Mewgenics – Beginner’s Guide To Help You Get Started

Mewgenics is a turn-based tactical roguelite built around long-term progression rather than single successful runs. You control squads of mutant cats, send them into dangerous grid-based combat encounters, and bring back loot, experience, and genetic progress that permanently shape your roster.

Success comes from understanding how combat, classes, breeding, resources, and legacy systems interact over many runs.

1. Core Gameplay Mechanics

Mewgenics combat

Mewgenics combines tactical combat with deep management systems that persist beyond a single run. Each adventure feeds into a larger progression loop, where even failed runs can strengthen future cats through unlocks, genetics, and upgrades.

Combat is turn-based and takes place on grid-based maps, where positioning, ability timing, terrain, and turn order decide outcomes. Outside combat, the home base functions as the heart of progression, allowing you to breed cats, manage resources, unlock NPCs, and upgrade facilities.

2. Best Classes for Cats

Choosing Cats

Classes determine how a cat functions in combat, what abilities they can learn, and which stats they scale best with. Classes are assigned using collars before a run begins. If no collar is equipped, the cat becomes Collarless, which significantly limits growth and effectiveness.

Each class has strengths, weaknesses, and ideal team roles. Choosing the right class composition greatly improves survivability and consistency.

• Fighter: A melee physical DPS who focuses on direct strikes and offensive skills.
• Hunter: A ranged physical damage dealer who excels at attacking from a distance with high dexterity and luck bonuses.
• Mage: The ranged magic caster who uses spells with elemental and ranged effects while taking benefits from high intelligence and charisma.
• Tank: The defensive frontliner who absorbs damage and controls battlefield space.
• Cleric: A healer or support character who gives healing, buffs, and recovery options to the team.
• Thief: Speedy DPS who trades some strength and constitution for speed and critical opportunities.
• Necromancer: Harvest health from foes and manipulate corpses to crowd control.
• Collarless: Not technically a class with bonuses, but can still learn neutral skills, but lacks the focused stat boosts.
• Tinkerer: The hybrid DPS and item crafter who helps you discern and activate item set bonuses.
• Druid: Minion summoner and support healer who can summon other creatures and turn into animal forms.
• Butcher: Melee DPS and HP-based tank who can clear out packs of hostiles and soak up a lot of damage.
• Psychic: Ranged magical support and crowd-controller who can annihilate enemies and keep teammates alive.
• Monk: A hybrid melee and ranged combatant that can easily switch stances between a melee strike and a ranged shot.
• Jester: This class has the largest selection pool, which has high-damage options like Meteor Slam and Meteor Roll.

2.1 Cleric

Cat attacks Fire Punch

The Cleric is a pure support-focused class designed to keep your team alive during long and difficult encounters. While Clerics lack strong damage output, they dramatically reduce the risk of permanent cat deaths, making them one of the safest and most valuable choices for early progression.

Clerics excel in battles where attrition is high, bosses deal heavy damage, or mistakes are likely. Their value increases the longer a fight lasts.

Cleric Strengths and Weaknesses

• Can revive downed cats, restoring them with significant HP
• Abilities like Revive and Born Again allow recovery from near-failure
• Access to healing, cleansing, buffs, and utility tools
• Can provide situational damage or ally buffs when needed
• Lower Speed and Dexterity than most damage-focused classes
• Very limited raw DPS potential

A single Cleric can save entire runs and preserve high-value cats, making them one of the best beginner-friendly classes.

2.2 Monk

Class collars

The Monk is a hybrid combat class that blends melee and ranged fighting styles through stance switching. This flexibility allows Monks to adapt to changing battlefield conditions, enemy layouts, and positioning challenges.

While Monks don’t hit as hard as specialized DPS classes early on, they compensate with action efficiency and combo potential, especially when supported by buffs or synergistic abilities.

