OPEN THE SKY | Stray Song!

In a future too distant to measure, in a city lost to time, a lone stray cat finds themselves trapped in the mysterious ‘Walled City 99’ after a fall. In BlueTwelve Studio’s ‘Stray’ and with the help of your new drone guide B12, you must guide this cat home and along the way discover the secrets of this ancient city and its society of automaton ‘Companions’ left behind for millennia since humanity long since ceased to be…

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I’m back! That ‘scheduled vacation’ I mentioned in my previous video was much needed and much enjoyed but I’m excited to be back and working on a heap of new and upcoming projects! This being the first! For certain a smaller project to facilitate that time away, this song was written and recorded, with the video mostly completed before I left and now I’m back just took a little more work to have ready for you.

It's certainly the saddest/most emotionally intense song I’ve uploaded to the channel in a long, long time. In truth this song was written on August 5th, which not only was my birthday but also the day of Nerdcore Party Con, an event I had been looking forward to performing at for years after it had been delayed several times due to the Pandemic. And an event I would have been attending had it not been for the Covid I had contracted the day before my flight on the 3rd.

Alone and isolating as the friends I had been desperate to see were partying on the other side of the world and with my US vacation cancelled (though thankfully later rescheduled the following month, sans the convention) I tried to write a song to distract myself. But I guess I needed an emotional outlet and it turned out to be this song.
I sat down with the intent of writing first and foremost about the cat. But ultimately, I didn’t have much interesting to say about the cat. The cat is adorable but really serves as a vehicle to learn about the world, lore and characters of the forgotten city.

The idea of a city filled with abandoned sentient robots so ancient that they don’t even remember how they gained that sentience was fascinating to me. There are various theories about the Companions and how they came to be, but I found the idea that they simply don’t know and that uncertainty to be what was really interesting. So I chose to write from their perspective, unsure and theorising, based on some of the ideas the Companions put forward in game.

I hope you all enjoyed this slightly heavier and less cat-centric take on the game. It’s not often I flex those more serious writing muscles but I’m very proud of the result. Rest assured, there is some trademark Stupendium brand silliness, bureaucracy and sinister authority figure-ness on the horizon. Stay tuned!

Thanks to all of my fantastic Patrons for supporting the channel and making my videos possible!

#Stray #straygame

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Check out the full Stupendium originals playlist for all of my original songs!

THE STUPENDIUM ON SPOTIFY:

THE STUPENDIUM ON iTUNES:

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Lyrics and Vocals by The Stupendium
Video by The Stupendium & Lizzy CJ
Beat produced by @DansonnBeats
Mixing and mastering by @OxygenBeats

B12 3D Model by Rogerio.F..Alves

Stray, its world and characters are the property of BlueTwelve Studio and Annapurna Interactive.

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The Stupendium is a musician, animator and content creator, creating weird, wonderful and usually incredibly nerdy songs and animations. Join them on their journey to obscure, niche internet stardom! They have some pretty decent videos, wonderful facial hair and a great sense of discomfort describing themselves in the third person.

[TheStupendium]

LYRICS:

VERSE 1 (B12):
It’s cold and it’s dark
Keeping hold of a spark
They sealed us away
They were keeping us safe
But as years creep to age
There’s a hole in the ark
Lost in circuits and screens
And imperfect machines
I course through the wires
And optical fibres
Wait for an outsider
To come set me free
So maybe you’re the saviour I’ve been praying for?
Fluffier than anticipated but I’ll take it, sure
I’ve sent you these lights through this unending night
If my memory is right, I’ve never strayed before
So bring me online, I’ve been locked inside
Between the neon lights we are lost to time
It’ll be alright, I can be your guide
Beneath a sea of silence and a concrete sky

CHORUS:
To all those left deep inside these walls
Their lone hope rests in your tiny paws
Where the night extends and the time sits paused
This home won’t mend till the sky here falls
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?

VERSE 2 (THE COMPANIONS):
They say your future’s in the stars, so what are we to do?
When the stars just form a circle, so your future is a loop
Eternity of servitude with no one left to serve it to
You could've turned us off before these sewers turned to tombs
We turned into you – Now we grapple with the syntax
Humanity was doomed but we have to pay your sin tax
Mimic every routine trying to be all you’ve been
Trying to find a new dream sifting through your bin bags
Why we do the things we do is truly half the riddle
Maybe you were living proof intelligence is artificial?
Built this place to keep you safe and then the haven changed to grave
But left us sentience by mistake? Well that’s hardly civil
At least, we think you did, that’s what we seem to be
Is this gift a glitch that twisted free of bland obediency?
Or are our souls a mix of ceaseless tangled frequencies?
Chewing up and spitting memories in random sequences?
All our thoughts, all we feel?
Ones and noughts trapped in steel?
Something more, something real?
Threaded code caught in a wheel
That spins an algorithmic tapestry
Of what it thinks we have to be
A Frankenstein of fragments
Fractal pattern personalities
If imitation’s flattery, perhaps that’s why you wired it in
A parlour trick to keep the systems ticking whilst they’re idling
So can it be that deep inside there’s more than code you’ll find within
Or are our minds and lives alike just combing the recycle bin?
If love is emulated, would we find it just as sweet?
Where lies the defining line ‘twixt binary and grief?
Is the nature of what’s real in how it starts or how it feels?
So if the past can’t be revealed perhaps what matters is belief?
We live eternal with our circuits running laps
Until our servos burn out and we, purposeless, collapse
Or society's detritus tries to rise and find a life outside
But how are we supposed to manage that? Oh... There’s a cat?

