Mewgenics Hands-on Preview: Finally, a strategy game all about cats!

Ten years ago, Edmund McMillan created Isaac’s bindingannounced MyogenicsA cat breeding life with Pokemon-style combat. At that time, it was developed as a Team Meat game, and it was intended to be a follow-up to the popular game Super Mate Boy. Myogenics It was even shown in Pax 2013However, according to McMillan, the project was canceled shortly after the show.

in Tweet from earlier this yearMcMillan wrote, “I never wanted to cancel Myogenics way back when, but I had no control over it.” Speaking with Polygon, McMillan was unwilling to go into detail regarding the split between him and his teammate Super Mate Boy Developer Tommy Refenes. But part of the arrangement is the ladder of rights Super Mate Boy To Refenes and his team (who will continue his work Super Mate Boy Forever). In the meantime, McMillen retained the rights Isaac’s bindingand will later secure the rights to create his own copy of Myogenics.

While it has always been about raising cats to an extent, this new version of Myogenics Go through several iterations. McMillen is now co-creating the game with Tyler Glaiel – another successful indie developer who has collaborated with McMillen The end is near Who started working on prototypes for what’s new? Myogenics The game may look like in 2018. At some point, the new Myogenics It was castle smashers– Brave both sides of the scroll (with cats).

MacMillan and Galilee never figured out a way to make this work, though: “We knew we wanted groups of cats,” Galilee says, “and we couldn’t figure out how to use that in the feisty version of the game, because you can’t control four cats.” [by yourself]. As a brave you must be multiplayer. And I didn’t really want to deal with that. Not again.”

Following the idea of ​​the brawler, the team attempted to create a real-time strategy game (with cats), which Jaleel describes as “too chaotic,” requiring you to keep track of a lot of things at once. It’s also not as tight as melee, so you can’t dodge the abilities, because you’ll have to tap the cat and get it out of the way, Galilee explains. […] It didn’t really work out.”

In early 2020, after several iterations, the team settled on the idea of ​​a turn-based tactical strategy game (with cats), this commented. But this is not just a clone of the Fire logo. It is one of the most ambitious and outlandish strategy games you have ever played.

What has become of Mewgenics?

Photo: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Galilee

It’s easier to think of Myogenics in two parts. The first part is a tactical fighting game, which should be familiar to anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons or in the breach. It begins with a group of four cats with traditional role-playing classes such as hunter, magician, and wizard (among others). Each cat has different stats and abilities, so one of them might be great for high-speed back lunges, while the other backslides and casts spells. You manage mana and equip gear that gives each cat an advantage in battle. At the end of each battle, you’ll level up one cat and choose a new ability that pairs with their existing gear.

On the surface, it all seems very typical for the genre, but McMillen and Glaiel create something much more complex and changeable.

Simple example: you can send one cat to hide in the grass and it will increase the chances of dribbling. But the grass is flammable, so if you get attacked by a fire, that cat will catch fire. Fire can also spread as long as there is debris nearby, which means the entire map can go up quickly if you’re not careful.

Photo: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Galilee

The weather can also change the exact same scenario. If it snows, all the grass on the map will turn into ice shards that cause damage, which can threaten the safety of your cats or create defensive barriers to keep enemies away.

During the play session, cause and effect kept on top of his head. One of my cats had the ability to defecate on command. The pipe didn’t do any damage, but it did create a barrier to fend off enemy attacks that ranged – until I realized that feces would fly in if an enemy was hit, right into the cat I had just dropped. This kind of bounce scenario happens all the time Myogenicsrequires scanning the entire battlefield before making any move.

The potential elements are so varied that Glaiel had to create an AI that fought thousands of battles at lightning speed, just to make sure the game doesn’t generate unwinnable scenarios.

I had a particularly devastating moment fighting a giant rat in sunglasses (a nod to the classic Super Mario Bros.2 president) who kept throwing bombs that would explode in long lines along the map. While I was able to get close and disarm the bombs thrown, the deactivated bombs remained. I probably should have expected that using a fire spell affecting the area near one wasn’t the best idea, however, I went, completely destroying half of my team in one flammable mistake.

