Stray of Lostcat

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Stray of Lostcat, elsewhere going by the title of Whisker Wanderlust: The Mosaic of Souls, is a family-friendly “hidden object”-style Puzzle Game released on PC in 2025 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2026. This game has you searching for “cat souls” hidden in ten busy scenes, with a story about a cat trying to appease a Grim Reaper-like figure who has come to collect the last of the cat’s nine lives.

The presentation here is mostly lovely, combining some wonderful, storybook-like 2D scenes full of imagination with lovely references that range from popular modern works like the Studio Ghibli films to classic art like Edvard Munch’s The Scream and René Magritte’s Son of Man. These visuals are backed by a soundtrack of lo-fi beats that fit the game’s dreamy themes and relaxed gameplay remarkably well. It’s just a shame that this is slightly marred by some ugly menu visuals and out-of-place cartoony sound effects.

The gameplay here is pretty solid for this genre, letting players zoom in and out as they please, move the screen, and select objects using either a gamepad or the touchscreen in handheld mode, with the touchscreen controls working mostly pretty well (if a bit too sensitive), letting you pinch-zoom as well. In addition to the “cat souls”, players will also be searching for other items in each stage – in one stage you’ll be looking for playing cards and fish-shaped cat treats, and the next you’ll be looking for sheep and butterflies. And while many of these objects stick out like a sore thumb, some will be fiendishly well-hidden.

The game lets you move the HUD from the bottom to the side or hide it entirely, and there’s also a timed hint feature that players can use if they get stumped. It’s nothing extraordinary for the genre, but it all works well enough.

Thus far, I’ve mainly been talking about the main “story mode”, but there’s also a “hide and seek” mode that has you looking for golden cat food cans within a small “spotlight” on scenes from the story mode. I suppose this is an interesting diversion, but narrowing the gameplay to a small circle doesn’t seem like an improvement, and since otherwise it’s just recycling content from the main story mode, I think this gameplay mode is pretty disposable.

Overall, I think Stray of Lostcat is a lovely “hidden object”-style Puzzle game, but its $10 price is a bit high compared to both other games of this sort on the Nintendo Switch as well as its PC price of $5 – you’ll definitely want to wait for this one to go on sale. However, if you do I think you’ll find it to be a lovely entry in the genre and if you enjoy this type of game I think this will be one well worth picking up.

tl;dr – Stray of Lostcat is a family-friendly hidden object-style Puzzle game where players try to uncover the hidden objects within the game’s storybook-like environments. Mechanically this game works pretty well, and the presentation is mostly wonderful. The price is a bit steep for what’s on offer, but if you can catch this game on sale, it’s a solid choice for fans of this style of game.

Grade: B-

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