If you’ve ever wondered what the “Bonnie and Clyde” capybaras got up to in Toronto after escaping High Park Zoo, this latest Canadian indie game provides some wonderfully entertaining “what if?” answers.
Enter Capy Castaway, a cozy exploration game from Toronto’s Kitten Cup Studio (Pekoe) that follows a silent capybara pup named Capy and a cantankerous crow named Corvi as they try to find their way home after a mysterious flood. Over the past several months, Kitten Cup has made no secret that the game is inspired not only by the Bonnie and Clyde caper, but Toronto as a whole, with its island setting featuring a litany of nods to Canada’s biggest city and the country as a whole. It’s this mix of cute and cuddly animal characters and loving tribute to Canadiana that makes Capy Castaway such a delight.
That all starts with the visuals, which are centred around a beautifully vibrant painterly aesthetic from creative director and art director Saffron Aurora (Pekoe, The Big Con). In a particularly charming touch, the speechless Capy’s emotions are conveyed through a series of adorable emojis as drawn by Aurora, which give the player some dialogue choices that Corvi will then relay verbally to NPCs. You can also control both Capy and Corvi (with the option for two-player co-op), with the crow being able to reach distant objects and even briefly carry the capybara.
All of this creates an amusing dynamic between our leads, with the ever-grumpy Corvi having to manage his frustrations towards being an amateur translator and chaperone alongside all of his other emotions regarding the increasingly eccentric animals that you must help across the island. In one moment, a pair of bickering tall birds speak in riddles and drive Corvi crazy, while in the next, a more sensitive side to the crow is revealed when you encounter a trio of baby goats who are struggling to accept the loss of their father. All in all, Capy Castaway sports a compellingly colourful cast who are always worth meeting, even if their quests can sometimes boil down to simple puzzles of placing specific objects in the right places.
The real highlight, though, is just how much Canadiana is in the game. I’d be remiss to spoil too many, but suffice it to say that there’s everything from Honest Ed’s, TTC streetcars and Silver Snail Comics to Tim Hortons cups, loonies and toonies, and even Ananas the pineapple from the ’80s Canadian French-language kids show Téléfrançais. (Names have either been slightly changed or withheld where necessary for legal reasons, although the game’s best joke involves a clear mention of none other than Sudbury.) Given that Canada so rarely gets to play itself in media, especially video games, it was such a hoot — and, even, genuinely touching at times — to see so much of our country affectionately portrayed in Capy Castaway.
With all of that said, it can sometimes be frustrating getting around the island to actually see these references. While I do appreciate encouraging exploration by eschewing a marker-filled map, the game’s isometric perspective, coupled with biomes being divided by pools of water, proved tedious over time. Near the end of the game, I could tell based on my journal that there were two more NPCs I had to help out before I could head into the finale, but backtracking was difficult because I couldn’t always see which way I was going through my bird’s-eye view. And because of the large stretches of water, I sometimes didn’t have any indication as to whether I was even heading in the right direction, leading to some aimless wandering until I eventually lucked upon where I’d hoped to go.
Thankfully, though, this only really became a problem towards the end once I had completed pretty much everything else. And the reason I had even done that in the first place is because the moment-to-moment gameplay is just so lovely. From the endearing interactions with other animals to the irresistible lure of coming across more Canadiana, Capy Castaway provides such a joyful sense of discovery. Move over, Bonnie & Clyde — we have a new iconic Toronto animal duo.
Capy Castaway launches on PC (Steam) on August 6.
Image credit: Kitten Cup Studio