Monk Strengths and Weaknesses

• Can attack in melee or ranged stance, adapting to enemy positioning
• Stance switching unlocks different skill interactions
• Receives two basic attacks per turn by default, increasing action value
• Lower starting Strength and Dexterity reduce early damage
• Scales extremely well with buffs, passives, and combo-based abilities

Ideal for players who value adaptability and want a class that becomes stronger as ability synergies develop.

2.3 Fighter

The Fighter is a straightforward melee physical damage dealer built for aggressive frontline combat. With strong Strength and Speed bonuses, Fighters excel at closing distance quickly and dealing consistent damage to priority targets.

This class rewards proactive positioning and decisive action. Fighters thrive when they can reach enemies early and keep pressure on them before they can act.

Fighter Strengths and Weaknesses

• Stat bonuses like +2 Strength, +1 Speed, −1 Intelligence
• High mobility allows fast engagement and repositioning
• Abilities enable extra movement, additional attacks, or action refreshes
• Slower mana regeneration due to the Intelligence penalty
• More exposed to counterattacks than ranged classes

Simple, effective, and reliable—perfect for beginners who want immediate combat impact without complex setups.

3. How Breeding Works

Breeding

Breeding is a core long-term progression system in Mewgenics. It allows you to create new cats with inherited stats, abilities, and mutations, which can be stronger than any starting cat. Unlike combat rewards, breeding carries benefits across multiple runs, making it essential for sustained success.

3.1 Breeding Basics

• Only adult cats of opposite genders can breed.
• Breeding occurs at the end of each in-game day if the cats are compatible.
• Kittens inherit a combination of traits, stats, abilities, and sometimes defects from their parents.
• Success is not guaranteed, and environmental factors influence outcomes.
• Breeding more than one kitten per pairing is possible, but less common.

3.2 Traits and Stats Passed Down

Kittens inherit from their parents in several ways:

• Base Stats: Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Constitution, and Intelligence. Kittens often take the higher parent value if the room’s Stimulation is high.
• Abilities: Skills one or both parents know can be inherited. Shared abilities between parents have a higher chance of being passed down.
• Mutations: Randomly occurring genetic changes can give bonuses or drawbacks.
• Defects/Disorders: Negative traits such as frailty, poor appetite, or lowered stats may appear.
• Behavioral Traits: Libido, aggression, sexual orientation, and social behavior affect mating probability and outcomes.

3.3 Home Base Stats

Home base

Your home base is more than cosmetic—it directly influences breeding success and kitten quality. Each stat is affected by furniture, cleanliness, and upgrades.

• Comfort: Affects how often cats breed versus fight. Cats relax and are more likely to breed with high Comfort.
• Stimulation: Affects the quality of kittens’ inherited stats and abilities. Kittens are more likely to inherit the higher stat values from their parents.
• Health: Influences injuries, disease, and lifespan. High Health helps cats recover from injuries automatically.
• Mutation: Changes the rate of random mutations in kittens. This stat increases the chance that cats get mutations.
• Appeal: Affects the quality of stray cats that appear at your home each day. Higher Appear brings strays with better base stats and rarer abilities to join your roster.

3.4 Tips for Breeding in Mewgenics

• Pair Strong Parents: Focus on cats with high stats and desirable abilities.
• Optimize Rooms: Use furniture to maximize Comfort, Stimulation, and Appeal.
• Manage Mutation Carefully: Moderate Mutation allows useful traits without too many defects.
• Breed for Abilities: If you want specific skills, pair cats who both know that ability.
• Rotate Pairs: Avoid overbreeding the same cats to prevent overexposure to defects.
• Use Strays Strategically: Appeal and breeding of strays can inject new genetics into your bloodline.

4. Learn Turn-Based Combat Mechanics

Combat

Combat in Mewgenics operates on a grid-based, turn-based system, where each cat and enemy acts according to their Speed stat. Understanding the turn rotation is essential to survive, minimize injuries, and optimize your long-term roster. 

