Current status update:
- Only 3 final bosses left to design/draw/animate and 5 enemies, and we have all the game's core content in.
- Teaser trailer is being filmed soon and should release after the new year.
- We have started internal testing on Steam (dev team and close friends/family only, sorry).
- Nearly all the game's items are in! (700+ when they are all finished)
- This month we are testing general early-mid gameplay flow and unlocks. So far, it's looking like it takes 8-10 hours just to get to the game's 1st (of many) house bosses. So even without replay/farming/leveling NPCs, the game's core game is looking very substantial.
Recently our wishlists have skyrocketed. That means a lot more eyes are on these posts as well as a lot more questions, the most common being: what does the gameplay loop look like for Mewgenics? So I'd like to do another recap of how the game plays and then answer some of the more common questions we get.
Mewgenics is a tactical RPG with a heavy focus on randomization and replayability. Not only is every run its own very unique experience, but the core of the game itself is also unique to each person. Let me attempt to explain.
Mewgenics starts here: your tiny house... on a hill... this is where your cats will multiply. In Mewgenics, not only are cats currency but they are also your life system!
When you have 4 cats, either via breeding or taking in strays, you can send them on an adventure to get food, items, money, and maybe extra appendages.
When your cats start an adventure, you class them. Each class comes with its own set of unique abilities taken from a pool of 75 abilities, as well as a unique attack and stat modification. You start the game with 4 classes: Fighter, Hunter, Mage, and Tank, but you unlock many more as you progress deeper into the game.
As your quest progresses, your cats will duke it out with a myriad of enemies. These combats are turn-based and utilize your cats' many abilities to destroy their combatants in many big-brain ways.
Each time you complete combat, one of your cats will level up, allowing you to draft more abilities from its class.
As you venture further from home, you stumble upon events that can completely change the trajectory of a run.
Or maybe even spawn a global weather event that completely changes the rules of the game... In Mewgenics, adaptation is vital!
Each chapter of the game concludes with a boss fight to test your cats' skills. Then you are left with a choice: to cut your losses and come home with your loot, or venture deeper into the unknown in search of more rare items, higher levels, and hoards of money and food.
When home, your cats are retired and left to spend their remaining days breeding... That is till your house is threatened by otherworldly monstrosities! That's when the skills of your old cats are put to the test. Will your dream team defend your home? Will you equip all your best items in an attempt to destroy the beast once and for all? Or will you just toss some kittens out there and hope it goes away... It's the choices that make Mewgenics unique.
Will you configure your house in a way that is very uncomfortable for the cats inside, causing riots where only the strong survive, or purely focus on drawing in skilled strays and ignore breeding altogether?
Will you forget you are low on food and your cats become cannibals?
Will you sell all your kittens to Tink so you can find out once and for all if your oldest cat is gay?
Will you breed autism throughout your bloodline and double down on its benefits?
Will you risk it all and take the spear of destiny down into the depths of hell?
Will the love triangle between Yoki, Anna, and Josh end in a murder-suicide?
Will you meet death, and escape?!
Will you find a way to make your brain worm work for you?
Will I ever find a short and concise way of explaining how this game works?
It's a mystery! It's all one giant mystery!
See you next year! -Edmund
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Bonus QA (feat. questions from Twitter)
Q: Are you confident the game will be stable at launch?
A: Yes, in the past I've had some rocky launches, but I can say with confidence that the launch will go as smoothly as The End Is Nigh's launch. Tyler is an extremely good programmer (easily the best I've ever worked with) with an extremely good work ethic. We are also taking our time and not rushing out a half-baked product, so I don't think you need to worry about this aspect of the launch at all.
Q: Will the game work on Steam Deck?
A: That is one of our goals. Adding controller support is a big hurdle, but we need to jump it to get the game on a console anyway, so yes, it's on our radar.
Q: Will Mewgenics feature cameos from our other games?
A: Yes, not only does Mewgenics take place in the Isaac/End Is Nigh/Bumbo/SMB universe, it will also feature tons of nods to nearly all of my previous games.
Q: Will each area have a boss or will there be boss pools?
A: Zones are broken into 5 chapters that split after the 1st. The first chapter of each zone features a pool of 4 mini-bosses and 2 final bosses, the 2nd chapters feature 2 mini-bosses and 1 boss, and the 3rd is 1 and 1.
Q: Is there going to be meta-progression in game? If so, how will it change the game?
A: Yes, the house hub is riddled with upgrades. Not only can you grow your house, inventory, and general storage for food/money/cats, but you can also level up NPCs by collecting and sending them specific types of cats. Doing so will level up their shops, unlock special items, and even aid in your runs. All aspects of these upgrades will aid in your general progress of the main game, making your bloodlines stronger.
Q: My question is about the replayability of this game: It will be more of a Hades where you have a main hub, in Mewgenics' case the house, that you will improve each run making the consequents easier? Or more of an Isaac approach of each run being isolated apart from new unlocks or floors?
A: It's somewhere in the middle of both. Meta progression will be more of a slow burn with Mewgenics compared to Hades, but much like Isaac, each run will have completion markers for each class that will unlock more items/abilities/content when completed. But Mewgenics also rewards general runs to grind for items/food/money to aid in meta progression. So kind of the best of both worlds.
Q: Will there be any public demo/beta version coming before release?
A: No, but Tyler and I plan on streaming the game monthly next year. Since Mew isn't a reflex-driven game, just seeing the game played gives you a very good idea of how it plays.
