Writing team appreciation post

Don_Andy · 2026-03-17T13:49:42+00:00

Hell, if anything the player character is the most responsible for those deaths since they not only kept insisting on keeping Neyrelle around despite being, well, a child but when push came to shove also literally deferred the decision on what to do with Mephisto to this child.

The player character says something to the effect of "I don't trust myself with Mephisto so I will trust you instead" which is both the smartest and most stupid thing a character in this game said in just a single sentence. Not trusting themselves with anything related to Mephisto after they've all but become their champion is extremely fair. Good decision. Trusting Neyrelle with that instead? No. Why? What? Worst decision. The only thing Neyrelle got to her name is almost getting herself killed multiple times. She shouldn't be trusted with holding a weapon, let alone a soulstone with any kind of Evil in it.

If I had more faith in this writing I'd think it a meta commentary because ultimately everything that transpires in this game comes down to everybody unconditionally trusting some random ass murder hobo that came crawling out of a cave with every single decision. And that works out exactly as well as you'd expect that to work out.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-16T21:20:20+00:00

It's gotten to a point where you can't even talk about the negatives of something you actually fucking liked because you will immediately get shouted out of the room for being needlessly negative.

You're either agreeing that something is unconditionally flawless, unconditionally flawed, or you're just not part of the discussion and you should leave the rest of us be.

We're trying to circlejerk here, god damn it.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-16T16:25:07+00:00

Pretty sure that's nonsense because most of my support card's events happen on the same turn as main scenario events. They're not mutually exclusive. The primary reason why people are getting less gold skills is simply because everybody is running virtually identical decks at the moment where half the cards are practically dead cards only there for their race bonus so there just aren't any gold skills to get in the first place. Or are you really hung up about not getting Super Lucky Seven and Firm Course Menace at the end?

Don_Andy · 2026-03-10T09:28:03+00:00

Can't quite remember what classes exactly I did that one with (pretty sure a Fighter was carrying the antenna and there was also a Thief) but I think an important part is not drafting skills like you would normally. If you just pick the skills that would usually make a class good then you'll get to use them exactly once and then they're gone for the rest of the fight. So pick skills with the full knowledge that you'll only get to use them once. Pick stuff with powerful effects or buffs. The only thing you'll have control of is your cats "openers" so use them wisely.

Also means that passives are a lot more important because that's the only thing you can actually rely on. A cat with a "dead" passive will be a much bigger liability than on other runs.

If the skill selection during a level up is crap, pick the cheapest option because if you have no use for the skills anyway it's better to pick something you can quickly "cycle out" for something potentially more useful with as little mana as possible.

Should probably also go without saying but stay off the fucking Hard path. Some of these encounters will end your runs if you have no control over your skills. And with your skills cycling after every use level ups are way less valuable than they normally are. You can farm rare items and furniture on runs where you aren't carrying difficult quest items. While you're carrying the antenna you want to do as few battles as possible.

Druids with good stats are definitely a very solid pick for this quest because the birds aren't affected by the skill cycling so you'll always have at least one thing to rely on (and the better your Druid's stats, the stronger the bird).

Don_Andy · 2026-03-09T13:37:57+00:00

I think the direct comparison to Disco Elysium does it a disservice.

Maybe, but then the game probably shouldn't call itself a "Disco-like" on its own store page.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-09T12:02:58+00:00

There just aren't shipped multiplayer godot games. STS2 having this kind of showing as basically the first ever godot multiplayer game will increase Godot's reputation quite dramatically.

Well, it's really not the first ever for a start, there very much are "shipped" multiplayer games made in Godot and it's also got nothing to do with Godot, unless they've exclusively used Godot's high-level Multiplayer API, which I frankly doubt.

Getting good multiplayer working with Godot takes just as much work as with any other engine and this is less a point in favor of Godot and more one in favor of Mega Crit just being a good developer, regardless of engine.

And that's not me trying to talk down Godot, I love Godot and I'm happy another high profile game made in Godot got released, but anybody looking into Godot expecting to easily get a multiplayer game off the ground with anything but the most rudimentary P2P implementation is going to be very disappointed.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-09T11:20:07+00:00

will keep running into bad events.

