Mewgenics hands-on preview: Finally, a strategy game all about cats!

Edmund McMillen was the founder of The Binding of IsaacAn announcement Mewgenics, a cat-breeding life sim with Pokémon-style combat. This game was initially being made as a Team Meat version of the popular wildly successful. Super Meat Boy. MewgenicsMcMillen said that the project was shown at PAX 2013 but was cancelled shortly thereafter.

In tweet from earlier this year, McMillen wrote, “I never wanted to cancel Mewgenics way back when, but I had no control over it.” Speaking with Polygon, McMillen was unwilling to go into specifics regarding the split between him and fellow Super Meat Boy developer Tommy Refenes. However, a portion of the deal gave rights to Super Meat Boy Refenes, and his team (who would continue to make) Super Meat Boy Forever). McMillen, however, kept the rights to The Binding of IsaacHe later obtained the rights to his own version. Mewgenics.

While it’s always been about breeding cats to some extent, this new version of MewgenicsIt has been through many iterations. McMillen is now co-creating the game with Tyler Glaiel — another successful indie developer who last teamed with McMillen on The End Is Near — who started working on prototypes for what a new Mewgenics2018: What could the game look like? In 2018, the game might look something like this. MewgenicsWas a Castle CrashersSide-scrolling, gangster brawler in a’style’ (with cats).

McMillen and Glaiel never figured out a way to make that work, though: “We knew that we wanted groups of cats,” says Glaiel, “and we couldn’t quite figure out how to work that into the brawler version of the game, because you can’t control four cats [by yourself]. Multiplayer would make it a good brawler. And I didn’t really want to deal with that. Not again.”

After the brawler idea, the team attempted to make a real-time strategy game (with cats), which Glaiel describes as “too chaotic,” requiring you to keep track of too many things at once. “It’s also not as tight as a brawler,” explains Glaiel, “so you can’t dodge abilities, because you’d have to click the cat and move it out of the way. […] It didn’t really work.”

In early 2020, after several iterations, the team landed on the idea of a turn-based tactical strategy game (with cats), and that’s what stuck. But this isn’t just a Fire Emblem knockoff. It’s one of the most ambitious and bizarre strategy games I’ve ever played.

How has Mewgenics changed?

Image: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel

It’s easiest to think of MewgenicsIt is divided into two sections. The first part is the tactical combat game, which should feel familiar to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons or Breach into the Breach. Four cats are your first group. They have traditional roles such as healer, mage or hunter. You have different abilities and stats, and each cat has a unique ability. One might excel at backstabs, with high speed and movement, and another can cast spells. You’re managing mana and equipping gear that will give each cat an edge in battle. At the end of each battle you’ll level up one cat and select a new ability that pairs with their current loadout.

Although it all looks very familiar for the genre, McMillen, Glaiel have created something more intricate and diverse.

A simple example: You can send one cat to hide in grass and it’ll increase their dodge chance. But grass is flammable, so if you’re attacked with a fire spell, that cat will be set ablaze. Fire can also spread so long as there’s debris nearby, which means the whole map might quickly go up if you’re not careful.

Image: Edmund McMillen,Tyler Glaiel

This scenario can be completely altered by the weather. When it snows all of the grass in the area will melt into shards or ice that can cause injury to cats and create barriers against enemies.

I kept coming back to the concept of cause and effects during my play sessions. My cat was able to go poop at will. The poop did no damage, but did create a barrier to block enemy ranged attacks — until I realized that the poop would go flying if hit by an enemy, directly into the cat who just dropped it. In reality, these ricochet situations are common. MewgenicsThis requires that the whole battlefield be examined before any move can be made.

The potential elements are so varied that Glaiel had to create an AI program that ran through thousands of battles at lighting speed, just to make sure the game didn’t generate unwinnable scenarios.

One of my most devastating moments was when I faced a gigantic mouse sporting sunglasses. Super Mario Bros. 2(the boss), who continued to throw bombs in large lines along the entire length of the map. Although I could disarm all the bombs that were thrown at me, they remained. I should have probably anticipated that using an area-affecting fire spell near one wasn’t the best idea and yet, there I went, fully devastating half of my team in one flammable mistake.

