Let's Play Mewgenics: The Bad Care Run

[Shifter55]

This is going to be my second serious run of this game, if you don't know what Mewgenics is, it's a tactics RPG by Edmund Mcmillen, where you breed cats to use in a DnD-inspired dungeon crawl. In my first playthrough, I didn't really take advantage of disorder traits at all, so that is what this one I'm posting here is going to focus on showcasing.

Rules:
-Tutorial and minor events will be skipped for brevity
-Where possible select cats that have disorders for runs and breeding
-Kamikaze, Chungus, and Deja Vu do not count for this, as they do not affect cats beyond giving a uniformly negative or positive effects.
-Fight god and win! No need for secret ending, it's too long to do.

As for why this playthrough is called that? Disorders can be gained easily through two methods, inbreeding and low health. Most people will play this and encounter the inbreeding disorders as they are a consequence of selectively breeding for desired traits, but these are not what I'm going for to start, and that means we require a certain house feature...

Poop.

Each poop in our house gives -2 health, which we will be trying to keep at a fairly high negative value, as disorders only have a 15% chance of being passed on to offspring cats. The comfort loss from doing this also means we are going to have to specialise our cat breeding more, as we will be only able to support small amounts of cats in the house for a limited time.

Please comment in this thread if you have anything to share, feedback, ideas, lamentations over kitties, etc.
For more information on any terms used in this thread, please consult https://mewgenics.wiki.gg/

[Shifter55]

Out of the tutorial we have Puntita and Mr. Dingus as our starting cats with the standard set of abilities. Being able to pass on Mr. Dingus' 7 CON successfully is a priority at this stage, as it will counteract the negative health values we are going to accrue, and allow more successful runs by fielding cats with HP above a critical threshold, even with stat decreases from classes and injuries.

One night later we can see that their kitten has inherited not just his high CON and SPD, but also Puntita's DEX and LUK. Even if the abilities look very lackluster with Spit, we can fix that by giving her a ranged class to replace the poor Melee attack.
A stray, Gimli has also turned up, with similarly high CON and decent INT. Interestingly he has Burgeoning Barrier, which is a good emergency ability if his high CON proves to not be enough in a fight.


Another two nights pass, and we also pick up two uninteresting strays, Chernobyl and Sernik, while Gimli has a kitten with Puntita. But more importantly, we have poop! And right away you can see how it has dropped our Comfort and Health stats into the negatives, which means it's time to progress to adventure, and work on a way to acquire furniture and remove cats from our house.

[Shifter55]

I've tried to cover weaknesses here, with Dafne as Mage, Gimli as Tank, and Sernik as Hunter, but poor Chernobyl gets to be stuck with Fighter. While the ability RNG has smiled on us, her low health and intelligence will limit her ability to fight independently.

Thankfully, she doesn't need to, yet, Gimli's Toss and Dafne's Inspire should allow her to stay out of trouble by allowing additional movement. And she may not even need to be used aggressively, as Sernik and Dafne's abilities allow a powerful spread of ranged attacks and summons with Burning Paws and Spawn Pooter.



In this first battle two of the kittens were able to move before us, and managed to reach Dafne and hit for 3 damage, however the pair at the south of the board have ended up in the perfect position for Chernobyl to take out both of them with a dash and melee, as the rock in front of one will hit for 5 damage instead of the dash's 4. This also lets me take the coin with her movement.

With Dafne I retaliate against the kitten that hit her, and use Spit to destroy it's corpse, revealing 2 coins, afterwards moving her to a safe zone and giving Sernik enough mana to Spawn a Pooter with Inspire. Gimli also hits the nearby kitten, causing it to flee.

Sernik places a pooter in front of her, and hits the other kitten, killing it and recieving 5 mana from her passive ability, the pooter then mops up the last kitten, revealing it held 2 coins.

Right now Chernobyl can't move close enough to the Tom Tom to attack it, so we are moving her near Gimli to swipe those two coins. Similarly Dafne can't hit it, so we destroy another corpse which drops meat, allowing her to heal to full HP.

As the pooter is fast and has a range attack, it manages to hit the Tom Tom for a third of its health, but with only 6 HP and being close enough for the Tom Tom to hit, it's likely to die soon, and Gimli can't get close enough to toss it to safety. Thankfully the Tom Tom retreats to knock a rock into him instead of killing the insect.

