It’s a funny thing when you’re chatting with someone you know a bit, and they smoothly shift from talking about their family or friends to talking about their cats. What’s great is that they often don’t change their tone at all, so you don’t even realize the subject has changed. It’s like they’re bringing up a favorite, if sometimes troublesome, uncle. Cats can be such delightful rascals and characters. They might be unexpectedly mean, or incredibly patient and calm, or just plain silly. Some will swat at everyone who walks by, while others will hide under a rug, totally convinced they’re invisible. We know them by their names, but even more by their funny habits.
In the game Mewgenics, the cats are definitely known by their actions.
Mewgenics has a strange connection to history. Francis Galton, who was related to Darwin and started the flawed idea of eugenics, also wrote about cats acting strangely. This game is all about cats and what they do. You could think of it like a game called XCOM, but with cats. You get a team of four cats and take them on dangerous missions. You’ll explore places like caves and sewers, fighting monsters in turn-based battles.
During fights, your cats move around a grid. They use different attacks or special skills to beat their enemies before moving on. Each mission is like a fresh start, so besides fighting regular enemies and bosses, you’ll run into situations that could be good or bad – like deciding whether to eat some mystery food. You might also find treasure chests or choose different paths, depending on how brave you feel.
So, why is it called Mewgenics and not something like ‘Cat Combat’? Well, after each mission, you send your cats to live in a house. Sometimes they do. While XCOM had a base you built up, Mewgenics has a whole machine that runs on cats. Stray cats can show up and be brought into the house to go on new missions. Your retired cats can even have kittens, which grow up and, you guessed it, can go on new adventures with the other cats.
But then things get really interesting. There’s a whole town full of people who will give you things if you give them cats. This way of upgrading your game isn’t exactly fun, but it’s strangely clever. Someone in town might want retired cats to give you a new room for your house. Another might want kittens to teach you about cat family trees. And yes, some want dead cats. The cat-powered machine keeps running, and you have to carefully trade your cats to make your house bigger, get more supplies, and learn more about the world of Mewgenics and raising cats.
Yes, cat breeding. I’m still pretty new to this deep and complex game, but I’m already seeing that to do well in the long run, you need to breed cats and hope for good results. Cats have special traits and abilities that help in battles. But since you can only take a cat on one mission before it retires, you have to be smart about breeding your retired cats to keep the traits you like. The right setting helps too: certain rooms can increase your chances of getting cool new traits, healing damage, or passing on better skills. Further down the line in breeding – is that a thing? – you can unlock new types of abilities, which lets you mix and match skills. It’s a lot to take in!
This is important, I can tell even now, because the turn-based fighting is no joke. XCOM is probably the closest game, but it’s not exactly the same. Instead of the smart two-actions-per-turn system that XCOM uses, Mewgenics gives you more freedom. You can move and attack each turn, but each cat also has a pool of energy, like magic, that lets them use different powers and skills. These skills come from their natural genetics, smart breeding, the special collar they wear that shows their job (like healer or archer), or from leveling up during a mission.
There are tons of these abilities, and they’re often really clever. Some are simple, like a basic punch or a fur-ball attack. But soon, you get more interesting ones. One cat might have an attack that also heals its friends. Another might be able to jump behind enemies, which is key because attacking from certain sides gives you better results. Another could send a fly across the screen or do a quick dash attack. My favorite so far is a move that sends an enemy flying into the air for the rest of the turn, and then they crash down for big damage. (Luckily, they hit themselves!)
