Decoding the Secret Language of Stray
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- UPDATE:
A new version of the font that includes numbers 1-9 (their numeric system skips zero) is included in this link - drive.google.c...
Massive thanks to Starscope for cleaning up the linework, adding a stroked version for lowercase, tidying up the metadata, and including the numbers found in later chapters.
Go check their twitter out at / whostarscope
Stray is a fun, story-based adventure game where the developers use some creative methods to create a uniquely foreign environment. On top of the bizarre robots and creatures, much of the text in Stray is written as an encrypted language spoken by the dwellers of the underground.
A lot of this text can actually be translated into English with a simple cipher, so our goal in this video is to decode these characters to see what hidden messages can be found throughout the game. Also, we'll be trying to decrypt every letter in the alphabet within the first four chapters of the game to minimize spoilers and add an extra challenge.
Music used:
Stray OST - The Way You Compute Tonight
Stray OST - The Notebooks
Stray OST - Slums
Stray OST - Step on My Shard
Stray OST - Eliza
Stray OST - (unreadable music) (busker version)
Stray OST - Sterilize
Stray OST - Trash Zone
Stray OST - The Kindness of Strangers
A very talented viewer that goes by Starscope has updated my font by cleaning up the linework, adding a stroked version for lowercase, tidying up the metadata, and including the numbers found in later chapters!
The new link is included below, and you can check out Starscope's twitter at twitter.com/whostarscope
drive.google.com/file/d/1I03l8VHoQyR39bjghjrkd_fmP-MD2fij/view
how do i use the font?
@@catsoelite2551 that makes sense how do we get the font?
@@oliviamohr5649 i did some ttf conversion thing and its in my pc settings but i cant equip it as a font, might just be a me problem but u gotta open with cloud convert convert to a ttf open settings fonts and drag and drop the ttf download file from file explorer onto the drag and drop box, then u have the font in settings. i dunno how i enable them tho.
@@lavaking1113 Thanks. I installed it but I couldn't find a way to actually use it.
Now I'm hot for the number zero.
I can confidently said that this channel is severely underrated
Facts
Nah fr
Yeee, this channel is GOATed! 🐐😎
@@MrZambrano101 absolutely
nah bro its criminally underrated. the channel itself should be 100k rn
You know you've watched too many Stray playthroughs when you can start automatically translating the robot language without even using a font chart 😄
Wot?
Real
That's me to be honest. Almost memorized everything and scream when a gamer does something wrong. 😂
I'm using a cipher from another game in my everyday life, so I read and write notes without others being able to understand. It's fun to do so
A lot of the characters also look like letters.
So 2 quick things:
1. I'm sure other people have solved this in the time it took for me to create this video
2. Not everything in this game seems to have a coherent translation
Regardless, I hope you still find this cipher to be an interesting topic. This is another slight departure from my usual content, so any feedback on the content, style, or choice of subject will be greatly appreciated. As always, thank you so much for watching!
The structure and pacing of this video was great. I would like to see it applied to decoding other languages in other games if enough exist. Very entertaining. Thanks!
The all mighty UA-cam Algorithm led me to this video and I am not disappointed ! Like WJR said, the pacing of the video was very good. I find this topic (secret game language decoding) to be quite interesting and you did a great job of explaining how you deciphered each letter. Good job !
Hi your my new favorite UA-camr
Super cool
Great video but I am wondering about the number and punctuation if that exists
Thanks for making this cipher. Now I can make a t-shirt for my kids using the fonts. They really love this game.
Now that would be damn cool
@@sexyeyes6064I named my new child noodle carton in this font 😮 thanks 🙏
instead of "dental" it could be "rental" maybe? the companions/robots mimic humans yes but i think it may make more sense for it to say "rental" since companions are pretty lacking in the tooth department haha, either way it's fun to have an alternate letter! really makes you wonder why it's there; developer oversight? unique worldbuilding? a sound only the companions have come up with?
i saw these letters but always assumed they'd just translate to gibberish or be untranslatable at all (like they might not have consistent patterns like languages do and whatnot), it's awesome that you translated them and that they do, in fact, say stuff! thank you soldier for your hard work o7
Upper case and lower case letters. But it's incomplete, there's like 3 or 4 of them.
Also, there's 3 alphabets. Only one can be translated.
