Mewgenics, which launched for PC on February 10th, is the year\u2019s first surprise indie hit. Announced in 2013<\/a>, it was originally a Team Meat title from McMillen and Tommy Refenes; McMillen saved the project after it was put on hiatus. A darkly funny and deceptively complex combo of adorable characters, roguelike gameplay, and tactical roleplaying, Mewgenics is, as the pun in its name suggests, a game about breeding and bloodlines. It\u2019s currently Steam\u2019s top-selling game<\/a> this week. Co-creator Tyler Glaiel told IGN<\/a> it took less than three hours to recoup development costs, while McMillen tells The Verge the game is already expected to top 500,000 units sold. \u201cIt\u2019s blown past anything I\u2019ve ever done by a mile,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The game\u2019s arrival in 2026, when misinformation about disorders<\/a> like autism is rampant and pro-eugenics<\/a> attitudes<\/a> abound, is eerily topical, albeit accidental. McMillen, to be clear, has not created an intentional commentary on the state of the world. \u201cI hate politics,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a game about cats fucking, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n There is a deluge of mutations and disorders cats can inherit in the game \u2014 from bad gas or kidney stones to ADHD and depression \u2014 that impact their stats. ADHD gives players only seconds to make decisions or the cat will start acting on its own. Autism includes accelerated intelligence but lower charisma; the cat will be naturally very good at the abilities they\u2019re born with, but other skills might be a little more difficult. \u201cI\u2019m very well versed in this,\u201d McMillen says. \u201cI have two children that are on the spectrum, and I have a wife who is as well. \u2026 It has been a big part of my life for the past 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want people to play and read between the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n Mewgenics includes over 100 disorders \u2014 name one, McMillen says, and it\u2019s probably in the game \u2014 but each has its own silver lining. The point isn\u2019t to immediately dump cats with certain disorders, but to appreciate them. \u201cI want people to play and read between the lines,\u201d McMillen says. \u201cI want you to have a cat with autism, and instead of throwing it away, realizing its strengths and embracing the challenge and potential that that cat would have.\u201d<\/p>\n Mewgenics is a personal project for McMillen, one that haunted him for years when it was unfinished. \u201cI fell in love with the characters, and I fell in love with the world, and I fell in love with the things that I thought were interesting and fun about the genetic aspect of it,\u201d McMillen says. The game\u2019s road to release has been over a decade in the making; following their success with Super Meat Boy, he originally conceived the project with Refenes. While the original project was about cat breeding and the genetics involved, McMillen says, it wasn\u2019t actually much of a game. \u201cIt was like a toy, a little idle game where you would breed your cats, and then you\u2019d use your cats in minigames,\u201d McMillen says.<\/p>\n After 18 months of development and a public showing at PAX, however, McMillen says that Refenes\u2019 enthusiasm for the project had waned. \u201cIt was very apparent that I was the only person that wanted to continue working on the project,\u201d McMillen says. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t force somebody to just continue to work on something.\u201d The pair decided to put the project on pause to work on another Super Meat Boy project.<\/p>\n Image: Edmund McMillen, Tyler Glaiel<\/p>\n To McMillen\u2019s surprise, he received an email from Steam expressing condolences about the game\u2019s cancellation. After talking with Refenes, McMillen says, it became clear that Mewgenics would never happen while he worked at Team Meat. When McMillen left Team Meat in 2016, he took Mewgenics with him.<\/p>\n After teaming up with Glaiel, the two spent another six years reworking it into the massive game it exists as today; Glaiel did extensive amounts of research into breeding \u2014 and inbreeding \u2014 to work out the finer points of the game\u2019s main mechanic. Felines can be any sexuality, and how their relationships progress is sometimes out of the player\u2019s hands. \u201cThey can be very passive,\u201d McMillen says. \u201cThey can have rivals. They can fall in love. They can be rejected.\u201d Online, he\u2019s said<\/a> the game will take most players over 200 hours to finish.<\/p>\n Writing Mewgenics has made McMillen regard some of his previous work differently. He points specifically to The Binding of Isaac and its themes on nature versus nurture and \u201chow nurture can really fuck a kid up.\u201d Some struggles in life, however, are inherited.<\/p>\n \u201cThe game definitely became more about children \u2014 the experience of raising children,\u201d McMillen says, reflecting on how fatherhood changed his view of the game from its inception to release. \u201cThe legacy that you leave, and the genetics that you pass to them and curse them with. I started to write more from that perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ss_066deee756369d605bb850f16606713119fb1876.1920x1080.jpg\"\/)
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