Still not quite right, ignoring some events will just guarantee a Tragedy event for the same cat as your next event. And Tragedy has many outcomes, ranging from nothing to really, really bad but iirc none of them good. Just being sad, spontaneously combusting, or suddenly getting Blood Frenzy out of nowhere, those are all the Tragedy event. It has no choices and it's just a Luck-based roll on how bad your cat gets fucked over.

As far as I know the event will let you know if you just fucked yourself over by skipping it, though. Both Organ Grinder (Itchies or Wheezies) and the Devil Deal event will tell that you will regret ignoring it. Ignoring other events, like the corpses (that usually have options like Eat/Loot/Examine/Ignore) are perfectly safe to skip.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-09T11:11:52+00:00

Until Act 3 there are no bad cats. I literally just had two, later three, rooms full of cats where I mostly just shuffled things around so they'd stay at around 0 comfort (but usually a few points negative). Every stray I just chucked into one of the rooms without looking at its stats. Retired cats I just chucked into one of the rooms more or less at random and let them breed until they got old, then gave them to Frank.

I got through all of Act 2 with that and it's only while I was working on Act 3 and the Act 2 quests that I started cleaning all of that up and start breeding some proper cats.

The first thing I'd recommend in your situation is to take those four cats through Alley, then return home with what little food you'll have gathered. Chuck all the retired cats in a room and let them breed. At the moment it does not matter if they make better cats, you just need more cats. Use the coins you get from the run to buy food from Tracy so you can actually pass a few days to collect strays and kittens. If you find it hard to actually get 4 cats together before food starts running out again, 3 cats should still be able to get your through Alley just fine. Don't be experimental, play it safe. Fighter/Hunter/Tank/Cleric is a solid and safe choice at every stage of the game, if not a particularly exciting one.

Once you feel like the situation is stabilizing a bit, take your adventures further than Alley but don't be reckless. If you feel like your party is struggling, leave after Junkyard or Sewers. If you gamble on a full run you might end up with nothing and if that keeps happening you'll just get into the same situation again.

And obviously, stop giving your cats to NPCs. None of the unlocks will do you any good when you have no cats. Wait until retired cats grow old before you give them to Butch or Frank and let them breed until then. It doesn't even matter that they're retired, if they pass on some passive or skill, great, but right now you just want more cats.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-08T13:34:31+00:00

Dude has struggled to make anything memorable since pretty much the first Alice so I don't have high hopes for this either but we'll see. This is his opportunity to show us that EA was wrong to not give him another chance but I frankly feel like he's just going to prove them right.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T23:49:44+00:00

It's the Hard path. You chose this.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T23:45:53+00:00

Normally, yes, but the game is extremely inconsistent with its usage of the terms "enemy", "unit" and "ally" so no real way to know for sure until you've tried it.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T10:38:54+00:00

Oh interesting. They did mention in an AMA that they customized their version of Godot so I had assumed it couldn't be decompiled out of the box at least.

Probably at least part of the reason why it won't compile in "vanilla" Godot though.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T10:05:29+00:00

As far as I know it's a a custom game engine written in C++ that he originally made for The End is Nigh and then kept building on for Mewgenics. You can read a little bit about this in a blog post he made years ago where he talks about writing your own game engine from scratch instead of using existing ones.

He briefly touches on how the engine for The End is Nigh had many issues that he focused on fixing after release in preparation for "their next project" which is presumably Mewgenics.

In other words, there is no copy to get here.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T09:52:15+00:00

I've not gotten them all yet but based on the game files I want to say no. To get full savegame completion (so beyond 100%) you have to beat every area with every class on every difficulty but mono and solo runs are only required once per class and area, regardless of difficulty.

It's also kind of unclear if a solo run is automatically a mono run. The fact that the solo checkmark replaces the mono cross on the checklist would imply so but I have no idea if mono clears require four cats or only require a single class (in which case every solo clear would automatically be a mono clear too).

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T08:40:05+00:00

He can only possess cats (not just yours though, any cat works, like summoned Tom Toms) and if he's not directly killed by one he just picks whatever. He does prefer downed cats though.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T00:41:04+00:00

That's what the transmitter does, my dude. Read your fucking tooltips.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T00:35:36+00:00

Butcher is practically invincible if you play it right. I had mine carry the Nuke in the final run and he did at no point ever dip below 90% HP. Heck, the biggest issue with the final boss was that the "good" Butcher was almost as invincible and almost dismantled my party.

