Mew-Genics - Crazy Kitten Evolutions!!

So its been a few weeks since the last big Caturday update, i’m a little late on this today due to GDC, but i thought it was time to talk about kittens.







So as many of you know Mew-Genics does pull some inspiration from Pokemon, but one of my favorite aspects of the Pokemon design was all the character evolutions. when i 1st played Pokemon Blue for the gameboy the mystery of evolutions was very exciting… and i thought it was important to have some aspect of that mystery in Mew-Genics.. and that’s where kittens come in.







Every cat in Mew-Genics will have a kitten and adult state, as one would assume kittens are much smaller, with larger heads smaller bodies and no noses (because noses aren’t cute!). When a kitten grows into sexual maturity it evolves! many of the cats visuals will change, some times drastically, the more unique looking your cat is the bigger this change will be when they mature.







But what’s the big deal right? kittens and cats look different why does it matter? well it was also very important in Mew-Genics to make sure the player could size up a cat and get a rough idea of its hidden stats. we tried to base these visuals on basic logic, a small cat (or kitten) should be fast and cute where as a large thick cat should be slower but have more HP. these visuals go beyond these basics as your cats mutate and you find more uncommon forms, cats with teeth or horns appear to do more damage in combat, cats with large heads seem to be more intelligent, large eyes and more traditionally beautiful features will perform better in pageants, cats with spider legs or more aerodynamic bodies tend to move faster and have more energy and cats with odd alien attributes might acquire special properties like regeneration.







for instance this little guy (his name was Bimbo) has noticeably round features, large eyes and an extremely hard looking jawline. from these visuals we can determine that Bimbo is probably a tank, high hp, high defense and probably a tiny bit cuter than average cats due to his glassy round eyes. his kitten form would probably do pretty well in pageants, but since Bimbo wasn’t born with dwarfism, once he hits adult hood he probably wont be as good of a contender in them (though imagine the possibilities if he happened to have a rare case of primordial dwarfism!).



visual attributes aren’t the end all be all when it comes to cat stats though, temperament plays a large role as well. aside from the cats actions, its mood can also be determined by its expressions.







a cat like Zelda here as a kitten looks quite cute, but as an adult you can tell from her expression that shes not a nice one.. and even if her stats scream CUTE her expression says.. if you enter me in a cat pageant i’m going to kill everyone else there. and that’s bad.. for cat pageants anyway.







There is so much going on in this game its going to be a hard one to pitch in an eloquent tag line.. but i think “I just birthed an alien cat with no mouth and Spock ears that seems to float around the room” might be enough to get the job done.





TILL NEXT TIME!