Sernik gets the final blow, using SPD increases from Feather Feet and almost-full mana to bring her within range. Out of all of the collarless buff abilities, this one might be one of the more useful ones if you can provide mana for multiple casts in a turn.
I would have liked to get the final battle screen, but winning the fight automatically progresses to the next screen, so I am going to keep that in mind next time.

Dafne levels up as the fight completes, and we choose Inferno for a new active ability, while the AOE makes friendly fire a concern, she has Spit, which can put out the 8 burn with its water tag.

[Shifter55]

For our second battle our team is up against a group of Mangies, these are a ranged attacker that deals damage over time and can spawn the weakest unit in the game when hurt. I won't be covering this battle as thoroughly as the last, to speed up writing somewhat, but I do want to draw attention to something.

This Trash Bag here. We want to break this open, as they mostly spawn coins and we want to get our money count as high as possible before we find a shop. My plan is to take out all but one enemy, preferably a spawned Maggot so damage is kept to a minimum while the cats focus on picking up coins.

Unfortunately, two Mangies singled out Chernobyl, and we can see how risky it is to have low CON in this game. Two hits and she's at risk of being Downed by most foes.

For Sernik's level up, we take Ponder, as that will allow us to summon a Pooter every turn afterwards, and the more INT we have, the more actions a cat can take per turn.

We also acquire an item in the event after the battle, the Bloody Coin. As we have no form of regaining HP if it takes half, I will not be equipping it to our cats. It also begins to snow!

[Shifter55]

We've reached the miniboss, and it seems we're fighting Magnus for that Bird! With Chernobyl barely at half health, and the grass frozen into dangerous spike tiles, my biggest concern is keeping her out of the fight.

Dafne starts the fight by roasting the bird and recieving the bonus from it, also melting the spikes it was perched on into a convenient plate. Now with 9 INT, she will be able to cast Inspire an extra time a turn... but note that the spikes refroze after melting? We can also Spit on Magnus to freeze him, due to the Water-Cold tag interaction. This will buy our other two cats time to get in position.

Magnus immediately tries to rescue his lunch after thawing, tripping over the spikes in the process, and is spat on and refrozen for his efforts. While Gimli takes the roast bird and recieves a minor attack buff. Sernik starts on the Pooter swarm we will be using to compensate for Chernobyl's ill health.

The spitting continues, preventing Magnus from acting quickly, while we keep our team between him and Chernobyl. Gimli takes some damage, but with 44HP, he's not in any danger yet. While Dafne and Sernik work on Pooter production he armors up with Barrier and roughs up Magnus enough for Sernik to take the killing shot.

Finally, Chernobyl levels up, and gains a little extra health. This plus Leap from the ability choise should allow her to provide support while still staying out of danger. The loot from this fight is Glowing Seed, a trinket that spawns Tall Grass, and Stone Orbit, which provides some armor but also causes Rocks to fall off you. The Glowing Seed goes to Gimli, as Tank attacks have pattern that should allow him to move into the grass he spawns and avoid damage.

(I did not save the level up for Chernobyl sadly)

[Shifter55]

After the battle, Chernobyl finds something odd in a dead end... and this might be our chance to get our first Disorder of the playthrough? With the odds not in Chernobyl's favour, we investigate:

And she acquires Insomnia! This is a rather good disorder for fighters, as it provides extra movement and can synergise with one of their better abilities. The exhaustion penalty isn't too severe right now either, as most of our battles have been over by Turn 3 and it just causes minor damage.

We enter another battle, and this time it's flies trying to scavenge poop. With the party mostly leveled up, they don't stand a chance. Finally Gimli levels up, and given his passive Heavy Handed providing extra knockback damage, we choose Grab for additional colliding capability.

Unfortunately as we leave the battle, a rusty nail snags Chernobyl and she starts to bleed out! This cat can't really catch a break!

[Shifter55]

With the area boss coming up, we do some shopping to prepare, and find that someone has thrown away a Champion's Mask, evidently because of mana capacity boosts not being especially useful in combat. However Gimli might find it of use as he was frequently filling up on mana due to the low range of Tank abilities.