How does a cat go to heaven if it dies? The cat’s loss of all hit points does not mean that it is dead. You are here: Mewgenics, these cats will be downed for the battle and, so long as they don’t get hit three more times in that same battle, they’ll survive for another day… but with consequences.

Mystic, combat healer, was one of my favorites cats. One of his bombs hit him in the head, which caused him to lose mobility and reduced range of attack. It was a simple case. Glaiel mentioned an injured cat might literally “lose its balls,” which leads us to the second major portion of Mewgenics.

Mewgenics has a cat-breeding section.

Completing a “run” of MewgenicsYour surviving cats will be able to return home with you. They’ll bring with them some of the equipment and abilities they picked up along the way, which can be equipped to other cats on future runs. Two cats can also be stuck in a room together and, if things click, you’ll end up with a baby cat with components pulled from the two parents. The kitten might have the father’s ears, the mother’s coloring, and a mutation passed down from the father, like fangs that grant life steal on attacks. In rare cases, you might inherit an active/passive ability that was inherited from the parents. If the stars align, this could allow you to be multi-class if necessary.

The team’s goal is that you’ll obsess over crafting the perfect genetic specimen, an unstoppable killing machine that they liken to breeding in Pokémon games.

However, there are two main differences between breeding in Mewgenics and breeding in Pokémon.

For one thing, you can’t breed the same super cat with every other cat in the house, because you’ll end up with an inbreeding situation. “If you inbreed your cats too much they will turn out fucked up!” says Glaiel. “I have a scientifically accurate inbreeding sim in there… I read a bunch of academic papers about dog breeding databases to figure that out.”

Image: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel

Another important distinction: Cats get older and eventually die. Once enough time passes, your cat may become unfit for adventure. They’ll hang out in your house, and you might be able to use them for breeding, but their fighting days will be over. The cat will end up dying from old age. Only its feline heritage can tell you how much it has contributed to the world.

You just need to understand that the beloved cat, your cat who you fell in love with, is going to die. Sometimes it might die from a silly mistake that you make in an unrelated fight against puny mobs.

“Part of what the game is is accepting the fact of permanence,” says McMillen. “That sometimes bad shit does happen … [but]The things that occur create an element of life. Once the rules have been established and you are aware that there will be bad times, you can accept them. You accept the rules of the game.”

In most cases, losing a cat won’t be a big deal, says McMillen, because you’ll have a house full of strays. “But maybe there is this one cat that you really love. And maybe this cat’s getting old. And you’ve got to do something with this cat and you know that the permanence of this cat dying is a real thing. And it’s gone forever. That’s what we’re trying to make.”

Items are also subject to the idea of permanentity. There will be common and rare items that you’ll pick up to grant your cats stat and ability boosts, and the same item can show up more than once across your adventures. Legendary items are also available. McMillen mentioned the Holy Grail as an item that is only available once per saved file. That’s a file with up to 300 hours of progress. It’ll be an ultra-powerful item, one that gives you a huge edge in combat, but if the cat that’s holding it dies, it’s gone forever. You’ll never see it again. “There’s only one Holy Grail, after all,” says McMillen. These legendary items are still kept in homes and can be retrieved if they’re needed.

Is it possible to end this?

McMillen and Glaiel are intentionally vague about what it’ll take to “win” Mewgenics, but they’ve shared some vague outlines with me. Your house will soon be attacked by an unknown boss after a few adventures and virtual days. You can send them on their way by giving them valuable items or even the souls of cats (presumably ones you’re not super attached to). However, you have the option to fight back. The only cats capable of protecting the home are those who are old and experienced, or can no longer travel on their own adventures. These boss fights are major breakers in the cat world. MewgenicsIt eventually led to an epic last fight.

Beyond that, though, the team isn’t super open about specifics of the endgame. All they’ll say is that they’re designing MewgenicsIt will be extremely modular. It is hoped that the game could be extended over many years or decades by adding new content after launch, which the team believes will take 18 to 24 months. The game follows the example of The Binding of IsaacIn this way, the website was launched for the first time in 2011 and has continued to grow and be updated to this day.

“I really see MewgenicsAs the next step The Binding of Isaac,” says McMillen. “In terms of how you take something like IsaacYou can make it bigger or better, and you can continue to expand it. Mewgenics is that.”