I'm in love Mewgenics, the mechanics, the references, the art, the music (SO GOOD), the voice lines, the amount of achievements, the references, jokes, and more. At first I was like "I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate cats" but the fact they aren't dogs helps when these hideous things die. (Hate me all you want). Some cats talk, when I was selecting my first two, the other one talked and said, "You are hearing me die." LOL.

Give the game a chance. The first act was so easy I was worried, but it ramps up as you dive deeper.

Just like Edmund McMillen's and Tyler Glaiel's other games, Mewgenics follows the same streamline of lore. I got sad when I found a gift from Isaac to Guppy (which was addressed to the cat on my team that found it). I laughed hard at some things too, like Tink, but my humor is a bit immature. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love Frank, and I think he was also a nudge from Plants vs. Zombies Crazy Frank. But that's just a hunch. I also appreciate the extra tips option from characters. Butch is the goat when it comes to tips.

I will say balancing will need to be done for sure, and they usually do balance their games.. Some options you'll never choose, some all the time. Some things can be absolutely busted. I do wish Boon County had a map expansion that would be meaningful for late game, currently I have only one building left to unlock on the map.

Also information needs to be added, like range on skills before you take them, or selecting a skill then showing the range before moving the selected tile, currently only shows basic attack range when moving, so I have to count tiles when hovering the selected skill. I think a simple undo button for movement only would be helpful.

Also descriptions aren't as detailed, you have to use some items to figure out what they do. It was less of an issue on BOI but it really matters in Mewgenics. If you get wiped out, you lose a whole team, you can't breed the team, and the lineage you where wanting to keep on a cat is gone. I've noticed "confused" doesn't always work as intended. A few mobs have still melee attacked my cat vs. themselves.

The game could do well with a bunch of QOL updates, too many suggestions to type out but some other reviews probably cover it..

Once I figured out there is lineage for cats, I had to restart my save. It drove me nuts knowing I only had one cat that had original lineage from my first team. If you read this and care about that, just keep it in mind. It'll unlock as you donate more. Some donations are EXPENSIVE. For me, I love grinding, but for others I can see how this would be a big turn off.

Things I'd like added:

More characters and buildings. I would love if there was an optional cosmetic DLC beautique building to neuter your original cats and keep them in a forever home and add little useless cosmetics and optional name changes. Maybe ran by Magdeline lol. Optional DLC just because its unnecessary bloat for those who don't care.

Overall it's a great game, just keep in mind it'll need some updates to be fleshed out.

D4 bad

PLEASE ADD PUPPIES. I'm a dog mom, I need them. This was an Insta buy after demo. I'm actually sad it was so cheap because it's super cute and everything is customizable, I would've loved to pay more because that opens the game for more updates.. I hope there's optional paid dlcs in the future. Like adding the two characters from the title of the game as fishing NPCS with a small puddle off the side of a tile to fish up different things. This little idle game is perfect for me. The fact I can put farm plots away that I don't like the look of. I can lock the plots for grown plants that I want to keep. You can unlock customization for so many different things including the bar at the top. (Hopefully the house tile, not sure yet). I'd also like to add the little npcs in the title on tiles to chill out. I wouldn't have purchased without realizing how much customization you have. You can even switch between music, mute just the music and leave on seasonal sounds for forest spring and rain which is like nature noise, birds singing etc. You can choose both, or either or. You can mute both and leave the popping noise for just the plots to tell you when they are done. Or just completely mute everything. You have crops that grow fast and slow for more active game play or slower game play. You can change the size of all the tiles in edit mode, there's a small, medium, and large. You can also move all tiles around your screen and even the bars. I LOVE THE ART STYLE. So tired of so much old pixelated art. I hope that if there is more things added that they are hide-able. I honestly get so tired of seeing every game with cats but I can choose just not to plant them after discovering.

Edit: Okay I just got a cat with a rainbow aura, I'm making an exception! Too cute, it's locked!

