it's really all over the place.
There are robots that are holding the newspapers upside down.
I argue that literally every character in the game is a caricature and that the decision for them to have ridiculous conical hats in somewhere completely out of place was quite intentional. There is a certain unspoken attention to detail in the world building throughout the game and the hat choices being out of place aren't just "haha asian robots" in my opinion. The imitation isn't limited to race or religion either, poor imitations of gender coding are present throughout the robots imitation of humans, and a parent and child relationship between two full sized robots is an explicit component of the main story. They are imitating a family. I noticed this parent/child relationship between the robots and took note of it at the time because my immediate thought was "chuds will totally accept that this robot is the child of this other robot but won't accept trans people self-identifying".
I do not think you can evaluate just these hats being out of place without also contextualising that within basically everything the robots do being out of place in a world where these NPCs are just imitations of humans. The only thing that doesn't feel like an imitation in this world is the cat and your companion B12, the last actual human.
Honestly I love this take, especially how B-12 makes side comments on how the robots adapted and yet kept so may habits of humanity (such as maintaining a meaningless class divide between the slums and midtown because that's what the earlier humans did so I guess we should do that too even though we are robots).
That particular line is a wonderful take on the insanity of many things the humans do that should absolutely not be copied to a new society whatsoever.
Yup, overall I hope a sequel is made or something sequel adjacent (hell maybe you play as a dog in the next one) that shows the breaking away from a previous society and its trappings (don't know if the devs can facilitate something like that but annapurna is a good publisher to work on something like that with).
I'll have to give it a look, I really enjoyed Lain and thought it was one of the few great techno futurist animes out there.
i seriously thought the robots were all just mind uploads like B12 that nearly completely lost their human memories over time, through data degredation, or because they were copied repeatedly. didn't realize i misread that they were just imitating recorded culture.
I had this theory too at one point but I couldn't justify it, their imitation of humans is too janky on the vast majority of the robots. I think that if any of them are formerly humans then it's the Outsiders group and only that group, I need to go and investigate some of the other pods for clues to who the owners of the pods were. I personally lean towards the idea that some humans attempted to do consciousness uploading but it went wrong and didn't work, then the cat came along and found this consciousness trapped inside the PC screaming for help and we uploaded it to B12. I think the rest of the humans in that project for consciousness upload probably died otherwise they would have helped B12 themselves.
I think another analysis here is that the humans that died on the lower levels left behind a human society, with human entertainment and shit. The robots over time changed because of the environmental influence of their surroundings (human class society) and then slowly but surely became these imitators we see now over millions of years (this is 5million years in the future according to a note I found in game). I find this analysis the most compelling because the robots on the highest level, the control level for the rulers of the city, are not human at all. They are in the most sterile environment, with no influence around them, and they have had nothing of human culture or influence to copy or change them over time. I think this is a commentary on the middle-income and destitute classes of society being the most human, that the highest level of society is the least human. It's worth noting that there is a memory file in the game to find that specifically states that the robots started imitating the humans before the humans were gone which I think adds to this theory.
Also with theories about the worldbuilding I think everyone is overlooking
spoiler
the lifeform that the Zurks spawns from. The hundreds of giant terrifying eyeballs we saw is one giant lifeform and uhhhhh something more is going on with that beyond just "bacteria made to eat stuff", feels sort of gravemind-like. This lifeform is presumably not dead and has just been released from the city by us escaping which concerns me.
it would make sense for the outsiders. i never played it but just watched a letsplay with my partner so some things were missed. i know we saw 2 or 3 mind upload pods are there more?
spoiler
and unlike the little bacteria/waterbear zurks the eldritch superorganism seems utterly unfazed by UV radiation!
I think I definitely saw 2, possibly saw 3 pods, really not sure if there were more though and need to pay more attention. I'm not necessarily sure they should be considered "mind upload pods" though, they could just be longterm cryo for a body too and the only mindupload place may have been at B12's.
spoiler
utterly unfazed by UV radiation!
Yeah this was very noticeable. It isn't going to be affected by the sun. The small ones that spawn might be but it can clearly spread elsewhere. This opens the door for a sequel where the cats and other things in the world are affected by a spreading biological terror.
In the very beginning of the game you see a pod connected to a robot body, so it's clear that the pods are actually mind upload pods. Presumably the upload failed and
spoiler
that person instead got stuck in the network and inhabited B12
Not having played Stray, it sounds like Stray's robots are similar to the robots in Nier: Automata in that they are copying humanity (good and bad) in a (futile?) attempt to understand what it means to be human
The origins are much less explained in Stray. Also you're a cat, more of the setting is intended for the player to figure out via observation - like a cat. You're supposed to look at the world and see it from cat perspective and I suspect to a certain extent you're not supposed to understand it fully because you're a cat.
There are a few hints in the game though - spoiler alert, but in the beginning of the game you see a machine connected to a robot. Later on, you learn that this is a machine used to upload your consciousness into a robot. Most likely, the robots are human consciousnesses that lost their memory like B12
Too many of them are just obviously robots doing a routine for literally no reason. Only the outsiders really make sense as potential humans imo, mentioned in more detail here .
