TL;DR: A deep, disgusting, genius turn-based roguelike about mutant cats that will steal your time, your sleep, and your sense of normalcy—and you’ll thank it for the privilege.

I didn’t mean to lose three months of my life to a turn-based tactical roguelike about mutant cats, but that’s kind of the thesis statement of Mewgenics. You don’t plan time with this game. You don’t schedule sessions. You look up, blinking, mildly dehydrated, and realize it’s 1:47 a.m. and you’re still thinking about whether a two-headed, fire-tailed Necromancer kitten is worth keeping in your breeding pool or should be quietly traded away to some unsettling NPC who smiles too much. This is not a game that respects your sleep cycle. It respects chaos.

I’ve put well over a hundred hours into Mewgenics, and what’s wild is that it still feels like it’s actively hiding things from me. New enemies. New mutations. New abilities that make me mutter “that’s disgusting” under my breath in a tone that very clearly means “that rules.” Every run feels like a new draft of the same nightmare fairy tale, rewritten by dice rolls and bad decisions. And that sense of endless possibility is the hook. The reason you keep coming back. The reason the “one more run” lie works every single time.

If you’ve ever played anything touched by Edmund McMillen, especially The Binding of Isaac or Super Meat Boy, you already know the vibe. Mewgenics, co-created with Tyler Glaiel, lives in that same uncomfortable space where juvenile gross-out humor collides with shockingly deep mechanical design. Blood, poop, parasites, and body horror are not seasoning here. They’re the main course. And somehow, underneath all of that, is one of the most sophisticated tactical systems I’ve played in years.

At a glance, it looks almost conventional. Battles play out on a tight grid. Classes have familiar names. Fighter. Mage. Hunter. Tank. Necromancer. You move, you plan, you end turns. But the second you scratch the surface, Mewgenics reveals itself as a game about surrendering control. Stats are randomized. Abilities are semi-hidden until it’s too late. Mutations twist otherwise normal cats into biological question marks. You are not crafting perfect builds so much as reacting to whatever genetic disaster the game hands you and trying to make it work.

That philosophy extends to the game’s most controversial feature: breeding. The house screen, where your cats roam around like caffeinated toddlers while you shove furniture into rooms like some kind of deranged interior designer, is where future runs are born. Literally. Comfort and stimulation stats matter. Furniture placement matters. Who’s in the room with whom matters. Sexual orientation matters. Libido matters. The game commits fully to this system in a way that’s equal parts impressive and deeply unsettling. Kittens are the result of opaque systems nudging probabilities behind the curtain, and your job is to influence them without ever fully mastering them.

As a longtime cat owner, this part messed with my head more than I expected. Mewgenics is emotionally ruthless. Cats with mediocre stats aren’t projects to nurture. They’re resources. Currency. Trade fodder for NPCs who demand very specific sacrifices in exchange for progress. Some want newborn kittens. Some want injured veterans. Some want deeply mutated freaks. Letting go is mandatory. Attachment is punished. And yes, I absolutely took longer than I should have to accept that.

Once I did, the game opened up in a big way. The loop clicked. You stop thinking in terms of individuals and start thinking in bloodlines. Traits worth preserving. Mutations worth the risk. Inbreeding thresholds you really shouldn’t cross, no matter how tempting it is. Mewgenics somehow turns eugenics into a mechanical puzzle without ever pretending it isn’t gross, which is… a choice. A bold one. And somehow, it works.

That same philosophy carries into team-building. When you assemble a party for a run, you don’t actually know what you’re getting. You pick cats, assign classes, and only then discover which abilities they rolled. With dozens upon dozens of skills per class, the reveal moment hits the same pleasure center as flipping over a hand of cards in poker or seeing daily modifiers in Slay the Spire. Sometimes you get gold. Sometimes you get absolute garbage. Either way, you’re committed now.

The gear system adds another layer of beautiful frustration. Items are powerful, build-defining, and temporary. They break after a few runs. Lose a party, and most of what you carried with you is gone. At first, this feels cruel. Then it starts to feel freeing. You’re never allowed to lean too hard on a single strategy. Nothing becomes sacred. Every run is disposable, including the cats themselves. It’s a design choice that reinforces the game’s core message: adaptability over attachment.

Combat is where everything detonates. Once mutations, gear effects, environmental hazards, passives, spells, and enemy abilities all start interacting, battles turn into glorious messes. Cats bounce enemies between trash piles. Bosses eat party members whole. Water conducts electricity. Fire spreads. Ice breaks. Sometimes something happens that makes no sense at all until you dig into the rules and realize, somehow, poop was involved. Again.

And when it works, when the stars align, Mewgenics sings. I’ve had runs where entire armies of summoned creatures materialized in a single turn. Others where regeneration loops made suicidal abilities viable. These moments don’t happen every time, but they happen often enough to keep hope alive. To keep you chasing that perfect, broken run that bulldozes a boss who humiliated you hours earlier.

There are frustrations, absolutely. Information can be hard to access mid-battle. Planning sometimes feels hamstrung by hidden data. Runs can stretch long, especially once you’ve unlocked everything. And the between-battle decision-making isn’t as rich as some genre peers. But none of that outweighs the sheer density of ideas packed into this thing. Mewgenics feels less like a finished product and more like a bottomless pit of systems daring you to understand them.

Even the audio design gets under your skin. The music is funny, catchy, and reactive, with looping boss tracks that adjust to battle length. Cats meow along. Crowd noises cheer when you win quickly and gasp when a cat dies. That gasp hits every time. It’s a tiny touch, but it reinforces the stakes in a game that otherwise trains you to treat lives as expendable.

By the time I realized I still hadn’t seen the final ending, I stopped caring. Mewgenics isn’t about reaching a conclusion. It’s about the stories that happen along the way. The freak cats you remember. The runs that collapsed in spectacular fashion. The one time everything went right and you felt unstoppable. It’s messy. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hilarious. And it’s one of the most absorbing tactical roguelikes I’ve played in years.

Verdict

Mewgenics is a grotesque, brilliant, endlessly replayable tactical roguelike that thrives on unpredictability and player improvisation. It asks you to abandon attachment, embrace randomness, and find joy in systems colliding in ways that feel both absurd and inspired. It’s not for everyone, but if it clicks, it will absolutely consume you.