The shop select is rather sparse, but we have enough for some Bird Feed and Rare Candy at least, which will let us get more items next Adventure and level up another cat. Gimli gets a treat and we choose Slack Off for it's healing tradeoff.

The first area boss for the Alley is Radical Rat, who places bombs that detonate at the end of a round. While they can be a challenge if allowed to build up enough bombs, they have no other attacks and we have freeze Spit, and can just keep him from setting them up while Chernobyl and Gimli whale on them!

And we come back home to the sounds of Kitty March, the loot from the bossfight was sadly quite bad, a 12 mana consumable and Cardboard Mask, a face armour with poor durability. But hopefully the Bird Seed will provide plenty of opportunities for item gathering later. We've also unlocked the next area, The Sewers!

[skinstealer]

gimli was so brave. shame about the lack of haul coming out of there, but hoping the insomnia pays off for your dark machinations

[Shifter55]

We'll have to see, yeah, since Chernobyl is female we mostly have to put all the male cats in in a room with her and see if she vibes with any of them to get disorder production going.

Because we want to pass down this disorder, we will be placing Chernobyl in the house, but with low comfort, we will have to leave some cats outside for the night, Mr. Dingus and Humbert end up the unlucky ones due to lack of relevant Abilities. We also clean up one of the Poops to keep the comfort at a positive value.

The crying of wet unsheltered cats in the morning attracts someone else looking for shelter too, meet Frank. In return for cats that have adventured, he will upgrade our house to have more rooms, which opens us up to sustainably gather poop while avoiding the negative effect it has on the living spaces of my cats. Inspecting Mr. Dingus now, you can see the ravages of being shut out in the rain, a minus one to all stats... and without Food and Shelter, our kitten has wandered off to find someone that will provide adequate care!

Using the pipe Frank set up in our yard, we can see we only need one cat upgrade our house, and that someone else has something for us: A new class collar that specialises in healing and buffing our cats! For the upgrade we send Frank Mr. Dingus, and end the day once we have cleaned up the poop to keep our Comfort positive.

[Shifter55]

Two days pass, and sadly even with Chernobyl breeding a kitten, she didn't pass on the disorder, however she does seem interested in Gimli, so we will leave those two in our new room together to try again. Their kitten Simon does have rather decent stats however, and Confusion is a solid debuff spell.

With more than enough cats to make a full team, we choose Aslan (mage), Luis (hunter), Havel (tank), and Gage (cleric) to explore the sewers. With an all-male team we should be able to easily pass down disorders if one of them happen to acquire some on this run.

Overall these stat and abilities aren't quite as good as the first adventure, and I have concerns about Priority Target being on Havel, but with healing and free revives available through Gage we should be able to keep all the cats relatively healthy, even if they aren't intact. We're also going to use the Bloody Coin with Luis, taking advantage of Hunter's high range and LUK to attack twice a turn when we aren't exploiting his inherited Toss to open up space. Birdseed and some insurance for Aslan's low health rounds out the equipment.

The effects of birdseed are very apparent in the first alley fight, we immediately advance upon the eagle, but due to his passive ability, Luis misses twice, failing to deal much damage to it. Thankfully the others are able to compensate, even if Havel takes some friendly fire in the process. We are able to break a trashbag and harvest spoils while easily dispatching the rats and kittens, but more often than not, Luis is failing to hit targets!

Luis levels up and given his low INT and inaccuracy, the 3 attack abilities fail to impress, so we are going with Dump...
The rifle we got from this fight will be equipped to Gage, as a 12 damage shot anywhere on the map will be useful in an emergency, even if we can only use it twice.

Second alley fight pits us against Tom Toms and mice, since we gathered plenty of coins this battle I don't see the need to try to break the trashbag here. Once again they pose no challenge to our team.

Gage levels up and we choose Wrath of God for the option to finish battles in an instant, once high HP foes are dealth with.
We also find another Stone Orbit, which is unlikely to be of much use.

The Alley miniboss this time is Maisie and her kittens. She's more of a handful than Magnus, as her ability to swap places when you attack her kittens draws out the fight, but it's not a challenge, especially with Gage's new spell!

On round 2, we unleash the Wrath of God. After having to witness every kitten die in spite of her efforts, Maisie flees from the scene.

