By Alec Meer on November 5th, 2012 at 12:00 pm.
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.
These characters – of which there are five in total – were shown in silhouette in the first shot Team Meat released, so at least we can now put a couple of names and faces to the, uh, shadowy faces now. Those names are Mr Tinkles and Dr Beanie, the former apparently designating himself a “party gurl” and the latter has Krusty the Clown’s hairdo and seems to be a little nervous around cats. I went out with a girl like that once.
What will this cutesy pair be up to? Helping cats? Killing cats? Cruelly gene-splicing cats? Getting turned into horrible mutant cats themselves? I tell you, I don’t know. Stop asking me.
We’ll be given new art and hints every Caturday from now until a full info-splurge at a later date. Which means there’s precious little more I can tell you. So here’s a joke instead.
Q. How do you know when your cat has eaten a duckling?
A. It’s got that down in the mouth look.
I’ll be here all week.
05/11/2012 at 12:03 Herzog says:
A new Team Meat game is always welcome. I just hope it wont be made in Flash like Binding of Isaac. The engine and the physics in Super Meat Boy felt very snappy! Hope they get an engine from themselves!
05/11/2012 at 12:21 mwoody says:
I assume not, since they’re going to the trouble of remaking Isaac in not-flash.
Now if we could just get Cryptic Comet to convert his games to non-Director… Kickstarter ho!
05/11/2012 at 13:56 N9ne Galoo.com says:
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about the Isaac remake. Has there been any news on that?
05/11/2012 at 17:35 cptgone says:
while i don’t mind the dated graphics much, it’s the UI design that makes me quit Armageddon Empires after a few turns, every time i try to give it a go. i think there’s a wonderful game behind that UI…
05/11/2012 at 15:14 Ichi_1 says:
There’s actually no reason why BoI shouldn’t run well using Flash. The game isn’t exactly crazy intensive, or more pertinently, shouldn’t be. I expect it runs like a cow because it’s wrapped up in something else, either that or it’s just coded very very badly
05/11/2012 at 15:21 Dr I am a Doctor says:
downscaled huge vectors
05/11/2012 at 16:51 Baines says:
Likely a combination of vector art and bad coding. Isaac is getting recoded because the existing Flash engine apparently can’t take more additions, at least not without breaking other parts of the game. (That was mentioned with the last DLC, that adding stuff was breaking other stuff.)
05/11/2012 at 17:28 Dromph says:
It´s written in AS2. Why, Florian Himsl, why?
As for New Genics, it´ll definetely be written in C++.
Cause, you know…Tommy Refenes is actually a good programmer.
05/11/2012 at 20:05 SavageTech says:
From what I gather Florian only codes in Flash, so that’s why.
06/11/2012 at 07:28 Dromph says:
I know. But AS2? It would definetely run better with AS3.
08/11/2012 at 16:47 dannyroth says:
It’s quite a bit easier to do AS2 then AS3. Also, sometimes it can be intimidating to relearn everything you know about something. Maybe that’s why he sticks to Flash and AS2?
05/11/2012 at 15:32 puppybeard says:
So, what you’re saying is, when I had all but the last two enemies in a room killed, and Isaac started moving twice as fast as he had been, that wasn’t a “rush of confidence” power-up?
Love Binding of Isaac, but fucking hell, the lag in it can be something shocking at times.
05/11/2012 at 20:06 SavageTech says:
It won’t be, Tommy Refenes writes real code which is why Super Meat Boy wasn’t in Flash (past the “Meat Boy” prototype). Florian Himsl, “coder” for TBoI, is not on Team Meat.
05/11/2012 at 12:35 Gap Gen says:
What do you call it when a cat is stolen from your lap?
Purr-loined.
How do you steal a cat from someone’s lap?
Whisker away.
What happens if you put a cat in a group of Old Labour politicians?
It claws four.
How do you tell if your duck has been eating cats?
Because of the mew-wing.
So Hamlet was trying to decide if his cat was tabby or not tabby. He asked himself “is this a toyger I see before me?”
Reverend Spooner never went out without putting on his catflap.
Descartes proved the existence of sweet potatoes using his bald cat via the maxim “a sphynx, therefore a yam.” This is evidence I should probably stop now.
05/11/2012 at 12:57 McDan says:
What does your cat say if it’s had an average day?
“I’m feline fine.”
05/11/2012 at 12:58 Gap Gen says:
On a bad day, it’s a little Persian blue.
05/11/2012 at 14:00 martyrshow says:
On a good day, it’s purrfect.
05/11/2012 at 18:46 SuperNashwanPower says:
Reverend Spooner once told me I was a shining wit.
