Happy New Year, folks! Have you recovered from the all the 100+ hour RPGs that came out last year? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather in 2024, because (at time of writing at least) the official "big'uns" calendar is looking remarkably slim at the moment. There are still some heavy-hitters coming our way this year, such as Avowed, Star Wars Outlaws and Path Of Exile 2, but 2024 looks like another year where it will be the smaller, independent games that shine the brightest. They certainly make up the bulk of our most anticipated games list for 2024, which the RPS Treehouse has been feverishly putting together over the last few days. The bad news is that there are still loads of great games coming out. So come, join us, and see what's on our personal wishlists for 2024.
]]>If Mewgenics were an actual cat, it would be approaching its twilight years. It's been nearly 11 years since Edmund Mcmillen, known for Super Meat Boy and Binding Of Isaac, first announced that the mysterious cat breed 'em up would be Team Meat's next game. The cats wound up waiting outside while they worked on other things, but we now have a much more concrete idea of what the game is.
The developers have actually been posting extensive development updates since January, but McMillen also just recorded an adhoc TikTok video where he points his phone at his screen. Turns out Mewgenics is a turn-based strategy roguelike with wizard cats who can cut their paws while opening windows. Could be worth the wait!
]]>With The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth's final, final, for real this time final expansion launching next week, lead Isaac man Edmund McMillen has spoken about his plans for what follows. One answer I'm actually surprised to hear is Isaac 2, a full-on sequel to the roguelikelike dungeon-crawler which has already had a remake and numerous expansions. That won't be for many years, mind. Once Isaac's Repentance expansion is done, one of his main plans is to finish Mewgenics, a weird cat-breeding game first announced way back in 2012.
]]>After six years of getting sidetracked by other projects, Edmund McMillen (The Binding Of Isaac, Super Meat Boy) and pals confirmed via Twitter that Mew-genics is in development once more. It appears that the game of ethically questionable cat breeding has changed a bit since we last saw it, with a new focus on combat and exploration built on a foundation of splicing feline DNA. Programmer Tyler Glaiel has spent the past few weeks tweeting out clips of the game as it is now, featuring what looks like real-time tactical cat-versus-mouse squad combat. Take a peek below.
]]>My lifelong dream to become a cat lady is stymied by my flatmate's allergies, but at least I'll get to become a virtual cat lady. Edmund McMillen, the co-creator of Super Meat Boy and Binding of Isaac, has announced that he will likely resume making Mew-genics. It's a game about breeding and caring for hordes of strange cats then entering them in cat competitions, with all the mutations, oddities, and gross bits you'd expect. But McMillen and fellow Team Meat founder Tommy Refenes went quiet and what they did say made it seem unlikely to ever arrive. Well, start purring, as McMillen now says he and Tyler Glaiel are prototyping ideas for it and we're likely back on.
]]>Team Meat, makers of Super Meat Boy, have announced their intent to become an indie game developer. What does that mean? That's my cruel way of saying that the two-person team have put their previously announced new game Mew-Genics on hold, and released a fuzzy, live-action trailer for a new game called A Voyeur For September, about which there are no details other than that it's a "live action stealth game". That video is embedded below.
]]>Mew-Genics, the cat-breeding-based follow-up to Super Meat Boy, has been in development for almost a year and half - that's almost a decade in cat years. Too long, too long! We'll all be crawling under the nearest chest-of-drawers to die soon. At least we finally have some in-game footage to look at, even if it does take the form of an animated GIF. But given cats and GIFs are the bedrock of the internet, it is only appropriate.
Warning: cartoon cats shagging below. No feline winkies on show, though.
]]>The biggest tragedy of my life is that I had to move into a building with a 'no pets' policy, which is an odd policy given that the landlord has let out flats to obvious criminals and a scary family with about seven angry people squashed into each room. But a purring furball? How dare I even contemplate such a thing! So I had to breed an invisible cat, which wasn't too much trouble in the beginning. But I've not seen him for weeks and the house is starting to smell, so I'm beginning to worry. I got the idea of breeding cats, mutating them into genetic super cats, from Team Meat's next game Mew Genics. A Crazy Cat Lady sim that allows you to breed ridiculous kitties, finding attributes you want to enhance and trying to balance out other problems. There's a remarkable trailer below.
]]>Bits and pieces of genetically modified cats have been spilling out of Team Meat's web-gullet for a few months now but the most recent hairball of information catapulted onto the blog contains the clearest description of the game to date. It's a "Cat Lady Sim", with a cut-away of a house crawling with felines, each of which has a unique appearance, set of stats and personality. I'd imagine quite a few of them have catastrophic diseases of one sort or another as well.
I think most would describe Mew-Genics as a cross between The Sims and Pokemon with a sprinkling of Animal Crossing and a dash of Tamagotchi , but at its core the game really isn't like anything we've seen before.
The retelling of a session with the game explains more.
]]>Last time we checked in with Team Meat's Mew-Genics, Alec was purring over the title theme: "I could probably leave that playing for a disturbingly long time. It’s very Danny Elfman, BUT WITH CATS and a bit of skiffle." Imagine how excited he will be when he sees a five minute video of the chaps behind that track talking about and demonstrating the album-length contribution of music they've created for the game. There are also some hints about the game itself, although most of it has been implied elsewhere - a player's cats can fight other cats, race in the sewers or enter kitty pageants. The music sounds fantastic though and I enjoy Ridiculon's slightly unhinged boondocks-dwelling schtick.
]]>Miaow miaow miaow Team Meat miaow Super Meat Boy miaow The Binding of Isaac? Miaow miaow miaow Mew-Genics, miaow miaw miaow. Miaow miaow don't know miaow, miaow miaow miaow miaow 12,207,031,250,000,000,000,000 cats miaow miaow. Miaow!
]]>Four words all but guaranteed to win my attention: "a game about cats." When said four words are twinned with the knowledge that the game in question comes from the creators of Super Meat Boy and one half of The Binding Of Isaac team, my attention becomes unwavering.
We know precious little about Team Meat's Mew-Genics other than that it'll be "randomly generated, strange and involve cats" so even a tiny, kitten-size scrap of detail is enough to cause a flurry of fluffy speculation. Today, that's two new shots showing in-game characters.
]]>Returning from holiday has filled me with anxiety. If I deem the fact that Team Meat are developing a game about cats to be newsworthy, I fear that one of the blustering colonels who make up 42% of RPS' readership will choke indignantly on his morning brandy and then send me a missive of terrible indignation. "Sir, your recent declaration that the announcement of Team Meat's Mew-Genics is in any way 'new' cuts me to the quick. Captains Grayson, Meer, Rossignol and Walker have all written twenty thousand word dissertations regarding the wider cultural significance of felines, ludology and genetic manipulation. I bid you good day." Oh, Colonel Breeches, settle your moustaches and just read the announcement below.
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