An In-Depth Look At The Chaotic World Of Mewgenics

Mewgenics is a game that quickly consumes time, with over 100 hours logged in a short period. The game is a turn-based, roguelike tactical RPG centered around felines, playing out on a 10x10 grid. It features mostly traditional classes like Fighter, Mage, Hunter, Tank, and Necromancer. The primary distinction of the game lies in the randomization of skills and attributes for the team, largely removing player control over these aspects. This design forces improvisation and adaptation to the randomized hand dealt in each run. The game possesses a massive amount of content; even after 150 hours, new enemies, skills, mutations, and loot continue to appear. This constant novelty encourages repeated playthroughs, driven by the possibility of assembling a powerful team to defeat a boss that previously decimated the player's party. The final ending has yet to be reached, but the experience remains engaging.

The game revolves around cats but presents them in a dark comedy context, treating them as expendable resources. The title itself, a play on eugenics, hints at the game's provocative and "spicy" nature. The humor is consistent with the previous works of Edmund McMillen, who collaborated with Tyler Glaiel on this project. Their past games, such as Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, are known for a similar style of humor. The tone is consistently gross and weird.

"It's delightfully gross and endlessly weird at every turn."

— Dan Stapleton, IGN

As a cat owner, the game's expectation of a detached and unsympathetic perspective toward the cats was initially underestimated. Unlocking crucial house upgrades took longer than necessary because it involves sending dozens of cats to various quirky NPCs, after which they are never seen again. One such character, Tink, a flamboyant and important figure, exclusively accepts newborn kittens. In return, he provides tools that offer more information on breeding kittens. He requires a large number of them, forcing the player to become accustomed to parting with them immediately. Other characters have specific demands, wanting older cats, mutated cats, injured cats, or cats that have been on adventures to particular locations to improve stores or add new rooms to the house. Unlike traditional RPGs that focus on nurturing and developing characters, Mewgenics demands a different mindset. Cats with low or unremarkable stats are considered hindrances and are best spent as currency, with only the most promising offspring being kept.

Breeding cats occurs on the house screen, a 2D side-view where cats move around chaotically. The player arranges furniture pieces, obtained as loot or purchased, in a manner similar to inventory Tetris. The objective is to improve stats like Stimulation and Comfort to encourage the cats to produce high-quality offspring with favorable mutations. These mutations can manifest as a deformed tail that inflicts burning damage with basic attacks, fur that provides health regeneration when wet, or "leech eyes." These mutations are visually represented on the increasingly strange-looking cats. A daily chore involves cleaning up cat poop by clicking on piles of various shapes and sizes to maintain the Health stat. This becomes tedious, especially when the house is crowded and cats obstruct access to the piles. Despite the variety of furniture items, a litter box has never been encountered.

When the day ends, cats choose their own mates based on proximity, gender, orientation (the game includes gay and bisexual cats), and libido. The subsequent animations of cat humping and birth are intentionally unsettling but can be toned down for a more work-safe experience. Optimizing this process to produce powerful cats while avoiding inbreeding, which causes birth defects, is a challenge. However, the system is forgiving; even if all cats are lost, players can start over with the randomized stray cats that appear daily. The main challenge is to find and pass down desirable traits through generations without too many negative side effects, which requires planning. Mewgenics does not provide tools like a list or spreadsheet to view all cats, forcing players to cycle through them one by one. While tools for labeling and viewing family trees are unlockable, finding a specific cat with desired stats and abilities among 40 roaming individuals to form a four-cat party can be a chore.

Team building in Mewgenics is also unconventional. When selecting cats and assigning classes, players cannot see all of their starting abilities. Base stats, mutations, and basic attacks are visible, and sometimes a cat may inherit a spell or passive ability from a parent's class. The full set of abilities is revealed only after locking in the class, which determines the team's synergy. Each of the 12 classes has 75 potential abilities, and new ones are still being discovered even after extensive playtime. This reveal process is thrilling, similar to receiving a hand in poker or seeing modifiers in a daily run of games like Slay the Spire. Sometimes the outcome is favorable and exciting; other times, it is not, leading to a challenging run that requires survival and luck to unlock better skills. A significant inconvenience is the inability to see the house inventory of items while picking classes and seeing starting abilities. This makes it difficult to plan builds around available gear, especially for players who do not have a perfect memory of their inventory. It is frustrating not to be able to check for gear that could boost summon stats when deciding between an animal-focused Druid or a robot-building Tinkerer.