I'm not sure. They seem fundamentally different from the robots in the control center, for example, and it seems that some robots exhibit behaviours that weren't learned and were fundamentally human (for example, the robot that talks about a smell and then is confused at how he can remember a smell). But for me it's really seeing the robots in the control center, having no issues doing useless work for thousands of years and seeming inhuman that did it for me
They have no humans around them, which means they just do their thing. There is a memory that explicitly states that the robots started to break their programming by copying and imitating humans before the humans were all gone. With no humans around them to imitate nothing influenced them.
They understand pretty well what it means to be human - they are fundamentally human in their essence, they just don't know much about the history of humans as it was lost to time
I don't think you can justify that they're human. Never wondered why there are millions of bottles, and drinks all over the place? It's explained as imitating the humans even though they don't even drink. All of the behaviour of most of the robots is just mega corrupted completely pointless actions that serve no purpose.
I mean, yeah, they can't drink and are just trying to imitate. But I think there is something more to it - in the ant village there is a robot that talks about he liked a smell and then caught himself and said something like "wait, I can't even smell". I think there is something to part of those behaviours being faint memories they kept and the rest being imitated as you said.
I do agree that some of them may be uploads.
I'm inclined more towards the creative robots being formerly human. The ones that seem to be able to have independent thoughts and plan things, like the Outsiders who plan to escape the city. Or in your example, the creative painters.
I don't think the musician robot for example is a former human. They don't do creative work, they can only do copying from the music sheets and have played the same things for thousands of years.
Neir vibes was my first impression of the robots as well.
Happy hexbear account birthday btw 🎉🎊
Central African timezone users rise up
Understandable, it seems like the article might be lacking some needed nuance then :xi-gun:
I mean. At the surface level a conical hat being out of place in a cyberpunk city IS exactly what this author is saying, and common in the history of the cyberpunk genre.
But at a deeper level I actually think these devs know that, and I think they know about more problems that others may pick up on and write about if they only do a surface-level analysis. I believe that it was intentional to include these hats knowing they're typical of the genre and I believe that the choice to make it less-bad by making all the characters robots doing a poor imitation of humanity is probably a conscious decision by the devs.
I actually think the level of thought the devs are on here is that the cyberpunk genre itself is tropey, full of caricature and a poor imitation of humanity. The game is really dense with detail and I find that the more corners I look in the more things I might find.
Also I'm convinced that
spoiler
B12 isn't dead and was actually uploaded into the city itself and now controls the entire city. B12 opened the city exit for you and I think the game has been left open for a sequel.
As far as the robots learning from video games, it could just be a reference but it's worth mentioning that a robot who runs a coffee shop is named Sojiro lmao. That MIGHT not be a deliberate Persona 5 reference, but so many of the others are references that it feels like there's a good chance it is
I think they can be both deliberate references based on robots learning from entertainment and easter eggs as well. It's a good way to pander to people while explaining away all the pandering with references as having an in-world explanation.
It basically just points out that the game gave robots racist straw hats for no reason
See Awoo's comment. The conclusion that it's racist was drawn from zero critical thinking about what the hats might actually be communicating.
Torrent has been up on 1337x since the game came out. Imo it's very cute.
i have a theory that reviews, in general, are a vehicle for the reviewer to advertise their brilliant discernment and have very little to do with the thing being reviewed, which doesn't matter because the audience of the review is mostly people who haven't seen/heard the thing being reviewed.
rarely do reviewers prove me wrong.
I think we should acknowledge that media can be both good quality and problematic at the same time.
As long as we can cast a critical eye to the problems and not just accept it uncritically, I think there's not much harm in watching most media. Otherwise we get into an "oh, you hate capitalism but use an iPhone" type situation.
The devs are French, so I'm none too surprised they would engage en un petite racisme
I think people here are giving the devs too much benefits of the doubt. There's just doing the typical mayo thing soying over some slum in a cringey form of poverty porn. You see the same thing with Westerners' fascination of favelas. It's just the videogame equivalent of taking a black-and-white picture of some starving child from Africa and trying to make a dumb point about how they're "spreading awareness" when everyone involved (except for the starving child of course) is mostly getting off about how they're so fortunate to live in the West and not have to live in a so-called "third world shithole" like this Black kid who they do not actually give an iota of a fuck about.
I see Westerners fascination with Kowloon Walled City as nothing more than poverty porn by Westerners, and given the present state of the world, a form of copium as well. "Remember when Hong Kongers knew their place and had to choose between living in nice Western buildings build by us Westerners or living in some shitty slum build during the Qing dynasty."
There's the reason why Kowloon Walled City was bulldozed once the British were kicked out of Hong Kong.
:geordi-no: Straw hats that are shaped like a shallow cone.
:geordi-yes: Straw hats that are shaped like a baseball cap.
The article is basically pointing out that white people can't think and have no deeper understanding of the world.
