The Gravity Falls Easter Egg You Missed In Stray
In "Stray," players control an adorable cat making its way through a dilapidated cyber city. A lot of the fun the game has to offer comes from finding small nooks and crannies full of interesting bits of worldbuilding and lore tucked away in forgotten places. Along with some cute cat-based mechanics (like rubbing against the legs of robots to solicit pets and knocking items off ledges), this nuanced method of learning about the history of the city and the relationship between humans and their abandoned technology is one of the aspects critics liked best about the title.
With such a large emphasis on discovery, it shouldn't come as a surprise that "Stray" has a few references to other IPs tucked away for players to find as well. A Reddit user spotted one of these Easter eggs featuring a callback to the animated television show "Gravity Falls."
There's a familiar looking book on one of the shelves
"Gravity Falls" is a Disney Channel series about twins Dipper and Mabel Pines. They go to spend the summer with their "Grunkle" Stan who runs a cryptid-themed gift shop called The Mystery Shack. Soon after arriving, the twins discover that the town of Gravity Falls is full of paranormal activity. One of the primary ways they learn about the mystical goings-on is through a collection of three journals written by their great uncle Stanford Pines who was a paranormal investigator and recorded his encyclopedic knowledge of the region. The trio of journals are maroon in color with brass corner-plates and the image of a large brass hand is displayed in the center with a number on the palm.
Redditor Nojobworriedforlife discovered a book that looks remarkably like these journals camouflaged among dozens of other volumes on a bookshelf in "Stray." This book has similar coloring and the same corner-plates. The only major difference between this version and those from "Gravity Falls" is an image of a cat's paw print rather than a human hand and a symbol from the mysterious robot language on the palm rather than a simple number. Still, the similarities seem too significant to ignore. Clearly someone on the BlueTwelve Studio development team must be a fan of the show.