1. Check turn order: Faster cats act first—use Stun Strike (Fighter) or Freeze Spell (Mage) early to shut down threats like Spinnerette or Radical Rat.
2. Position smartly: Melee (Fighter, Monk, Butcher) hold chokepoints or flank bosses like Queen Hippo; ranged (Hunter, Mage, Psychic) stay behind cover or on high ground.
3. Use basics well: Slash can pull enemies into hazards; Precise Shot targets weak points—kill add-spawners and high-damage foes first.
4. Time abilities: Save cats with Revive or Born Again; swap Monk attacks by range; clear groups with Meteor Slam (Jester) before poison/traps spread.
5. Use terrain: Push crates/rocks for knockback damage; spread fire tiles; avoid poison and spikes to prevent long-term injuries.
6. Manage status effects: Stun, slow, or freeze enemies like Chubs ’n’ Nubs; cleanse with Food packets or Cleric spells.
7. Predict enemies: Boris targets the last attacker with Trample Dash—pre-position; Dybbuk dodges single-target—use AoE or multi-hit.
8. End turns cleanly: Check HP, mana, and positioning; heal or retreat if needed to act first next round.
9. Think long-term: Control the field and pace bosses—fewer injuries means better breeding and future runs.

Tip: Combine terrain advantages with abilities like Meteor Roll, Stun Strike, and Freeze Spell. Even a single well-timed push, stun, or AoE can prevent injuries and turn a losing fight into a win.

4. How to Get Food

Feeding Cats

Food in Mewgenics is one of the most important resources you manage at your home, and it directly affects your ability to progress, breed cats, and maintain a large roster. Every cat — adult or kitten — consumes 1 unit of food per day while in your home. For example, if you have 20 cats, you need 20 food every in‑game day just to stay fed.

If you ever run out of food, kittens and adult cats begin to starve, which leads to stat loss, injuries, and eventually death if starvation continues. This can wreck your breeding plans and slow progression. Your base home starts with a food cap of 100, meaning you can only store up to 100 units of food at first — and you should avoid wasting food by letting it hit the cap.

4.1 Sources of Food in Mewgenics

• Combat rewards: Eliminating enemies and completing zones often drop food as loot — look for crates, piles on the ground, or food pickups after battles.
• Shops and NPCs: Tracy (the vendor you encounter in runs) sells food packets — typically 5 coins for 10 food, which is a very cost‑effective early purchase.
• Event rewards: Some random encounters during adventures can grant food for success.
• Home pickups: Occasionally, stray cats or NPC visits can include food rewards as part of interactions.

Always claim food pickups in runs — leaving them behind is wasting a crucial resource.

4.2 Tips for Food Management

Cat leveling

• Track daily food consumption: Each adult or kitten consumes 1 unit of food per day. Plan for your total cat count — 20 cats = 20 food per day.
• Avoid starvation: Running out of food causes stat loss, injuries, and death, which negatively affects breeding and future runs.
• Claim combat rewards: Always pick up food dropped by enemies, crates, or zone rewards during adventures.
• Buy food from Tracy: Purchase packets for 5 coins per 10 food to maintain your stock, especially during early runs.
• Use food before reaching the cap: Your home starts with a food cap of 100 units. Don’t let food sit at max — use it for breeding and to feed your cats.
• Donate or retire extra cats: Reducing low-stat or surplus cats lowers daily food cost and preserves resources for high-value cats.
• Upgrade food storage early: Invest in furniture or home upgrades that increase the food cap to stockpile for longer runs and more cats.
• Send cats on food-focused runs: Use safe zones and sturdy cats to collect coins and extra food for future days and breeding.
• Pick up all food items you see: Always grab food from the ground, crates, or shops — leaving it behind wastes resources.
• Plan ahead for long-term growth: Proper food management ensures your cats remain healthy, strong, and ready for breeding and challenging zones.