Since this game been in the works since 2015, I guess the devs made the first two without being actually "translateable", just for the sake of having it.
@@dlib89 I mean, in the context of the game, it might also be different dialects for slightly different areas or time periods. Languages evolve and something like 'y'all needta chill' would be confusing to someone just learning english. The robots might have their own short hand, slang, words, and more complex language beyond the basic language based on english that we can translate ourselves. That's p accurate to how real languages work irl.
Tho yes, its probably just developers making sure the important stuff is translatable and the rest is just good enough.
@@dlib89 then wouldn't the language be like undecyphered if both lower and upper case letters somewhat have translation and some dont at 4:34 the robot translated a symbol of some sort which doesn't add up to the language but in a way i assume the robots be keeping symbols like humans do cus humans have the symbols to mark meanings for it.Chinese language also derived from using oracle bone cracks to make a language out of it.
Are you forgetting that humans lived in this city?.... you could say that about literally almost every word.
This is wonderful, thank you for taking the time to decode and recreate this! It seems like a lot of the stuff in this game is upside down or flipped and I’m wondering if since many of the devs wouldn’t have English as their first language, they either wrote some things in French or fiddled about with spelling for fun or to reference in-jokes (like maybe someone on the team pronounced wanted like “vanted”, being German or Eastern-European etc, and they put that in as a laugh). It’s SO cool to have a reference point for delving into more secrets in the game now!! Thank you!
The flipped signs are easily explained - the sign is created separately as an asset and then is placed in the environment. During development the levels change significantly and at some point maybe the passage was moved from the left side to the right side so a level designer just rotated/flipped the sign so its arrow points in the correct way (like if you have an arrow object and you "scale" it by -1 horizontally it gets mirrored and you don't have to edit it separately). Because the text is not written in an easily recognizable language its easy to miss that it is now upside down or backwards. For the ones with incorrect letters - they may be typos. Perhaps the designers had the cypher printed for reference and just used the wrong letter (V is next to W). Usually a typo would easily be spotted and corrected but since the text is in cypher it can be missed and end up in the final game. I have no explanation for the alternative letters, maybe these were older assets that were created in the beginning of the game development and the cypher letters changed afterwards
So the text on the tv "Would you like to know more? " is an Easter Egg referencing the movie Starship Troopers. Also the sheet music song "Cool Down" is a rendition of 'Counting Stars', a song made by the Japanese composer Nujabes. And I think the 'Entrance' reversal is a developer goof; they probably redesigned the level and did precisely what V-limit did and flip the asset horizontally rather than re-make it!
And also Seamus looks like Michael J Fox and Doc looks like Christopher Lloyd in _Back To The Future_ (by the way, Doc also has a Ghostbusters badge).
When I found the chart for the language, I immedetly studied. it took me an actual day to be able to read and write the Companions language. Wish i could speak it tho~
To be honest me too! I wish they'd make it sound like an actual language, imagine being able to speak with it 😆
Where is this chart? Is it in the game? The devs' website?
@@lesteryaytrippy7282 it was online in a fourm somewhere but you.
It blows my mind that some people can get this involved in a mediocre walking simulator.
I have played through Stray twice and watched others play through so many times I've lost count. Been falling asleep to a Stray music/ambiance track, Absolutely love this game.
Anyone else got this recommend to them a year later?
Yep
Yep
Exactly!!!
Ye
Yep
Honestly after a little bit of playing around, id genuinely be interested in using your deciphered font in some posters I design. Regardless, this is genuinely impressive, and weather there ever is an expanded or fully developed font/font-family published, this is genuineley really cool. I say in perspective as a graphic designer always looking at new ways to get creative with my designs. Lastly, Thank you and big ups for the decipher.
My theory on why the cat character, who I like to call Stray, can survive that kind of impact, is because over the thousands and thousands of years cats have evolved to become far more intelligent as well as being able to heal faster, which explains why Stray is able to follow the story of the game in an intelligent manner despite their species seeming to have not evolved over the thousands of years like most things have. Cats have evolved, just not visibly so
That's what I thought, like the cat is able to comprehend language
I think the weird misuse of the alphabet like eather or vanted is just actually a typo. The game designer probably made a font out of this language symbols and created a bunch of objects with that font without really memorizing the actual "alpahabet" it's probably easy to mistype some words and not noticing it. They probably thought that no one would go into too much trouble to decipher it anyway. But overall, great job! Great video!