So what happens if a cat dies? A cat that loses all its vital points is not the end of that cat. in MyogenicsThese cats will be dropped to battle, and as long as they don’t get hit three more times in the same battle, they’ll survive another day… but with consequences.

One of my favorite cats, a combat handler named Mystic, took one of those grenades to his face and ended up with a concussion, which affected his mobility and ability to attack. It came down easily. Galilee mentioned that an injured cat could literally “lose its balls”, which brings us to the second major part of Myogenics.

Cat Breeding Part of Mewgenics

Complete the “run” of Myogenics You will see your surviving kitty cat return to your home. They’ll bring with them some equipment and abilities they picked up along the way, which can be outfitted for other cats on future rides. Two cats can also get stuck in a room together, and if you click things, you will end up with a kitten with plugs pulled from the parents. Kittens may have the ears of the father, the color of the mother, and a mutation passed on from the father, like canines that steal life from attacks. Very rarely, you might pass an active or passive ability, which is pulled from parent classes, allowing you to multi-class cats if the stars align.

The team’s goal is that you’ll capture your obsession with crafting the perfect genetic sample, an unstoppable killing machine that looks like it. Breeding in Pokemon games.

But there are two main differences between reproduction in Myogenics And breeding in Pokemon.

For one thing, you can’t breed the same super cat with every other cat in the house, because you’ll end up in inbreeding. “If you cross your cats too much, they will turn rotten!” Jalil says. “I have a scientifically accurate sim for inbreeding there… I read a bunch of academic papers on kennel databases to find out.”

Photo: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Galilee

Another important difference: Sorry if this comes as news to you, but cats are getting old and dying. After enough time has passed, your cat will eventually be too old to have adventures. They will spend their time in your house, and you may be able to use them for breeding, but their fighting days will be over. In the end, the cat will die of old age, and only its bloodline will speak of its contribution to your world.

Well, you just have to accept that your favorite cat in the game, the one you started with and grew attached to, is going to die. He might even die because of a stupid mistake you made in the middle of a random battle against some petty mob.

“Part of the game is accepting the reality of permanence,” McMillan says. “This bad nonsense happens sometimes… [but] The things that happen create this element of a living world, once you make the rules, and you know bad things are going to happen, you accept that. You accept the rules of the game.”

In most cases, losing a cat won’t be a big deal, McMillan says, because you’ll have a home full of strays. “But maybe there is a cat that you really like. And maybe this cat is growing up. And you have to do something with this cat knowing that the permanence of this cat’s death is real. And it’s gone forever. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

The idea of ​​permanence extends to the elements as well. There will be both common and rare items that you will pick up to give your cats enhancements and abilities, and the same item can appear more than once during your adventures. But there will also be legendary items. McMillen mentioned an item like Holy Grail that can only appear once per file save… A save file may have 300 hours of progression. It will be a super powerful item, one that gives you a huge advantage in combat, but if the cat carrying it dies, it will be gone for good. You will not see her again. “There is only one Holy Grail, after all,” McMillen says. In general, people still store these legendary items in their homes, and if the time comes when they really need this extra feature, they can take it out, considering all the risks associated with it.

How does it all end?

McMillan and Galilee are intentionally vague about what it takes to “win” MyogenicsBut they did share with me some vague outlines. After a certain number of adventures and virtual days have passed, your house will be invaded by some kind of boss who makes demands. You can send them on their way by giving them valuables or even cat spirits (most likely the ones you are not very attached to). But you can also choose resistance, and the only cats that will be able to defend the house are old, seasoned cats who can no longer go on adventures. These boss fights will be a huge intrusion Myogenicswhich eventually led to an epic final battle.

Furthermore, though, the team isn’t very open about the details of the end game. All they’ll say is they design Myogenics To be incredibly standard. They want to make a game that can last for years (or even decades) through post-launch content updates (which the team estimates is about 18 to 24 months away). follow in my footsteps Isaac’s binding This way, which was first launched in 2011 and continues to receive updates and expansions to this day.

“I really see Myogenics complement to Isaac’s binding‘, says McMillan. ‘In terms of how you take something like Isaac And to make it bigger and better, expand it indefinitely. Myogenics Is that.”