5. How Coins Work

Tracy shop

In Mewgenics, coins are a key resource you pick up during runs by defeating enemies, smashing crates and garbage bags, or looting money pickups on the battlefield. Coins appear as collectible pickups that instantly add to your total when you walk over them.

Unlike food, which sustains your cats at home, coins are spent in real‑time during adventure runs and back at the home base. Spending coins strategically can greatly improve your run success and strengthen your overall progression.

5.1 Best Ways to Spend Coins

• Buy Rare Candy from vendors: Rare Candy is one of the most important purchases in shops. It instantly levels up a random cat in your party when used. Leveling up increases stats and sometimes unlocks powerful abilities.
• Vet Visit: Spend coins to heal a cat +10 HP mid‑combat.
• Subway Ride: Pay to teleport a cat anywhere on the map — great for repositioning when surrounded.
• Hire Hitman: Summon a Bounty Hunter ally for extra damage support.
• Shop for weapons, armor, and consumables: Merchants on the map sell all kinds of equipment. Weapons and armor can give significant boosts like extra damage, armor, or special effects (e.g., Metal Plate gives +1 Shield each turn from armor). Buying consumables like heal items, potions, or teleport tools can immediately help you survive high‑risk fights.
• Invest in furniture and home upgrades: Coins spent on furniture at home boost Comfort, Stimulation, and other room stats that improve breeding quality, cat health recovery, and resource generation.

Tip: There’s a 100 coin cap in runs, and letting your coin total sit at 100 means wasted earning potential.

6. Defeat All Bosses

Queen Hippo boss

Bosses in Mewgenics are tougher than normal enemies, and each one has a unique attack pattern and weakness. Understanding how they behave and exploiting their quirks is key to survival and progression.

• Spinnerette: Kill spider cats quickly, so Spinnerette becomes easier to damage. Use AoE abilities and crowd control to manage multiple enemies.
• Radical Rat: Throws bombs onto tiles that explode later in cross patterns. Ranged attacks and abilities are excellent for defusing bombs.
• Queen Hippo: Strong melee attacks and knockbacks while staying in melee range to punish the boss.
• Chubs ’n’ Nubs: Make sure to spread out your team so the whole party doesn’t get hit by area poison.
• Boris: Moves aggressively toward whoever last damaged it. Damage tiles it moves over, and uses a Trample Dash at the end.
• Dybbuk: Dodges almost all single-target attacks by rolling to adjacent tiles.
• Guillotina: Damage-over-time effect and confusion make it easier to take down the health. Keep head and body apart to avoid powerful effects.

7. Donate Cats To Obtain Upgrades

The tube donation system at your home is one of the most important meta‑progression features. Instead of keeping every cat you breed or recruit, you can donate cats to specific NPCs in exchange for powerful and permanent upgrades. Once donated, a cat is permanently removed from your roster — but the benefits you unlock can dramatically strengthen your future runs, improve home quality, and expand late‑game options.

Each NPC accepts only specific types of cats or conditions, so part of the strategy is knowing which cats to keep and which to donate to unlock the bonuses you want.

7.1 Butch — Inventory Expansion

Butch is a critical NPC because items — weapons, armor, trinkets, consumables, rares — fill up quickly and can’t be used if your inventory is full. More inventory means you can bring better gear into runs, hold onto Rare Candies, and prepare for long adventures without losing valuable loot. Butch needs:

• What Butch wants: Cats that have participated in adventures (ideally those who cleared deeper zones).
• What he unlocks: More inventory storage slots permanently.

7.2 Frank — Home Expansion

Each new room increases your space for cats and contributes to higher Comfort and Stimulation, which improves breeding results. More rooms equal a higher breeding ceiling, better furniture placement, and richer genetic combinations. Frank is an expert on home expansion. Here’s what he needs:

• What Frank wants: Retired cats — mature cats that have earned a retirement instead of dying.
• What he unlocks: Additional rooms in your home base.