This time Aslan levels up and we choose Warp, a handy spell for extra movement that goes in almost any build. From the bird at the fight we also loot a Leather Mask, which goes on Havel for when he has to distract foes eventually, I don't think he likes it.

It seems like Maisie left a surprise for Gage though, a bear trap dealing a hefty 10 damage that she won't be able to heal away with her abilities!

Next fight we are ambushed by more cats, possibly in revenge for completely erasing Maisie's charges, a Raven seems to be interested in starting something too. As the kittens close in we focus down the birds and Luis fumbles around trying to protect Gage from the Tom toms' wrath.

As the dust clears, Havel has leveled up, all but negating the damage he took. We choose Clap to supplement his poor attack. From the fight we gained quite a haul, enough Leather to fully armor Havel, a Raven's Feather, and a Colostomy Bag. The last two items are interesting, sharing damage between two enemies and spawning weak allies respectively. All of this is equipped on the cats, with Havel receiving 3 more Shield from a set bonus!

At the store we spy some Bear Traps, which we will be storing for later, and Havel gets another Level up. We choose Slack Off again for it's healing benefit.

Once again we fight Rad Rat, while a Turkey gets dragged into the fight by the Raven's Feather on Gage. Both will die in this fight due to that curse. Luis manages to get some hits in this time, with Aslan steadily chipping at the rat's health.

Gage levels up this time, and I select Venerated Touch for the debuff and extra shield. From the rat's stash we find Les Toxin, a Disco Biscuit, and Paper Mask, allowing our cats a wide spread of debuffing tools.

Now, on to the Sewers!

[Shifter55]

Immediately upon entering the drains we are met with a squad of Gassies and Boomers, with one Gassy using it's fart to ram Aslan for minimal damage, which Havel retaliates with some claps while getting into position to block the other Gassies from entering the fray. But with so many, and them stinking up the place from getting hit by the other cats, he receives a whopping 18 poison stacks!

Thankfully the other cats are able to finish the battle in time to allow Havel to receive treatment, while Aslan levels up, Learn From Me is chosen, to take advantage of Aslan's Warp and Borrow Mana abilities. We also find another pill and some... teeth to throw at things.


Further on we encounter some Water Kittens herding Leeches in a pool, and a bird attracted by the activity. Aslan warps to the bird, and kills it, disturbing a hidden kitten resting in the eastern pool. Wrath of God once again takes out all of the kittens, and the leeches are swiftly cleaned up afterwards.


For Luis' new ability we take Animal Handler, as the other choices do not really improve his unreliable attacks and cheap abilities. Taking a Spade for later, a Feather, and some Cat Food from the herders we press onwards to the miniboss...


The Flushmaster. with the arena set up with Thorny Rocks its goal is to dash our cats against them, but I've never seen it do a decent job of it. Two birds and a friendly Fly have been attracted to this battle too, and hopefully we'll get to see that fly do some damage here. As usual we focus on the birds to get buffs and items, while trying to keep the cats from colliding with other things.

Using Havel's Swap we move to push the boss towards a Thorny rock, hoping to force it into it with the next wave incoming. However a bad coinflip puts Luis at risk and without Swap, we need Gage's ranged heals to prevent the waves crushing him this round. A barrage of Molars and lobbed shots finishes off the sentient water closet - but not before it washes the Paper Mask off Luis - and the remaining Dib is tossed aside before it can flee.

Gage levels up, and we choose extra STR, to improve the healing rate of her basic attack. The full heal is also quite useful, as right now she can only heal by consuming the Cat Food we looted from the Kittens.


As the Flushmater killed the Turkey before we got to it, we only recover a Rocket Launcher from that battle, and with 10 damage and
5 uses we will equip it to Luis in case we need extra damage in a pinch. We clear out the shop, acquiring Ice Cubes and a Bear Trap Mask, and Luis levels up from the rare candy. Extra DEX is chosen, as he hasn't been taking damage too unpredictably and his Abilities haven't been particularly needed this run.
The Bear trap mask is put on Havel, equaling any loss of set bonuses, and Gage takes the Ice Cubes in case rendering a teammate invulnerable for a turn is required.

