After seventeen weeks of teasers, Team Meat has finally revealed a clear picture on what upcoming game Mew-Genics will actually involve. Edmund McMillen describes the game as “a cross between The Sims and Pokemon with a sprinkling of Animal Crossing and a dash of Tamagotchi”, though that's really just to help players visualise a vague concept, as he also states that “at its core the game really isn't like anything we've seen before”.
The images provided in the blog post are beta, but they suggest a lot as to how the game will play. It does look a lot like The Sims, as you look in on the interior of a house and care for a group of characters, only here the characters are cats. A clock tracks how many in-game days have passed since you started the game. Figures indicate how many cats you currently have on the lot and how much money you have. In the top-right corner, you can see a picture of your currently selected cat along with a brief status (e.g. “crying”) and HP. Besides that, icons down the side suggest you can pause gameplay, shop for items, use the cryo-cube, and two others I can't quite guess at.
McMillen describes the game through a story of an experience he had while playing it. It's worth a read, but if you haven't got the time then the interesting features to take from it are: a focus on selective breeding to encourage particular characteristics in future generations of cats, personality traits (like “dullard” and “narcoleptic” that affect cat behaviour and can be passed down through the generations, and what sounds like quest-like missions for the various human characters in the game to unlock such things as cures for cat diseases like “feline aids”.
I don't even particularly like cats, but my love for The Sims suggests this might be right up my street. Anyone else like the idea, now we've seen how it all comes together?
