'Stray' Secret Language Has Already Been Deciphered

The internet is in love with Stray. BlueTwelve Studio’s post-apocalyptic cat simulator was super hyped up prior to its release, and to the relief of everyone, it thankfully lived up to expectations when it finally released last week. In our own review, we gave the indie gem a 9/10, not only for being adorable, but also its stunning visuals and creativity.

Anyone who’s played the game will certainly have noticed the mysterious written cipher language which can be found all around the cyber-city, which you’d definitely be forgiven for thinking is just for show. However, as reported by Eurogamer, one person has actually managed to decode the cipher and work out a translated alphabet, so now we can understand everything.

Take a look at some adorable feline reactions to Stray below.

This amazing work comes courtesy of Half-Glass Gaming’s Josh Wirtanen, who explained that he began the process by decoding Stray’s chapter titles, which are already written in both the cipher language and English (despite the fact that the cipher language doesn’t completely line up here, apparently). 

So, what do the translations tell us? It seems that the newspapers are titled “Droids News”, and one of the fizzy drinks machines apparently says “Raffle prizes, only this summer, special price - Blue Twelve”, which is slightly nonsensical, but also appears to be a fun little Easter egg in reference to the developers. My personal favourite though is from one of the random bags in the game, which simply says “Best Bag”.

There’s no doubt that people are going to find a whole lot more secrets in Stray yet, but this is ridiculously cool. If you’re planning on using the cipher yourself to work out some more of the game’s text, keep in mind that apparently, some of it has been rotated (just to make things more confusing). Happy translating!