Clawing its way out of the questionable minds of Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel, Mewgenics has bowled its way into the indie gaming scene, bringing with it a spectacularly bizarre turn-based roguelite experience. Those who have played these developers’ previous titles, such as The Binding Of Isaac, Super Meat Boy, and The End Is Nigh, surely know just how strange their games get, and this new addition is no exception. Between fighting your way through rounds of strange and charming creatures, and creating a breeding program of, frankly, some of the most freakishly fucked up cats I have ever laid eyes on, this game has plenty to offer to its playerbase. And boy does this game have a playerbase, with the game having made all its development money back within only a few short hours of its launch in early February.
Mewgenics boasts a unique and recognizable art style, comparable to that of Edmund’s previous games, as well as an interesting roguelite system that keeps things fresh and replayable. Your goal is to become what is essentially a crazy cat lady’s dream, collecting strays with questionable names off the street and breeding them together to amass your own little cat army. Each cat has its own set of stats and unique perks, and these details come in real handy once you get to the combat. The game has you select 4 of your adult cats to form a “team,” allowing you to select roles for them based on what you feel their stats would be good for, such as a Tank, Fighter, or Mage. I, personally, tend to rock the Tank, Fighter, Cleric, and Mage/Ranger combo, as I feel it gives me the best outcomes in fights. Then, once you’ve got your team put together, the game sets you off through various maps, with difficulty scaling as you progress through them. You’ll move your way through them, entering turn-based fights, finding loot, or running into randomized situations that’ll utilize a cat’s stats to improve chances of a successful outcome to them. Ever want to try to charm an abandoned fetus in an alleyway to be your friend? Now you can, if your Charisma is high enough.
The fighting system is where things start to get real interesting. Between the environment around you, and the unique abilities of your cats, (which you will gain more of as you progress and level), you can really begin to utilize a bit of thinking and strategy into your turns. This game is all about synergy, developing combos and finding the right attacks, abilities, and environmental setups to find success in combat. Want to do large AoE damage? Get a whole cluster of enemies wet via rain or other water sources, and give them a quick tap with an electric ability. Want an army of adorable ferocious pet rocks? Combo a cat’s Pet Rock passive, which turns all rocks you create into combat-ready pebbles, with the Earthquake ability, that has a chance to spawn rocks with each use. Just like in The Binding Of Isaac, the key to progress is a combination of great stats, abilities, and items, then finding ways to synergize that all together into one big conglomerate of success.
Between runs, you’ll find yourself meeting all sorts of questionable folks that’ll help progress your run further, which adds a sense of purpose to the repeating gameplay. Each one wants, you guessed it, cats, with each individual desiring different qualities and promising rewards in turn. Want more inventory space, so you’ll be able to stock your cats up and provide them with more items while they’re out? Butch will get you that in exchange for cats who have made it far in their travels, just be sure to turn down his original offer of sloppy makeouts behind the dumpster first. Looking to expand your home so you can house more cats like the feline-addicted freak you are? Toss a few combat-retired cats to Frank, the totally-not-a-corpse that lives underneath your house. He’ll build you plenty of new rooms as long as you provide him with cats to snuggle with. And if you hear him scratching under the floorboards? No you don’t, you’re just hearing things, silly.
If you’re unfamiliar with Edmund’s previous work, you may be noticing his very unorthodox humor by now. Just like the games he’s worked on in the past, Mewgenics has a very dark and bizarre comedic aspect to it. A few saucy innuendos sprinkled in, just a dash of demonic sacrificing, some modern-day personality stereotyping here and there, and a good bit of what can only be described as “proper fucked-up comedy.” I, personally, have always been a fan of the man’s outlandish humor, but I know a good few folks who aren’t fans of his jokes, like the ones about the alleyway fetuses and “that neighbor who claims he’s straight and has a wife, but is absolutely a gay man.” If you tend to steer clear of dark, crude jokes and exaggerated stereotypes of modern day issues and people, this game might not be your thing, but that’s okay! Whether you’re a fan or not, this game still has a recognizable charm to it, and it’s clear to see how it has drawn in plenty of players.
I cannot wrap this up without mentioning just how fantastic the music is for this game! Edmund’s go-to music duo of Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans, known by their group name ‘Ridiculon’, are back with plenty of bops to make the game real fun and enjoyable as you play. Each zone in the game has its own theme, played in an instrumental style at first, but gains its lyrics whenever you reach the boss of that zone. They’ve got jazz, they’ve got swing, they’ve got soulful blues and even some little chiptune variants sprinkled in when you enter shops and item checkpoints. The lyrics are weird as all hell, which is to be expected with this game, but let me tell you, I’ve had songs about flushing shit down a toilet, getting insanely high and flying to space, and going insane whilst isolated in a bunker, stuck in my head for DAYS. They really do make it work, and you can tell they had so much fun with their music, it’s just so much fun to listen to no matter how much you hear it.
Mewgenics has captured the hearts of many indie game lovers already, despite how recent its release was at the time of writing this, and we can only hope that Edmund and Tyler don’t use said hearts for nefarious cat experiments. I’m excited to see just how popular this game gets, because it definitely seems to deserve the hype! For now, though, I’ll continue my perilous journey with my feline troupe consisting of Tupac, Lluvia, Sally, and Master Oogway, as these poor fellas have been sitting idle in the background as I write this, just waiting to inevitably die due to my incompetence. Surely this won’t end up being a total cat-astrophe, right?