Mew-Genics revealed as a 'cat lady sim'
Team Meat has finally unveiled Mew-Genics' true nature, after 17 weeks of teasers and tidbits. Dubbed a "cat lady sim," Mew-Genics will blend elements of "The Sims and Pokemon with a sprinkling of Animal Crossing and a dash of Tamagotchi," as creator Edmund McMillen puts it on Team Meat's official blog.
Sounds like just about the most wholesome thing ever, right? Well, not exactly -- McMillen describes a typical Mew-Genics session, during which a cat is unfrozen from a "Cryo-cube" and paired with another cat for breeding. The unfrozen cat attacks the second, and because the attack took place while the second cat was eating, the second cat then associates food with pain from that point on. As a result, the second cat starves to death in the attic.
Later, a stray is brought in and successfully mated with the unfrozen cat, which results in a pregnancy. Unfortunately though, the stray suffers from narcolepsy, a trait that is then inherited by the two kittens born from the union. This condition causes one of the kittens to fall asleep during a kitty beauty pageant, losing the competition.
After the stray cat runs away, it is discovered that it infected the unfrozen cat with "feline aids." As the treatments are too expensive, the cat is re-frozen into a Cryo-cube and put back into storage. Completing missions for a doctor, however, could help find a cure. The game then ends with the player being arrested by animal control.
There's a lot of interesting gameplay elements contained within that tremendously upsetting story, like the fact that cats can inherit traits from their parents and that those traits can lead to failure or (presumably) success during missions. It also made us want to cry. Mew-Genics will launch on Steam, iOS and Android sometime before the end of the year.
