The first game to be “free” with the new higher tiers of PlayStation Plus on the day of release, Stray was a lovely surprise. I knew it existed, so I don’t mean like that, and it was announced to be coming to the service a while back. No, what I’m referring to is the gameplay, the setting, and just how good it is.

Until downloading it, my interested was “ooh, a cat game? That might be fun”. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a post-apocalyptic platform adventure game with robots and mutant things that can eat metal, and a story of freeing the oppressed. But it’s also about curling up into a purring ball of fluff, scratching doors to be let in, and knocking bottles off of shelves.

Of course, I can’t go into too much detail because of spoilers, but the game follows you, a cat separated from his catty friends, who ends up in a run down town locked under a dome and populated with robots who act like humans. You’re tasked with finding a number of robots who had previously left the town to find the outside but not returned, and in the process you have to outrun headcrabs, reroute power cables, sail a raft and help some rebels.

The world is amazingly well realised, with some beautiful, neon-lit locations and plenty of robots with diverse personalities. There are stealth sections, puzzle sections, chase sequences and lots of jumping up onto ledges, pipes and air-conditioning units. And, best of all, there’s a dedicated “meow” button. It’s brilliant.

Another PS+ free rental, but a game I’ve nearly bought more than once elsewhere and actually own on PC (but I don’t have my Steam Deck yet to play it on!). Minit’s “thing” is that it’s a Zelda-ish game only you die every sixty seconds. Or sooner. And then you start again.

However, some things are persistent and you do reach respawn points and open shortcuts so dying isn’t really an inconvenience.

There’s a plot about having to go into some factory to destroy it, but most of what happens is irrelevant to that in any sort of meaningful way bar Metroidvania style map unlocking and progression. It’s a short game (as in, maybe a couple of hours rather than an actual minute), and isn’t very difficult, although I did get stuck trying to find a particular character because I hadn’t tried doing everything imaginable up until that point.

Cheap, short, fun.

With PS+ Premium comes a huge number of games you can “borrow”. A few of those are titles I was eyeing up to buy on the Switch, so I suppose I’ve saved a bit of money now I’ve got them on my PlayStation “for free”.

I Am Dead is one of those. It’s a hidden object game with a story and some quirks. Firstly, you’re dead (but then you surely guessed that from the title), and with the help of your talking dead dog, you explore the quaint little island you both used to live on probing the thoughts of those still alive, and then trying to find objects relating to other dead people in order to summon their souls. In a nice way.

The objects are usually hidden inside of things, but instead of opening doors, lifting flaps or pushing things out of the way in something like Hidden Folks, you sort of “slice” into them like those ham machines you get in the delicatessen. Find all five items and you can put the soul back together and have a chat with the deceased.

The ultimate aim is to find a replacement for the old island spirit, who has been preventing the local volcano from erupting for centuries but is now tired (or something) and the story follows both her past as a human and the past and present of the other islanders. Despite all the death and the pending apocalypse, it’s all very light hearted and the characters (and their voices) are excellent. It’s not a hard game and the only real puzzles are optional (where you find a “slice” of some scenery that matches a shape you’ve been given), but it’s nice. In the best way of calling something “nice”.