Copycat follows the story of a newly adopted shelter cat discovering rejection, belonging and what home feels like after being replaced by a copycat stray.

Content Warning: This is an emotional game, especially for those who hold close relationships with pets or animals. It features abandonment of pets, and brief references to animal abuse. Please remember you can always pause, or stop playing at any time. There are some light spoilers ahead. 

Made by 2-player team ‘Spoonful of Wonder’, the game focuses around the the lives of Olive and Dawn.

a screenshot of Copycat, showing Olive, the elderly lady, sat on a plant pot outside her house, with two identical black cats (one wearing a collar) looking at her.

Players step into the paws of Dawn, a shelter cat with previous trauma from its owners. Olive, an elderly woman, rescues her from the shelter following their own cat going missing just a couple of months prior.

Olive has emphysema, a lung disease causing shortness of breath, coughing and fatigue, amongst other long-term symptoms. She is partly cared for by a nurse, as well as her daughter Mae. As players will find out, Mae is not the biggest fan of Dawn. a panther walking through an empty car park with blue cars, with words above the cars reading "Not Olive's car."

Throughout the game, Dawn will navigate dream sequences showing aspects of her experiences from the day’s events, but from the perspective of a big cat.

Copycat begins on a playful note, allowing players to dive into the chaos of being a cat; knocking things over, stealing food, and scratching furniture. Unfortunately, this is short-lived, as Olive suffers a complication due to her emphysema and is taken to the hospital, leaving Dawn to fend for herself.

Upon Olive’s return, her daughter Mae proceeds to kick Dawn out of the house, in a desperate attempt to give her mother less to focus on. Dawn is tasked with returning to the house, and after wriggling out of her collar through the hedge, is faced with her body double. This ‘copycat’, takes Dawn’s place at the home after Olive mistakes her for her new cat, and Dawn is left alone once again.

an image showing a No Dogs sign in a public garden, with floating text beside it reading "This should be a Nation-wide initiative".

Whilst I won’t deep dive into the full details of the rest of the story (to allow players to experience it for themselves), this game hit me harder than I thought it would. Reading and experiencing abandonment and rejection as a cat is more painful than you might initially expect. These words landed powerful blows and left me emotionally fragile, desperately trying to help Dawn navigate confusion and loss.

Of course, these experiences for Dawn are mirrored in other (human) characters in the game, allowing for an emotional symmetry amongst those who have experienced abandonment. Ultimately, this game is a poignant analogy of the emotions we can go through when we get left behind. Seeing characters lack empathy for someone clearly struggling to find somewhere to belong is an all-too common one we see in every day life.

A cat silhouette on a railing by a city at night. "You made me think I had a home" is written in the sky.

Copycat does a beautiful job on creating both mundane and powerful choices throughout the game, whether through dialogue or actions from Dawn. It pays homage to the ups and downs of finding where we are valued, where we belong, and what home truly feels like.

Features:

  • a captivating and emotional story
  • charming and peaceful soundtrack
  • short experience ~3 hours full playthough
  • bright & surreal dream sequences

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