I want to start by saying, thank you for the play-test! I hope your small team gets all the love ya'll deserve. I do know that that also means things take time! I just wanted to leave my thoughts after my 14 hour experience play testing. I love Toy smash, it's very addicting, super fun, unique, and has a lot of charm. I got all the current characters to Novice 2 during my time and enlarge, either it was my team or their's, always made me laugh.. I love that I still did really well despite not knowing synergies, that different grids did things, and that you could look at what to merge for your built. (Balloon grid makes me so happy ).. I know updates are coming but I'd like to add, other than the extra items and synergies, more characters, cute voice lines for the characters, shop keepers, etc would be cool (as long as it's not repetitive). I know it's a small team but I'm dreaming big here, ok? Lol I would love a PvE campaign with a nice story. This game could've also been a rogue-like, it has so much flexibility. I know there's other game modes coming, so I can't wait to see what I have to look forward to.

I do feel like the book you open to see what you can merge should not be fully unlocked. I believe the items should be "discovered" unlocked by merging on your own first. Once the community is built, it'll allow for more discussion but it also allows for experimentation. I think that this may make PvP difficult for beginners, so having lobbies by rank may help, if the game is popular enough. I feel that option adds a lot of value to carving your own way.

Most of my complaints came from UI.
I feel the info box for items gets in the way of the stars and arrows for summons and spells etc, making it hard to see if that arrow is getting buffed or not, if it was moved slightly further away, it'd be less of a pain.

The hamster ball shows it gets a buff from food at the arrow, but there isn't an arrow to place a food buff and after placing it around the buff, no activation occurs. Also the special art style of the plant grid activates plants when placed within it not sure if this is intended, I was confused if my plants where being buffed just from being in there or not. I feel that the spell grid should activate items if it buffs as well. I also think special art style grids should exist for the other character options like the food version of the chef should have a food grid etc.

Grids and items should be lockable. This way you can keep grids from moving when trying to move just an item and you can keep items from merging that you don't want to merge... The amount of popcorns I made Screaming "NOOOO" .. lol.

There's confusion for me when it comes to victory, vs defeat, vs complete. I believe complete means both players keep their HP, but why? This on top of matches abruptly ending (not sure if that's intended) makes it PvP confusing. Sometimes I think I've got a victory and it ends in a defeat when the match abruptly ends. I thought getting "complete" was time based, but it seemed to happen even on shorter matches. If matches abruptly ending is intentional, I'd like an option to turn this off in the future.

I'd also love the option to stay after a battle, replay, or even just look at the other players backpack. This would also be a great option for discovering possible merges and synergies you might not be able to see if the fight is too fast or you're to focused on the units etc.

Also I know it's a weird request but I really hope we get achievements. Achievements for merging a new item, winning battles, upgrading your characters, etc would boost replay-ability and keep me flexible with builds.

I love the game. Thank you again for the playtest!

Love this game so far, it's a hidden gem.

Great game, tons of fun. I'm hoping we will get the option to make pins on the map that shows up on the compass because I'm direction-challenged. Would also like to delete strains that you mix and don't want to use, so if you don't have a customers requested product and want to sell them something else, you won't have to hover over each strain to find the one you're looking for. There are a ton of bugs, I've had two game breaking bugs that occur further into the game. I don't mind restarting but definitely go in knowing that there is a fair chance you'll be making multiple saves during EA.

I love Stardew, like many others. I get a little too submersed sometimes though. lol I feel bad for marrying people and taking away their crushes or passions. The modding community is great, once you "finish" your play-through there are expansions to the game that modders have made and it sticks to the Stardew vibe. Endless fun with so many secrets to explore.

I can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stand the building. I've tried to get into this game 4 different times but I can't build a simple house with a roof big enough to not feel claustrophobic. It's a shame because I've tried to come back several times based on reviews. I'm over the game now unless something comes out to make it easier.

Feels like the genre of "ARPG" is starting to mean a lot of different things. Much like "Souls-like" and "Rogue-like", I wonder if we could normalize "Exile-like" for ARPGs that follow the Path of Exile formula...

ok