If they thought that they fail as a Game Development studio, people will always break every code in a game it's been happening for decades and to not know that is a serious failure to understand your target market.
@@MartinBarker the fuck you talking about
Yeah they definitely went to type wanted and made a typo without realizing because they didn’t remember the code perfectly, or as some have said it could’ve been an inside joke
If we're gonna give them some leeway, languages do change over time and "wanted" to "vanted" and "weather" to "eather" isn't a big difference. They had enough time to change/evolve the Latin alphabet so it's safe to assume some words got changed along the way, even if it's just a new alternate spelling (as in color vs. colour, etc.)
Probably just a typo tho, but at least they have an excuse.
Can we just say that it's all in-game lore/trivia for us to discover? How can such a careful game developer let this kind of obvious thing slide?
It actually makes some sense for U, V, and W to be a bit confusing and used oddly by the Companions. These letters have an interesting historical relationship and, in fact, we today say "double-u" when we mean "w", though that letter in most fonts is quite literally represented as a "double-v".
'U' and 'V' are interchanged in some languages and in Latin were the same letter 'v' differentiated by their use as a consonant or vowel; context determined the pronunciation. As 'v' became the sound "va", it later became necessary to represent the "wa" sound and this could be done with either "uu" or "vv", which thus gives us the confusing "double-u" that is normally typed as 'w' and handwritten as "uu".
In modern English, "double-u" has a poor meaning, in my opinion, as we cannot use this sound as a vowel. It would be more linguistically accurate to call it a "double-v". People don't like it when I do that, however ;).
It's interesting that the word "weather" in the game has the 'w' removed entirely instead of simply replaced with 'v' as might be expected. I wonder if this was intentional or a typo. "vanted", on the other hand, seems reasonable considering historical context.
Readers are encouraged to look this information up for themselves as I am not a linguist. 'Y' is also related to u, v, and w, but appears unrelated in Companion language and thus not relevant here.
Fun fact, french language does call "w" "double-v". And "y" is "greek-i". Stuff we usually don't even notice in everyday life but, when you look up close...
That ‘please’ after asking us to subscribe was too hard to resist. Good vid man
The amount of hardship you did just to decode some fancy imaginary fonts is beyond imagination!
Thank you over 3000!
My playthrough would have been like twice as long if I was trying to decide everything along the way!
While I didn't decrypt the robot language, I did find something sort of neat. At some point in one of the early chapters, you get a postcard of the outside. On the back of it, you can see it was actually used as a postcard, with an entire letter written. It mentions the city of Montpelier in France as the presumed location of the photo of the beach, and also has the address of the recipient, which I think might be a real place in Dallas Texas. However I wasn't really able to make out the exact address, and when I checked Google maps I only got some random locations, one that was just under a bridge. Anyways, thought it was interesting
The fact that the actual location is just a random place under a bridge is probably intentional, you don't want to accidentally include a real addresses/locations/phone numbers in games, because some people will try to go there/call them.
who bets the bridge was the one in the rickroll
@@thevalarauka101rickroll was filmed in london
I have yet to find another individual so well versed in lore as you. Whatever you choose I will likely be watching it.
Please don’t take this as anything but a friendly tip, but the phrase is “well-versed”! If you’ve never seen it written down it’s perfectly understandable that you’d think it was “well first” but just for future reference I hope that’s somewhat helpful :)
@@MintyDragonfly Auto correct is a real bitch. Thanks for pointing that out though, The comment has been edited.
A little nitpick about your comment at 1:17:
Cats aren't humans, and the cat being fine after that fall is not nearly as strange as you seem to think it is. Cats, as partly arboreal animals, are highly adapted toward surviving falls even from great heights.
First, as everyone knows, cats can almost instantly twist their bodies in midair to fall with their feet pointed downward. What's somewhat less well-known is that in a fall from any significant height, they will next spread their legs outward, and with the way their bodies are structured, this creates a sort of parachute effect somewhat similar to that of a flying squirrel, albeit much less pronounced. A falling cat's terminal velocity is about half that of a human's.