To all those left deep inside these walls
Their lone hope rests in your tiny paws
Where the night extends and the time sits paused
This home won’t mend till the sky here falls
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?

VERSE 3:
So stray from the light, stray from the path
Stray through the night, stray through the dark
Stray from the safety of what’s known
Stray till you save me, Stray till you’re home
Stray for an ending, stray for a start
Stray for a future exhumed from the sparks
Stray till we suture the wounds of the past
Stray for the tools Noah doomed to the ark
Stray for a chance, stray for a purpose
For the discarded, stray for the worthless
Stray for the last of us made to endure it
Stray for the lost on the way to the surface
Stray for a city and slip through the seams
Stray for the sun that we’ve seen on the screens
Stray so that one day we might feel its beams
Stray for tomorrow. Stray for a dream.

Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?
Won’t you open the sky for me?
Won’t you open the sky?

[bearnaff]

For those who wonder: The math has been done, the angles measured and the distances mapped. When he walks off-screen at the end of the game, our feline friend is less than two minutes walk from the recess that he and his family call home. He does see them again.

[FireStorm]

I love how you captured how human the robots are with the end of their verse going from heavy philosophy to “Oh, there’s a cat” like a flip of a switch. I have legitimately had a moment of being deep in thought, see a cat, and then completely losing my train of thought because of said cat.

[jobot]

A different kind of technological dystopia song than we're used to out of Stupes, but an amazing one nonetheless. You never cease to impress us.

[foxxygradius]

Oh. I was under the impression this was just a cute game about being a cat in a cyberpunk city. I did not expect to get whallopped between the eyes by an existential nightmare. Goddamnit Stupendium.

[Connection_Error-pxbn]

I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but from around 4:00 the use of "stray" sounds like pray and that is just absolutely genius

[iondelta]

Not a single human face, yet you managed to convey and make me feel every emotion. I guess this means I am not as artificial as i once thought.

[HiroshiMizushima]

What struck me hardest was the quiet sense of rage building within the song. The desperate reaching, _clawing_ for the surface, the stars that aren't aligned in a circular pattern. It starts out softer, slower, and builds in a crescendo emotion. Also there's a cat. 🐈😻

[MsBATS]

I'm always noticing new things to love in this (when I'm not too busy ugly crying). When it asks "How am I supposed to deal with that, oh look, there's a cat" It's not just the singer being distracted, it's also the answer to how they're supposed to deal with that.

[claptrapp.claptrappington]

God I cannot express how much i adore the lyric:
"They say your future's in the stars, so what are we to do, when the stars just form a circle so your future is a loop?"

So beautiful and tragically poetic

[Atticus_drawings]

*Stray* from the light
*Stray* from the path
*Stray* through the night
*Stray* through the dark
*Stray* from the safety of what’s known
*Stray* till you save me
*Stray* till you’re home
*Stray* for an ending
*Stray* for a start
*Stray* for a future exhumed from the sparks
*Stray* till we suture the wounds of the past
*Stray* for the tools Noah doomed to the ark
*Stray* for a chance
*Stray* for a purpose
For the Discarded
*Stray* for the worthless
*Stray* for the last of us made to endure it
*Stray* for the lost on the way to the surface
*Stray* for a city and slip through the seams
*Stray* for the sun that we’ve seen on our screens
*Stray* so that one day we might feel it’s beams
*Stray* for tomorrow
*Stray* for a dream



Man I love this song

[bloxx]

At the risk of sounding repetetive, this is incredible!

[Zeiru]

Generally speaking, your dystopian corporate songs are usually my favorite. Thank you for this music video. I can't wait to see what you have in store for the next one!

[TheAdvertisement]

Omg I am _loving_ the metaphor you created by drawing a parallel between you being a stray cat, and "straying" from the path. It lets the cat protagonist shine as a symbol of hope for all of the robots who wish to be free, saying that they'll stray with it. Stray from the dark, from their programming, from this dystopia they've been trapped and looping through for millions of years. To finally follow a different path, with the stray and B-12 at the forefront. Beautiful writing.

[azur_night]

Not sure if anyone translated this before but on the last page it says "I think the humans used to listen to the Stupendium on Itunes, Spotify, Amazon, and more." which I find amazing. This shows that the robots of the future still have an understanding of what humans used to do on what is now their faces.

[monke]

"They say your future is in the stars so what are we to do? When the stars just form a circle so your future is a loop? We turned into you" is a great set of lines

[techno_shock]

One of my favorite things about Stupendium's writing is that he is able to make such heartfelt songs out of left field. I would have expected a song focused on the cat, but I couldn't be happier that he chose the companions. Keep at it Stups, at this point you are unable to disappoint me with the quality that you put into your videos. Let alone the bops that they truly are

[wiliam]

I like how the song is not entirely about the cat, but more about the robots and how long they have been trapped and alone. Great song and my new personal favourite! :D

[flame_warp]

As a certified Lover Of When Robots Are People (they're just handin' 'em out these days) this one hits HARD, in a really good way. Also, as someone who didn't actually know anything about this game's plot before, this does a really good job of communicating everything you need to know for the themes and references to still work.

[proflns]

Literal chills. It was a magical moment when the chorus started singing "Open the sky" and your voice melted into chesty, pained cries coming through both ears. The sound was reminiscent of the final line in Toybox.
Also, I knew absolutely nothing about Stray before this song, and now I want to know more.