After the shop we encounter a number of ranged enemies, and a harpoon trap, while the Pile to the east can generate weak foes our focus is on taking the birds while keeping the Fetuses from healing too much. We use Luis' Dump to disarm the harpoon trap, while ensuring the pigeon can't escape. Eventually the living poops somehow bleed to death, and the fetuses go down to our ranged cats, and we move on.

It's Aslan's turn to get a stat boost, and we choose INT, who needs extra SPD when you can teleport three times in a turn?

Leaving the battle, the group also notices large amounts of bear traps set up, after Gage's accident with one they will be taking care to avoid these on the way to the boss... which is Boris, a large Seal-like creature.


We dispatch the Eagle, but the approaching boss slams Gage into yet another Bear Trap, doing heavy damage and immobilising her! Thankfully Havel is able to use Swap and Warp, provided by Aslan's Learn From Me to drop her off away from ensuring melee. Maybe I should have picked up that extra +2 CON...

As the boss racks up heavy Bleeding, Havel finally puts it out of its misery before it can knock out Gage, and receives a level up for his efforts, as CHA is useful when passing on abilities, we choose it for the final upgrade of this run. From Boris' lair we loot a Rusted Rod, some Debris, Percs, and a Hand Grenade that the eagle was coveting. Overall a significant amount of Armour and Weapons were found this run, and we are going to have to upgrade our storage to have a hope of keeping even a portion of them!


One horrifying cutscene later, we also unlock the next area along this route, The Caves, as well as the Thief collar despite Butch's terrible pickup lines. Luis goes to Butch to upgrade our storage as his abilities are not really impressive, and we clean up our storage to make sure we don't throw out some of the useful items we found in the Sewers.

[Shifter55]

Now, on to a bigger concern. The early game is quite easy right now, our experience with the game and QoL changes from patching have made it less challenging, but it's somewhat boring and the rewards are also lower on default difficulty. Unfortunately the devs have made it so you can only change it after you have cleared an entire area, in the later stages of the game, so we are going to have to do some modding...

And for that we will need Mewtator by Animandan, https://www.nexusmods.com/mewgenics/mods/1 this allows us to extract and overwrite internal files.

Just extract the relevant version, locate the game folder, and unpack the resources. Takes a while given the entire 4.9GB file have to be loaded entirely into your ram and back on to the hard drive.

So we just go into the _unpacked/data folder and open difficulties.gon in a text editor, and copy+paste so the next difficulty is the one after it. Rename the _unpacked folder and delete the unchanged files. Easy.

Then we just need to enable the mods and launch the game through Mewtator, a black cursor from the provided example mod indicates they loaded successfully, but we'll have to do another adventure to see first... and just sending a stray cat to check and abandoning the adventure should do it!

And Milka here shows that yes, the tougher versions of foes are spawning in, look at the size of that Pooter... but it's time to try for Disorder acquisition.

[Shifter55]

Now, we take several days to get Chernobyl to pass on Insomnia, but it doesn't seem to be happening. However, someone else showed up at our door with an important Ability: Forbidden Fart. With the disorder consequence of Forbidden abilities, Piaf here will be the start of a crucial way to introducing disorders into our teams.

Another day passes, and finally we get our first hygiene disorder! Gage contracts Necrosis from all of the poop in the ground floor on the house. Sernik also ends up our first casualty of the fights this poop buildup causes, and he goes to upgrade our zombie friend.


But it's time to build up some disorders with Piaf! She gets the Cleric collar, while Chirya, Simon, and Isabelle get the Mage, Tank, and Thief collars respectively.

After our first fight in the Alley, Piaf levels up, and we take Cleanse as the friendly fire from Forbidden Fart was dealing a surprising amount of poison to our cats. But more importantly we get two disorders on Piaf: Anemia and Necrosis. This isn't really a good combination, due to Necrosis dealing CON debuffs when damage is taken, and the low chance of Anemia causing bleed status when hit, so we'll try to reroll next battle with the Ability.


After the battle Chirya also comes across a devil, given the high risk of being killed by one option, we choose to lose the 10HP and heal it back next fight. And interestingly, we get an item that will help us do just that! My Shadow!

Next fight we task the cats on mustering as much healing as possible, and with Simon using Bodyguard, the party is unlikely to get knocked down by any of the foes present here, even the Tom Tom is staying in it's patch of grass.