7.3 Baby Jack — Furniture Unlocks

Baby Jack npc

Baby Jack deals in furniture, and these pieces boost crucial home stats (like Comfort, Stimulation, Mutation, Appeal, or Food Cap). Better furniture not only improves breeding outcomes but also attracts higher‑quality strays and affects kitten inheritance quality. Baby Jack needs: 

• What Baby Jack wants: Injured cats — cats that have returned wounded from runs.
• What he unlocks: New and rarer furniture options for your home.

7.4 Tink — Breeding Information

Tink deals with breeding information, which helps you make smarter genetic pairings and reduces randomness in future breeding. The better you understand your genetic pool, the faster you can produce kittens with strong stats and useful abilities. Tink needs: 

• What Tink wants: Kittens — usually young cats that have not yet participated in full combat runs.
• What she reveals: Detailed breeding information (pedigree data, trait probabilities, mutation hints).

7.5 Dr. Beanies — Mutation & Defect Research

Dr. Beanies focuses on mutations, birth defects, and disorders. While these traits can weaken cats if left unmanaged, donating them to Dr. Beanies turns genetic failures into long-term advantages. His upgrades are essential for players aiming to optimize high-level breeding and mutation-focused builds. Dr. Beanie needs: 

• What Dr. Beanies wants: Mutated cats, cats with birth defects, or unusual disorders.
• What he unlocks: Mutation‑related side quests and perks.

7.6 The Mystery Man — Revival of Items

The Mystery Man specializes in recovering value from failure. In Mewgenics, permanent death normally means losing not only the cat, but also everything it was carrying. Donating cats to The Mystery Man allows you to soften the blow of failed runs by reclaiming lost equipment. The Mystery Man needs:

• What The Mystery Man wants: Dead cats — cats that were lost in failed runs.
• What he grants: Recovery of items and gear that cats were carrying when they died.

8. How to Reroll Skills and Abilities

Skill roll

Rerolling abilities in Mewgenics is essential for optimizing your cats’ builds, ensuring they get powerful skills, and salvaging high-potential cats from bad ability rolls. The game doesn’t allow free resets, but several in-game methods let you influence ability choices and gear effectively.

• Dice Items: Found or purchased on adventure maps, these consumable items let you reroll the ability options that appear when a cat levels up, giving a new random set from the class pool.
• Chaos Controller: A special quest reward that allows you to reroll level-up ability choices up to three times per level, increasing the chance of selecting optimal skills.
• Jester Set: Collecting enough pieces unlocks the Jester Cap, which lets you reroll ability options at level-up and pull abilities from any class, expanding your cats’ potential far beyond their normal class pool.
• Ninny Stick: A late-game item that rerolls equipped weapons, armor, and trinkets at the end of each battle, giving your cats better gear without visiting shops or spending coins.

This system ensures that with strategic use, you can create powerful, optimized cats and recover from unlucky ability rolls, making your runs safer and more efficient.

9. How to Increase Inventory Space

Storage space

Expanding your inventory in Mewgenics is crucial for holding more weapons, trinkets, consumables, and Rare Candies without losing items during runs. Donating cats and managing overflow properly ensures you can carry essential gear for longer adventures.

• Donate Cats to Butch: Submit cats that have participated in adventures to Butch to permanently unlock additional inventory slots, increasing your storage capacity.
• Batch Donations: Submit cats in batches of 20 per upgrade tier to unlock each level of inventory expansion.
• Meet Adventure Requirements: Cats must meet zone or progress requirements from deeper adventures to unlock higher inventory tiers.
• Use Trash Slots: Temporarily place excess items in Trash slots to manage overflow between runs; items in Trash do not count toward permanent storage.
• End-of-Day Clearance: Any item left in the Trash at the end of the day is removed permanently, so only use the Trash for short-term management.

This system lets you shuffle items efficiently, prepare for long runs, and ensures you never lose valuable loot due to limited inventory space.