Gear in Mewgenics is not permanent. An item can typically be used for three or four runs before it breaks. If a run fails, all equipped and collected items are lost, except for one item saved by a helpful NPC. This system prevents over-reliance on any single strategy. Powerful items can be used multiple times without defining every subsequent run. Cats themselves have an even shorter lifespan in combat. Each cat gets only one adventure to level up and develop skills, although they can be used in one or two special battles where monsters attack the house. This was initially a difficult concept to grasp, as RPG party members are usually persistent. The game does not allow players to name their cats, instead providing them with pre-generated silly names. This design choice seems intended to prevent players from becoming too attached. Over time, attention shifts from their names to their classes, with only the primary breeding stock being remembered.

The adventure maps in each of the three acts are drawn in a jerky, childlike style. A single path branches into two, each leading to two different stages with unique enemies. It is advisable to read enemy descriptions before battles, as some have dangerous abilities, including instant, permanent death or parasitic infections that occupy a gear slot. The stakes are high, with cats being permanently injured when downed and susceptible to being outright killed. The structure of the runs offers few decisions about the path between battles. Choices are mainly between a default path and a harder one with better loot, with occasional choices between item rewards. This makes the between-battle encounters less engaging compared to similar games, especially when random encounters are simple coin flips. There are more involved, multi-stage encounters presented as choose-your-own-adventure stories, where success is determined by a randomly chosen cat's stats. This introduces two layers of luck, often making the outcomes feel entirely random. This randomness is a core part of the experience, which is about making the best of uncontrollable circumstances.

Combat is complex due to the interactions between cat mutations, passives, spells, gear, environmental modifiers, and enemies. Understanding what happened in a chaotic battle can be like investigating a crime scene. The game's rules are generally logical: water puts out fire and conducts electricity. However, some rules are not intuitive; for instance, robots are susceptible to bleeding and poison, and the Butcher's meat hook weapon cannot hook meat without a specific upgrade. Despite these inconsistencies, the game's logic is mostly predictable.

"While you won't win the lottery with a great combo every run, they happen more than often enough to make me excited about what might be next."

— Dan Stapleton, IGN

Powerful team dynamics emerge as new skills are earned or stats are raised. For example, a Monk could toss out meat pickups that a Butcher could turn into fly minions, which a Druid could then buff into powerful allies. Another run featured a Cleric whose team-wide health regeneration was boosted by an item, allowing a Necromancer to use a high-damage, self-harming attack freely. There are countless such combinations, and while not every run yields a winning combo, they occur frequently enough to maintain excitement. A frustration during tough fights is the inability to access a cat's full character sheet. While most information is visually represented on the cats, players must remember the meaning of specific mutations, like a second head on a cat's butt. Access to a comprehensive rule reference at any time would be beneficial.

Story and side quests introduce unique, powerful items that significantly alter the rules. One memorable quest imposed a five-second time limit on every action, with the AI taking over if a move was not made quickly. Another quest gave cats random abilities from every class upon leveling up, creating powerful hybrid characters. If a side quest is failed, it cannot be attempted again unless it randomly reappears. The story is light and silly, providing a few laughs as the player follows the instructions of an incompetent mad scientist. The game's sound and music are exceptional. It features original, humorous songs for each level and boss battle, with multiple variations, including instrumental versions that cats sometimes meow along to. The meows themselves come from a large selection of voices, including celebrity cameos. A notable sound design feature is the crowd's reaction after a battle. Cheers and clapping vary in enthusiasm based on performance, but the shocked gasps when a cat is killed are particularly effective. The game also has a surprising approach to "save-scumming," with consequences for abusing the ability to restart a failed battle. However, it implicitly allows for one save-scum per run, a feature that is used regularly.