After the battle, Simon levels up and we choose Steam Roller, as his many thorns will make that even more painful for foes. Piaf rerolls with Fart and gets Depression, which still isn't quite what we want, especially on a cat that spends most of her time next to allies. We are also joined by a Kitten, who seems quite relieved to not wear a clown nose any more...

The miniboss is Fenrir this time, and the effects of the difficulty increase are very apparent now, he's crackling with electricity! Unfortunately that does not save him from the mostly ranged party we have. An egg Simon was carrying also hatches, giving us a tame fetus to also fight the boss with. The poison from Forbidden Fart easily dispatches Fenrir, dealing damage every turn taken.

Chirya levels up this time, and we choose... Wall of Fire, as we are going to the Caves, where a wide AOE of a little burn will be useful. Piaf's disorder reroll this time gives us Kamikaze, a result we very explicitly banned from allowing this Letsplay, so we need to make sure to remove that!

Choosing the hard path, our next battle is against a group of large rats hiding in trash. With their high HP and ability to damage surrounding units, this is the biggest threat we have found so far. We take our time dispatching them, though they kill our fetus. The rest of or team goes for the coins dropped in the area, as Piaf keeps farting to reroll her disorders.


Isabelle levels up after this, and we choose Sneak Up to go with her passive ability, granting her an easy way to backstab twice in a row. We also manage to loot a Car Battery, Infamous Mask, and Barbed Paw. The latter two go on Isabelle and Simon respectively, improving their defense. This time Piaf has rolled Borrowed Time and Depression, another poor result as they work against each other.

The 2nd hard path battle gives us this utterly soupy Water Kitten playing with flies in a swamp, and... an approaching group of regular kittens, but something's off about the largest one. We don't get to find out as the cats finish the battle quickly to avoid Dooming Piaf.

Isabelle levels up this time, and we choose Shakedown to increase the money and healing we get from fights. The Dove was wearing a Tie Dye Bandana, which Piaf chooses to wear as a trophy. At the shop we buy a Brain- and Rare Candy, and Chirya levels up, we choose Splash Damage in hopes their current ability will also boost that damage.

Approaching the boss we find them... covered in oil. And Piaf is still Doomed, so we are going to have to finish fast if we can't clear that disorder. Chirya heals Isabelle and we confirm that Splash Damage is boosted by Resonance, but somehow the oil spreads to  Chirya! Luckily our Korbee ally makes short work of the rat bombs, avoiding getting Tarred in the process.



The vacuum fetus continues to keep the field bomb-free while Isabelle and Simon finish off the rat, Steamroll doing enormous damage with all the thorns Simon has. Naturally, he also levels up and we choose Thunder Thighs for even more contact damage opportunities. After the battle, we find a Glowing Coin, which we give to Chirya, and see Piaf has rerolled into PTSD and Anemia, which is a satisfying combo to stop on.

Now in the Sewers, these Gusher Fetuses might pose a problem, as they could set up with that rock in the northwest and cut off ways to approach them. Fortunately they move to the south, allowing us to divide up the group of foes.



Piaf levels up, and we choose Breath of Life to try to alleviate the risks to our Fetus and in the Caves. We also collect a Slimy Necklace, which, we might swap on to Isabelle during the boss fight, given Boris relies on movement to be a threat. We also find a helpful zombie, selling ailments! Chirya contracts Necrosis, which might be a problem later on...

Our second battle seems to be some kind of checkpoint staffed by Gassies and Piles, smartly the lead foe covers their ass, to avoid getting backstabbed immediately by Isabelle, but it doesn't save the soul-linked ones in the back from taking the fall. As the fight finishes, we notice Chirya heals very little due to the stat decreases of Necrosis.


Piaf levels up, and we choose +2 INT, ideally we will have 10 by the time we finish the Sewers. We also find a a Big Stick and a Hot Coal, zealously kept dry by the Gassies, this may prove useful if we get some offensive fire abilities next run, but not here! Isabelle swaps her Ice Cube for the stick and we move onwards.

The miniboss this time is two Flushmasters, given our fetus escort and low HP party members, this may be a problem...

