This one’s pretty odd and whimsical. I am a big fan of Edmund McMillen’s works. From Spewer to The Binding of Isaac, I have played the games that defined a great era for flash games and indie games in general. So, imagine my shock when I learned that there’s a game that was made in conjunction with Tyler Glaiel (Closure, another game I’m a big fan of). This game takes on elements from strategy games and adds a really good twist to them and it’s got a lot of references to past works. I’m talking about Mewgenics, a game about cats.
This game that’s become available in Early Access for a while revolves around breeding cats, tactical combat, and management of your home to affect the way you perform the first and second tasks. All of these mechanics are interlinked with a… Rather crude visual style that I’m not a big fan of but it still is pretty charming to boot for a lot of fans who have wanted to see more work from the creators of The Binding of Isaac.
Understanding the World of Mewgenics
So, let’s start with the story. Mewgenics follows the story of the Player (later to be revealed to be M.O.M. from The Binding of Isaac) as they are tasked by the enigmatic Dr. Beanies with hoarding cats to “Change the world.” After being booted out of the lab, they are tutored by a tough-looking guy called Butch on the ways to play the game. From there, the narrative takes a bit of a backseat until you progress further down in the game and take your cats on Adventures.
Yep, this is a roguelike game, and much like other games of its kind, a lot of the narrative progression is going to be left to much later stages when you have come accostumed to the mechanics and bring out power houses that take down several enemies. There’s not much to say other than as you progress, you will end up finding out more about the world and getting acquainted with a rag tag bunch of NPCs that… Majorly hate you, for the lack of a better word. But are more interested in the ways you can help them.
The game’s narrative doesn’t really build up until you get to the Second and Third Acts where the game starts going buck wild with stuff like Time Travel, nukes, and fighting God (with cats). Honestly, I am far more taken aback by the revelation that we’re playing as Magdalene than anything… And that Isaac has been dead this whole time. I never really played The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth so maybe this revelation is a bit old but I still am surprised at this turn of events nonetheless.
Of course, since this is a roguelike game, I’m pretty sure that players will be happy to grind it out to get the sparse bits of story developments. I am purposefully witholding a lot of details regarding what happens in the game because I still think that the story is worth experiencing. Yes, there are a few more details that can be more shocking than what I just stated and honestly, it’s the kind of decent writing I’d expect out of a game that’s already pretty sparse with details like other games made by Team Meat.
The gameplay of Mewgenics
Now that the pleasantries about the story are done, let’s talk about the bulk of Mewgenics. The game is all about mixing and matching cats in the home simulator experience so you can take them out on an Adventure so you can progress further through the game. The game takes place in a Grid-based strategy formula. You have to take turns positioning your cats and using a wide range of attacks against a plethora of enemies. Your cats will pick up items, armor, and weapons as they go and it’s up to you to figure out which items are worth keeping and which have to be tossed away.
Once an adventure is done, your cats become Retired. As Tink explains, cats being retired means that they are unable to take on more Adventures. As such, they are now only existing to breed in the little house they share with other cats. However, depending on the quality of their living conditions, the cats can also end up fighting each other or even worse, killing each other. So, you have to be careful about how you treat your cats if you want to create weapons of mass destruction through constant breeding.
In addition to breeding, you can also send off specific cats to other places to upgrade your surroundings. This goes from increasing your storage space to getting better goodies from the shop. Everything needs to have a purpose and the gameplay loop can become much deeper as you try to keep ahead of the difficulty curve that you’d expect from a game like this. The game gets pretty deep because you will find yourself modifying your strategies a lot on the fly and whenever you think you reach the peak, you are hit with another fork on the road that allows you to go further. As such, the Adventures will almost always feel completely different.
Adventure Time!
So, what do you have at your disposal? Well, in the case of the kinds of stuff you can do to prepare for the upcoming Adventure, you have access to 4 cats that can be assigned different classes. The classes go from Tanks, Fighters, Thieves, Mages, Clerics. You know, everything in the RPG Basics book. Once you lock the classes in, each cat is given a passive and a random ability and then you’re off. From there, you have to judge whether you take the easy route or if you’re going to go for the harder route that yields more worthwhile rewards at the cost of having more complex fights.
In addition to having to worry about the way you perform in battle; you also have to worry about other stuff like weather conditions, modifiers, and even the fact that you’ll get harshly punished for committing the crime of save-scumming to get better results. Mewgenics can become quite punishing and there’s the high possibility that you may come across a snowball scenario where you will be left with scraps as you desperately scrounge up for resources.
It’s always important to pay attention to the state of the battle and your positioning. This is because the game will not hesitate to punish you for recklessly hitting enemies or not planning your moves ahead. This reminds me of games like Metal Slug Tactics. But unlike that game, you won’t really find much interesting tech that will reward you for using your movement resources well. Unfortunately, this is where my criticisms about the game start rolling in a bit.
The Not-So-Great Aspects of Mewgenics
As I mentioned before, Mewgenics is a roguelike game. Meaning that it’s a venture in which you have to start from scratch after completing each Adventure. Since your cats become retired after completion, it means that you will have to pray to lady luck that they breed well and give you a good build for your future endeavors. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a scenario where you can’t make progress for a while or even find yourself in a death spiral.
I praised the depth of the game earlier, but in some aspects it does feel a bit too rudimentary. It doesn’t go off the walls with its classes and at times some classes fail to provide the proper abilities that would befit their class due to the RNG that comes from every seed. You can have the best strategy, the best build, and the best inherited traits, but they can all go to die the moment your seed becomes unfavorable or gives you something like a thunderstorm.
This isn’t without addressing the fact that if your cats EVER die, they will start getting affected with permanent status ailments. This means that you can pretty much brick your progression and have a ball and chain that will eventually drag down the rest of your cats. The difficulty of the game can be a huge turn-off for players (if the art style and crude humor wasn’t already) and at times, it will be to no fault of their own because they simply just got a bad seed for their playthroughs.
The Adventure is Over?
Mewgenics is a game that will have a very niche audience that will adore it. This isn’t inherently bad but, of course, it makes it hard to recommend. I’m pretty sure that some people who are knee-deep into strategy games aren’t going to be fond of the immature and crude humor the game has and will flock somewhere else. Paradoxically, I also think that the people who WOULD love this type of humor would also turn away from it.
In the end, how you perceive Mewgenics depends entirely on you. I will cautiously recommend it if you’re a fan of difficult games because you will be subjected to chaotic RNG. If you’re a fan of the chaos, then this game is definitely for you. I know that I will be happy knowing that I played yet another great game by the people who were part of my flash game binges.