I always liked him.
Wait….
05/11/2012 at 14:04 Unaco says:
Q. What’s more intelligent; a rock or a cat?
A. A rock. It has sense enough to go away when you kick it.
(Note: Not really a joke, more a cautionary tale/thought experiment about the specification of goals and how we attribute intelligence).
05/11/2012 at 14:07 Gap Gen says:
Boot in Puss? :(
05/11/2012 at 14:33 lordcooper says:
Depends how heavy the rock is.
05/11/2012 at 17:36 Ergates_Antius says:
Q. What do you call a cat that’s just eaten a duck?
A. A Duck-filled Fatty Pus
05/11/2012 at 12:54 Koozer says:
I’ve surprised myself at just how uninterested I am in this, purely because of the cats. Mutant lab-beasts contravening all laws of nature? Sure! Cats? Bleh.
05/11/2012 at 13:03 SuperNashwanPower says:
Bunnies would kick ass
05/11/2012 at 13:05 Gap Gen says:
Pretty sure asses could kick bunnies harder, what with being taller and having hard hooves.
05/11/2012 at 15:34 puppybeard says:
It would be possible to call “fan-service” on this, but Edmund McMillen does share a house with too many cats.
05/11/2012 at 16:28 Mr-Link says:
I am the opposite. I wasn’t interested in the Binding of Isaac, but now that they are doing something with cats I will keep an eye on it at least.
05/11/2012 at 17:32 Dromph says:
Isaac isn´t from Team Meat. Super Meat Boy has been the only Team Meat game so far.
05/11/2012 at 23:34 Mr-Link says:
Well one half of it, no ? The article says so.
06/11/2012 at 07:26 Dromph says:
Yeah. Edmund is the designer of Team Meat. Still no Team Meat game though :P
05/11/2012 at 12:58 SuperNashwanPower says:
AWWW kittehz
05/11/2012 at 13:09 Zanchito says:
Slow news day, I’m guessing.
05/11/2012 at 13:14 Gap Gen says:
SLOW MEWS DAY, more like.
05/11/2012 at 13:50 Alec Meer says:
Big fat stupid ignorant lazy idiothole, I’m guessing.
05/11/2012 at 13:57 martyrshow says:
Alec, that statement was bereft of puns. Are you feline all right?
05/11/2012 at 14:06 Zanchito says:
You must be onto something, namecalling out of the russian blue.
05/11/2012 at 15:40 SuperNashwanPower says:
Still, Deaths Head avatar FTW
Incidentally the deaths head was an insignia used by the prussian army.
Not a pun, just factual and pop referencey
05/11/2012 at 16:51 SkittleDiddler says:
Alec Meer, keeping professionalism to a minimum as usual. That’s why I like this site.
05/11/2012 at 13:26 Revolving Ocelot says:
:3
05/11/2012 at 13:34 caddyB says:
:3
05/11/2012 at 14:02 TsunamiWombat says:
:3
05/11/2012 at 14:06 zeroskill says:
ε:
05/11/2012 at 14:34 Sinlessmoon says:
:3
05/11/2012 at 14:54 aldo_14 says:
:4
05/11/2012 at 15:17 SuperNashwanPower says:
( . )( . )
.( Y )
05/11/2012 at 15:38 Lanfranc says:
:π
05/11/2012 at 17:02 Artesia says:
(^ω^)
05/11/2012 at 16:01 zebramatt says:
Is Dr. Beanies related to the professor from Spewer?
05/11/2012 at 17:30 Dromph says:
Yes. Edmund wrote something like that in his formspring.
05/11/2012 at 18:50 SuperNashwanPower says:
That cat looks like it loves its owner.
I shall not be buying this game, as I cannot abide by a lack of realism.
05/11/2012 at 18:54 Llewyn says:
That cat looks like it’s manipulating its owner into believing it loves him.
05/11/2012 at 20:43 SuperNashwanPower says:
And then it does BLANK PSYCHO FACE when owner looks away.
**single claw begins to protrude**
05/11/2012 at 19:57 JeeshusChrist says:
Just to put it out there if you didn’t know already Edmund and Tommy were working on this along side the last LudumDare competition. By that I mean they were following the exact rules but couldn’t enter since you are only allowed to do it by yourself. The theme of the competition was Evolution and we can all see how it plays a role within the name Mew-Gentics. So yeah they just loved it so much they decided to keep working on it instead of releasing at the end of the competition. That’s pretty much all I know!
06/11/2012 at 14:19 Spoon Of Doom says:
Looking at the author, I know there’s a “Meerkat” joke in there somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.