Mewgenics

The original Mew-Genics prototype featured turn-based arena combat.

Following the release of the critically and commercially successful Super Meat Boy, artist Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes of Team Meat began developing Mew-Genics - then with a hyphenated title.[3] Announced in October 2012, the game was described by McMillen as being randomly generated, involving cats and the "strangest project [he had] ever worked on".[4] Drawing inspiration from The Sims, Pokémon, Animal Crossing and the Tamagotchi, Mew-Genics featured turn-based strategy combat, while leaning heavily into house simulation element.[5] Cats could participate in various activities, such as beauty pageants and sewer races – as well as be cryogenically frozen for longevity.[6] The cats would engage bosses in a manner principally styled after Pokémon, with their opponents becoming progressively more difficult with every fight.[7] The game was intended to be a multi-platform title, with iOS being the first announced platform, followed by Steam and Android.[8] The game's soundtrack was composed by the two-member band Ridiculon, McMillen's long-term collaborators.[9]

Shortly after production began, McMillen and Refenes realized that they had underestimated the scope of Mew-Genics, with the game experiencing feature creep. Therefore, Team Meat temporarily shelved Super Meat Boy Forever, their planned handheld successor to Super Meat Boy, to prioritize Mew-Genics.[10] It was originally planned to be released in 2014, with a playable build for attendees at PAX Prime in Seattle, Washington between August and September 2013, but Team Meat announced directly before the event that it would only be exhibited and not playable.[11] The game was playable for the public at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts, in April 2014, with Team Meat insisting it would still release that year.[12] In August 2014, development of Mew-Genics was put on hold, with Refenes stating that the team would be working on refactoring the gameplay to make it more coherent.[13] After two years of no development, McMillen confirmed in 2016 that Mew-Genics had been cancelled, while his new focus would be on his new project, The Legend of Bum-bo.[14] McMillen subsequently departed from Team Meat – he credited the divergent interests of the co-owners, with Refenes looking to further develop the Meat Boy franchise, while he wanted to pursue new intellectual properties.[15]

An early prototype of the final design in January 2020, featuring tactical combat and an isometric perspective.

In January 2018, McMillen announced in a blog post that he had secured the rights to Mewgenics from Team Meat and that the project would be developed with Tyler Glaiel, McMillen's collaborator from The End Is Nigh. The game's design would undergo a complete overhaul, with an anticipated release date several years away.[16] While McMillen completed work on The Legend of Bum-bo, the final expansion for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth called Repentance and the physical card game Tapeworm, Glaiel prototyped several gameplay variants for the rebooted Mewgenics.[17][18] The genres Glaiel tested included brawler and real-time strategy, though he found them to be too chaotic.[1] In early 2020, a turn-based tactical role-playing prototype moved forward as the game's design.[1]

In October 2022, the official Steam page for Mewgenics was launched, touting it as a turn-based roguelike legacy game.[19] The game was previewed by journalist Russ Frushtick of Polygon on Halloween 2022, detailing his playthrough, as well as McMillen and Glaiel's account of the game's development history.[1] The game is projected to have a release on Steam in summer 2024.[20]