Second, when they hit the ground, cats benefit from having very powerful limbs relative to their body mass, and those limbs are also angled so that they can bend and absorb the shock much better than those of a human even if the human manages to land on his or her feet.
Third and finally, the cat hit (and slid down) an incline first rather than smacking directly onto solid concrete, which further distributed and reduced the shock.
Given ordinary, pampered housecats regularly survive multi-story falls with minimal injuries, it's hardly surprising that a tough feral cat would be okay after a much easier fall with an incline to help further reduce the shock. A human in this situation would be in serious trouble, yes, but most cats would actually be fine.
Edit: Great video, though!
I'd love to see a story breakdown of Stray. Like the backstory and lore.
Same. It Has So Much World building And So Much Mysteries
There's one from superhorrorbro and the game theorists
You can’t ask for us to decipher things when you put them in a tidy little red box. Great video, V! This world seem to have a lot of details and even though people already decoded it, it’s fun to do it on your own :)
Awesome work master.
Decoded the cipher successfully, subscribed and liked.
Keep up the great work :)
This was a wounderful video and i love that you took the time de codeing the lanugae in the game! This is also the first video from you i have watched, you have a nice and pleasent voice, im not very into elden ring but would love to see you cover more of stray or any other game!
I absolutely adore this game, and the world its set in. It's really interesting to see someone decode the language, really adds to the feel of the game world. It would be fun using this cipher to go around translating everything possible, compiling it all into a comprehensive list. Would make you feel like an antrhopologist or something XD.
random friend on steam: "how do you have 100 hour in Stray? you must really love playing Stray"
V-Limit: "yes i am decoding the language😁"
That self decoded text at the end convinced me ;) (all though i alredy imagined it but still nice :D and great work ofc, needs much dedication to put so much effort in it.)
That's cool that they actually created a language for this game. I actually really like the font.
This video kept on getting pushed on my recommendation tab, and now I understand why! Amazing video!
Super cool video!! I think the fact that some of the symbols are different can be attributed to something like the Japanese scripts-- how they have different symbols for the same characters. Maybe the robots developed something like that- just a theory anyway. But it's so cool they have an actually alphabet! Nice job on decoding it!! I wouldn't have the patience for it haha
I like that angle, I didn't consider that
I really have to stop playing Dark Souls 3 & play Stray already. Dope video dude. More variety is always welcome. 🤘🏻🔥
Oh, neat! Some of the letters are actually vaguely similar to their latin counterparts, just modified and flipped. Pretty cool!
Makes sense since it's a direct Latin cipher, implying they're a decendant of Latin script
Wow, you really have a lot patience to analyze all of that. Great job! I'd like a lore video or something else on the subject of this game.
That is so cool! Nice job decoding it all! You did a great job :D
This was fascinating.
I salute you sir for your dedication! And patience!
If I were still kid, my friends and I would totally use this as a secret language for passing notes. lol
Really thoughtful and entertaining video. Thank you. Good stuff.
Holy cow your dedication to finding all the letters is amazing. Subscribing!
What a great video, helps A LOT in the beginning.
Pretty cool and well done. Thanks for the font! Also loved to see some backstory video. Thank you!
how do i apply the font on my computer?
9:07 it took me all of 3 seconds to realize you wanted me to subscribe..
Good work de-constructing the cipher through logic & persistence.
This was strangely entertaining, good job on the video mate!
Oh wow, you even made a font, by the middle of the video I was wondering if anyone would have this as a font, by the end of the video I was happy I saw it till the end! Heheheh thanks man!
Nice job putting this up and found all the references.
The word he told us to decode reads out to subscribe
I like how I decode the word you gave us only to be told to subscribe.
That's sneaky, I like it.
Great video! Looks like a neat game. Thanks for decoding the letters. It looks fun!:)
You know what, I subscribed because the video was enjoyable and you made an effort to decipher the font :D
that subscribe cypher in the end made me subscribe
Even though it was a lot, its exactly what i was looking for with such great brief explanations. Thanks bruv
Wow thanks for the decoding I was really confused
When I played this game I was also trying to decipher the language, but I couldn't find the J, Q, X and Z, and I ended up giving up there. So it's very cool to see this video where you went the extra steps to figure out those last ones, too!
Wow ! Great video indeed and thank you for the font download, It was very thoughtful and exceptional of you ! Cheers !
Entertaining.