What would be the best way for the game to represent the effects of colonialism
I agree there should not be racist caricatures. The article was implying that if the game was inspired by a colonized city the game should address that. And I was wondering how they would do that since that's game's setting is a shelter or something
The history of the Walled City is inextricably tied to colonial rivalries, but none of it is represented in Stray. In the game, the city was a shelter built to protect humans from the plague
And from the moment that the developers decided to base their game off an enclave that was created by British colonialism, they had a responsibility to grapple with its history.
By depicting it in any way. The developers specifically said it was that city, so it seems like they should know something about it.
Isn't part of the orientalism in cyberpunk because it was developed when people in the US thought Japan was going to take over economically? I know cyberpunk evolves, but its origins are like retrofuturism but for the late 80s early 90s
I'm personally not sure that it's any better that the depiction of Asian people an culture in cyberpunk is colored by the fear of being overtaken by non-whites.
To put the most uncharitable lense on it, there's an implication that a cyberpunk dystopia is a society where inequality is rampant, crime is out of control, and gasp your corporate overlord might not even be white!
I'm not saying that cyberpunk is an inherently racist genre or anything, but I'm just not sure the original context makes the orientalism any better.
Yeah, can't disagree with that. I never thought much about it before. I suppose previously i didn't view it as orientalism. It just seemed like a certain fusion of cultures that was shown as taking place in a hypothetical future where Japanese capitalist would play an important role. That and Tokyo inspired neon, katanas, and ninjas are rad and a big part of the cyberpunk aesthetic. That could be too charitable though
Edit the description. Here, like everywhere else on the internet, a lot of people will immediately believe headlines that vaguely comport to their ideology. Leaving it as is amounts to spreading misinformation.
I'm not really against the criticism at the surface level. But it seems to be just that, surface level.
There is still some value in criticising the entire genre for this very specific detail. Cyberpunk settings are obsessed with conical strawhats and they show up in all of them.
There is a difference between criticizing the genre (which deserves it) and accusing the game of blindly committing racist sins of the genre (which is false in this case). This article is clearly about the latter, and you can see people have that takeaway in the comments here.
Mmm fair. I'm just not really going to fight someone too much if they do genuinely see it as racist or a depiction that just shouldn't be in at all. Like, I get it, I get that argument, I just think this particular one feels incredibly mild and somewhat well contextualised.
It feels a bit like this author wanted lots of stuff about Kowloon and its history to be in the game but it wasn't so it was a disappointment to them that it was only a visual inspiration and not the actual real Kowloon. This disappointment feels like it coloured their whole perspective.
I went in without any expectations and without really knowing the devs had named their site "hk-devblog" before the game was named "Stray" so I didn't even relate it to hk at first. I am guessing that it disappointed a bunch of people that it wasn't actually hk.
lmao this is so dumb these arguments always clash really hard with arguments about representation and just give reactionaries fuel for the "damned if you do damned if you don't narrative", because unfortunately they are often right when it comes to these scenarios
if you don't put any aspects from outside western ideas/aesthetics in your game then you don't have any representation and you're whitewashing everything if you do it's cultural appropriation
it also gives ammo to the image of a hyper controlling detached from reality "sjw" left cause like i said this shit is just dumb, all of the history of language and art and aesthetics falls under the umbrella of "cultural appropriation", nothing will ever exist in a vacuum
all of the history of language and art and aesthetics falls under the umbrella of “cultural appropriation”, nothing will ever exist in a vacuum
I want to jump off this point real quick.
You are correct that the sharing of art, language, tradition, cuisine, customs, fashion, religion, and so on across different cultures has happened constantly throughout the history of humanity. But sharing/borrowing things from another culture isn't what makes something cultural appropriation.
Cultural appropriation only really makes sense in the context of colonization, when you have this greater social context where one group is trying to assert their authority/superiority over another group. This is achieved partly through the relentless dehumanization of the colonized people, and creating an environment where participating in their native culture marks them as subhuman savages. This can be seen plainly in colonial institutions such as "residential schools" which tore native children away from their families, and then brutally punished them if they were caught speaking their native language, wearing traditional styles of clothing, eating traditional cuisine, or participating in their own culture in basically any fashion.
That is the context where cultural appropriation exists within. When you have this greater social context when on one hand you are being told that your culture and your traditions brand you as a subhuman savage, but on the other hand members of the "dominant" culture are allowed to freely wear your culture as if it were a costume that turns them into someone who is exotic, mysterious, and cultured. Or who are allowed to create art that mimics aspects of your culture and receive acclaim and professional success for doing so. As a colonized person, it is inherently traumatic seeing someone freely participating in cultural traditions that have been stripped away from you, that you have been made to feel ashamed of, and that have been used to mark you as subhuman.
That is what it means for something to be cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is not just shorthand for taking inspiration from other cultures.
if you don’t put any aspects from outside western ideas/aesthetics in your game then you don’t have any representation and you’re whitewashing everything if you do it’s cultural appropriation
This is entirely solved by just not having white people and choosing historical settings where white people don't exist. Not every fantasy setting needs to be based on 14th century Western Europe.
