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The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy creator Edmund McMillen has explained some of the influences for his upcoming cat-based strategy game, Mewgenics.
Speaking to the Windbreaker Podcast, McMillen is asked to give the pitch of what Mewgenics is and opened the interview by establishing that despite the game being about a cat breeder, "there are no penises, I never drew one of their penises" which pretty much sets the tone right away for what an Edmund McMillen game is like… although he did clarify "there's probably a penis or two, just not on the cats that hump."
However, once the important details (or lack thereof) were out of the way, McMillen explained the process of Mewgenics breeding and taking them out into adventures in a turn-based strategy game. "Every time you go on an adventure, you class your cats like you would in D&D, and draft your abilities like you would in a deckbuilder," with McMillen hyping up the amount of items and abilities in the game, which seems to be just as daunting as Isaac's massive roster. He eventually comes back to "it's very D&D" to which WindBreaker host Jack Packard dubs the game: "It's D&D but with cats fucking."
McMillen was also asked what games influenced Mewgenics, he responds that it's mostly board games, while singling out Magic: The Gathering as the number one influence. "This is kind of abstract, because people are just going to see a turn-based game with cats fucking and they're not going to understand what I mean. But it's very much the core of Magic: The Gathering." McMillen adds, "This is me doing Richard Garfield," likening the different cats to cards, while allowing players to adapt to many styles of play, like breaking the game, being aggressive, defensive, etc.
It was also revealed that the game has a fair few voice cameos (including WindBreaker Podcast hosts Packard and Yahtzee Croshaw). Most notably, David Harbour from Stranger Things and The Thunderbolts, who is a fan of The Binding of Isaac. Meanwhile, The Young and the Restless actor Barbara Crampton and Gene Ween, frontman of Ween (And as a Binding of Isaac diehard whose favourite band is Ween, this got me good), both make voice appearances in the game stemming from their sons being fans of Isaac. McMillen also said he "won't spill the bean" on the biggest one, which I feel like you could read into as a potential Rowan Atkinson cameo…