I can appreciate the time and effort you spent on this. Well done.
Tiny tidbit I remembered when seeing variations of the same letter; English language has different ways to write the letters a, k, and perhaps w and y, so maybe there are different font styles in the game language too.
loved this. thanks for your work on this!!! and very cool to make it a font!!!
I know this is an old video but a video about Stray's hidden story aspects sounds really cool
At 7:25 it shows some writing that looks like korean. the L in the writing means makes a K-N sound (kinda) my guess is that the writing is some form of korean graffiti
This just completed my game experience. I've finished the game in a week and I haven't paid attention to the language being used... this basically just closes my stray chapter, time to move on to different game :)
Realy cool and thank you for decoding the letters. I love when games use custom languages. I bet some things where mispelled because the game company would otherwise have to double check the spelling of every texture of the probably 1000+ uassets and thats to time intensive for them
Thanks for taking the time to do this :D Really interesting
Even the different substitutions or missing letters can be valid for their language. Many times we evolve to use different spellings, slang, or our accents just make different sounds. For example, the old English way to spell color is colour. Which I think is neato. To even bother going as far as they did for a made up language is amazing.
You my friend are a goat for all the hard work that went into making this video.
I really love the ways that they show the phonetic similarities between the letters c, s, and z in the font.
I kinda thought that the language was inspired by how some AIs have trouble actually creating legible words like with midjourney and others
The word he wanted us to decript means subscribe
It’s in a red box, Basic pattern recognition deciphered it for me
I didn't even need to decipher what you wrote at the end of the video. Its very clear that it says "Subscribe"😁
Cool video!
Whow...the time and effort you put into this...that is really incredible!
Thanks for this vid. You've saved me translating all this tomorrow.
This is a level of obsession that makes me feel normal.
Thank you, V-Limit!
Great upload. 😊
8:18 I just noticed the cat spinning 💀
haha, I would definitely not mind more soulsborne content, but your work is so qualitative I'm all in for other vids like this!
lmao at the cat spinning around in the bucket @8:24 🤣
YAY! thanks for sharing the font.
Def gonna try sneak it into some client's design work ;)
Some of the letters vaguely represent English characters. Seeing the length of the word and the context it's in, we can sometimes read it without knowing the language.
"ENTRANCE" was readable even before you flipped it.
the "ill let you translate this on your own" really got me XD
Absolutely loved this (^.^) Happy to see someone with such appreciation & attention to detail. I wouldn’t mind if you made another Stray video hehe
Thank you for putting this together!! :D
This is the side of gaming I lvoe because who thinks to go around and decipher the text throughout stray ? literally thought it was all made up as I ran through the game, but this video is so cool and eye opening
dude i just came across your channel and you are a fantastic narrator
This is how you dive in a game's lore and you get a susbscriber (way from the best one). WLooking forward to see the next video!
I love the "Would You Like To Know More" clear reference to Starship Troopers :P
Thanks for making that font. Might come in handy for encrypted handouts for my Shadowrun-group ^^
That my players are all cat-people might make for a fun little easter-egg for them.
Never even thought to try and decode the cipher...!
I knew the word at the end was "subscribe" just because you said to do it and i already expected it! Anyway great video 👍
There's a cipher like this in DeBlob2. Love this kind of alternative writing systems stuff.
I love the Subscribe gag at 9:10 it's fun
Super interested in seeing your lore video for this game
That "Oh, no!" at 1:16 hit me hard right in the relatability!
You are so fantastic to listen to, I'd love to watch a video about Stray from you.
Just finished this game. amazing! Beautiful story. Great environment. Solid difficulty. Adorable and super realistic cat stuff. So happy I bought and played the game. I had some days off of work and I just spent like 10-11 hours to crush it and I’m sad it’s over. But super satisfied.
nice cipher and font!
Great job here!!
I guess in some words could be a mutation or evolution of the english language since the game it’s chronologically located in a distant future.
Just knowing that it is a readable language with specific characters for letters and is a direct English analog, helped my brain be able to decipher most letters on the fly, I'm now semi fluent in reading it, thank you
Please make us a favor and do the secrets and lore video!! Absolutely loved the video thank you so much! Gj
This is really cool. Thanks for the font!
people on the internet can do anything i swear 😭
This is some great effort decoding the language.