We do our best to minimise damage from the paired waves, but neither Chirya or the surviving fetuses are looking too good. Thankfully only one fetus succumbs and we are able prevent futher damage.



Simon levels up, and we predictably go with +2 CON, it's not like he needs more STR with all those thorns! We loot a Slimy Hat and Nail Gun, which we will be equipping to Chirya to stud Simon for escalating thorn damage in between heals. The shop does not really have anything interesting for sale, but we take the Rare Candy at least. Chirya levels up and we choose +2 INT for the option to cast her two ranged spells twice a turn, or at least once with a bad coinflip.

Along the hard Sewers route, we encounter a Fetus with a rather unusual trait, drying out and setting fire to water it comes across. While we heal up our Korbees, Isabelle cleans up the water spitters.

She levels up from doing this, and we choose +2 INT again for extra ability casts.


We also find out the Fetuses were protecting some Cat Food in an Old Shoe, and more importantly, a Furniture Box! Being able to improve the comfort of our house should make the long waits for disorders to show up more worthwhile, and importantly, less violent. Noticing the flow in the canals is picking up, and water is leaking from above, is it possible it will flood due to the change in weather?

In either case, the leaking drops gave away this Gassy, given it's elite buff was bouncing the water off it's fur. Not the best idea to stand in front of a spikey rock like that, though, Simon inflicts heavy damage to it, and it finally meets it's end ramming into a seperate spikey rock. Once it is gone the rest are easily cleaned up, with Chirya's healing spell supporting the fetuses against the two leeches on the western side.


Simon levels up afterwards, and we have some amazing choices here... I'm going with Fissure as it will allow for even more Trample offense. Sadly those Rocks don't look tasty enough, and Piaf scoops them up for throwing.

Fortunately, the rain should snuff any fires and burn that Boris sets, but we can't find a place to move Simon without trampling our party... Thankfully, Isabelle moves to contain the beast, exploiting her Slimey necklace.

Using the Glowing Coin, we max out Chirya's mana, before placing her so Simon will swap with the nearby Fetus using Bodyguard, in an attempt to squeeze more damage out of his thorns. Sadly it doesn't work... and she goes down when Boris retaliates!

And she's in a bad spot, these water flows will smash her to paste if we don't get a Korbee to move her. Sadly with the nearest Korbee near death, it's going to be close. Unfortunately that Korbee dies to Boris' lunge, and we have to rely on our last one to get Chirya near Piaf. Unfortunately it spits her body directly into the boss! What a way to go...


Isabelle levels up, and we choose Time Walk, as the extra turn will make up for the cost of the mana spent by increasing how much is generated per Round. We also loot a Roast Chicken and a Mama Leech, but without Chirya, the leech will have to go on Simon, and we've lost our primary way to keep our fetuses healthy and a lot of utility options!


Reflecting on what we did to lose Chirya to Boris, it was keeping her close to the other cats to use her attack, when Simon and Isabelle mostly had it handled. So that's a lesson to choose how you are going to set up your formation before you start a fight, if we had moved Chirya and the Fetuses to the north we could have avoided damage either while still allowing her to rain attack abilities on Boris. Because Piaf has PTSD, we don't have a reliable source of healing any more, and I was hoping to use the Burn from Wall of Fire in the Caves to make up for our lack of ways to handle the Boss' status effects, so this next area is going to be much more difficult than expected.



In our first Caves fight, my plan is to use bodyguard to see how well leech summoning fits into our group, and we are facing spiders and a high mobility enemy that is going to cause a lot of problems for our Fetuses. Unfortunately we don't see the fetus before Simon walks over it, and then we get surprised by a Toadie camoulaged as a rock. Given the location of the scenery, hidden Toadies may be a serious issue as they interrupt movement and scare our cats. Thankfully Simon and Isabelle can handle it, but I'm not liking how much damage Simon takes in the process.


Piaf levels up, and we choose Adoubment for a reliable way to heal Simon as he warps around the field. We also learn that this is a weed cave!

Next battle some Brain Drains and Bats ambush us, and those bats are a serious problem - the confusion status makes it hard to use abilities and due to facing away from the bat Isabelle is at risk of being downed due to the extra backstab damage! Simon dispatches it easily, but there's a chance the Brain Drains will down Isabelle in return. Our cats take out the foe, but not before Isabelle and Piaf lose a fair amount of HP...



Piaf levels up, and this time it's to upgrade an ability, we choose Adoubment again for make it more efficient at healing. We also find a new cat! He offers us a Clover, a Neverstone, and a Vibrating Meteorite, and we kit him out. That meteorite could come in handy if it's clear we are struggling enough to make the boss a loss...



For the midboss we are facing a Big Slime and... it's adsorbent, that's bad. Owen is not likely to survive this fight, as he has no way of spending his mana and will take 5 damage a round. Isabelle and Simon move to engage it, using the nearby Boulder to cut its health by a third.

Unfortunately it charges across the room to try to hit Piaf, but Bodyguard saves her, we encounter another issue, this fetus has more than enough mana to die to the elite buff. Owen freezes the Slime in an attempt to avoid the mana adsorb damage, but it still hits him and breaks hes Rock Hat. Isabelle backstabs the slime twice, neatly dividing it into quarters.

As Piaf's courage fails her, we now have to pull Isabelle out of the battle, and fortunately this one slime here is unable to move, preventing her from dying to it this round. From there cleanup of the other slimes goes quickly. We use Owen's Step to take the food in the water, which heals enough to keep him alive even with the mana damage.

Isabelle does succumb to the elite buff taking her last hitpoint, but after that, the battle is finished.


Owen levels up, and we choose Soul Reap, to get the most out of his trait at the start of a battle. We also get some Rhinestones, which we immediately bedazzle him with. At the shop there isn't much available, but we take the Twine Hat to replace Owen's rock.
Isabelle also levels up, and we choose Stack the Deck+ to force the bloody coin to always give extra attacks.

In our next battle we'll focus on extending the battle to heal our cats up, but first, Simon deals with these Ten Tickles. With the party relatively healthy we move on.


Simon levels up, and we upgrade Bodyguard for the shield benefits (which we didn't take the right screenshot for, damn). We also find another Brain Candy and a Roll of Pennies.


Time for the final battle though! I switch the Neverstone on Owen for the meteorite, which immediately fuses with his fur like a piece of gum, and equip Piaf and Simon with Brain Candy. This should give them enough stats to make it through the battle, though we are going to have to be careful with Isabelle.

For our opening move we cluster the cats around Piaf for healing and to buff Isabelle, as the boss is Sticky we are going to have to clear that often.

Using Bodyguard we are able to keep the cats relatively safe through the fight, even with Spinnerette enraged to stop her from escaping to the roof of the cave, but 5 rounds in and only a quarter of the way through her health means this is going to be a fight of endurance...

Unfortunately she manages to down Piaf after a bad swap, so we'll have to take the the debuffs raw now, and I'm worried she'll do the same for Owen soon, with the tar buildup affecting the turn order. So we use the Ice Cube to set her back a turn.

We lose another cat, and it's Isabelle this time!, sadly there wasn't any way for her to avoid getting eaten with the excessive tar stacks. Normally bodyguard would save her but Simon was webbed! Sadly our ability to move is severely hampered, so we are going to have to let her go to the cieling and run the clock out with the massive bleed she took from Simon...

With our luck, it figures that one of her young biting Simon would have her come down right on top of Piaf, there goes our chance at taking the disorders back home... and we make it just barely, using confusion statuses.

Simon levels up, but that was not a very productive run, we choose to upgrade Thorns. If not for Piaf falling first, we probably could have avoided the long battle here... this is showing the weaknesses of Bodyguard, as it is impeded by immobilising statuses and shuffles cats into positions that might not be good if activated multiple times a round.


Coming across a wall of meat, and low on HP, Owen takes the chance to feast on a live meal before we return to the house, and gains a mutation! It provides a bit of extra CON in return for reducing CHA, a good deal in the early game.

However, we failed our objective of bringing back cats with Disorders. There's two decisions that resulted in this failure: Taking the cats into the Caves when we had a furniture box and useful Disorders, and also bringing a cat with unlimited range into reach of the enemy when they weren't really needed for the fight. The latter cost us our source of burn too, which would have prevented both the webbed and tar statuses from interfering with our tactics. So next time, we're going to want to retreat as soon as our plan develops a gap in it, or when we have secured any Disorders.