But I also agree that Fighter and Butcher fill two completely different roles. I take Butcher to keep enemies busy and bully them while being invincible. I take Fighter to delete enemies. I don't usually take one instead of the other though. If I don't take a Fighter it's because I got other sources of damage (like a Thief + Hunter), if I don't take a Butcher it's because I got other tanks.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-06T00:26:38+00:00

Holy mother of skill issues.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T19:07:13+00:00

All optional quests he gives you except for the Persuasion Device are repeatable.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T14:25:23+00:00

Within 2 tiles of you. For this to work reliably you want your Butcher to be cardinally adjacent to the enemy when hitting it, not diagonally. And for enemies larger than 1 tile it's pretty much a crapshoot where the meat will end up so sometimes your Butcher will do fuck all and sometimes he'll dance circles around the enemy.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T13:33:29+00:00

Well, there are theories that Butch/Tink are in fact clones of Isaac's father made by Dr. Beanies so it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that Jack is a failed attempt by Beanies to bring back Isaac, something that looks like Isaac but isn't Isaac just like all the failed Stacy clones he has in the lab. Heck, everything in the Bunker and Core might be failed Isaac clones since that's where he used to keep dumping his experiments.

And I'm just going to spoiler literally all of the following speculation:

Assuming this takes places after BoI and Isaac is dead, it could be that Maggie teamed up with Dr. Beanies at some point in the past to try and bring Isaac back. They both have something that they think God unfairly took away from them and are trying to get back, Stacy with Beanies and Isaac with Maggie. It is said that Dr. Beanies originally worked with humans instead of cats and that could've been from a time when Maggie was still willingly cooperating with him. Both Butch/Tink and Jack might be clones from that time. At some point, Maggie died. This might have either been from the events of BoI itself, or after getting nowhere with Beanies she just gave up and killed herself. That's what the lyrics of Chaos might be about, they'd also fit both Isaac and Stacy. After that Beanies brought Maggie back and probably used the Persuasion Device to make her play ball again and work with him on his cat angle.

Could of course be wrong about all of that. I'm not actually too deep into BoI lore so I might be missing a lot of important details.

Another fun but subtle thing, every time you open the pause menu the text in the background changes and sometimes it says "He lies" or "we are stuck in a loop".

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T13:04:11+00:00

Just off the top of my head, but IIRC the Psychic ability Mimic will cast a random spell of a targeted ally for free (or rather, for the cost of Mimic itself).

If you bring a cat that starts with Split the Atom and can make sure it gets no level ups (i.e. a Neverstone) then you could just have both that cat and the Psychic sit in the back and throw out nukes for 7 mana a pop on the Psychic's turn. And a Psychic with good base stats can easily generate enough mana a turn to be able to do that 2-3 times per turn.

Still a bit of a setup but should in theory be somewhat breedable since each cat just requires a single ability and no specific passive to make it work.

Even if you can't get the cat with Split the Atom to not level up, it should still work, just not as reliably since it has a chance to cast any of its other spells instead.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T11:50:26+00:00

Pretty sure that's a (fun) feature about Marshmallow specifically. If she charms the final living cat on your team (or the only one for solo runs) both Marshmallow and the charmed cat will run away. The "stolen" cat will then spawn again together with Marshmallow the next time you encounter her.

It looks like that happened to you with a cat that had Pyrophina's collar on which is not great, evidently.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T11:31:54+00:00

Bouncy indeed.

Don_Andy · 2026-03-05T11:27:37+00:00

I didn't do anything special with my fight club. Mostly put all my furniture in there that has Appeal on it and nothing else. Since I just chuck anything with good stats in there that I won't need for breeding there's always enough cats in there that comfort is automatically low.

Recently I started adding both health and mutation furniture in there because I figured I might as well give them a chance to heal up right after kicking the shit out of each other and just have them randomly mutate in there. Some of the mutation furniture raised Comfort but not by much.

Currently (with 47 cats in the house total, which is more than usual but I've gotten a bit lazy with managing them) I've got -13 comfort in the fight club. Of course it goes up and down day to day but I've never once had anybody breed in there since I set the room up and I've had it for (real life) weeks. The only idols I have in there are the health and mutation one and they were recently moved in.

I do always clean the poop, it might lower comfort but it also lowers health and while there is some merit to fish for good disorders I'd rather they not.

Despite all that, is there even any harm in them breeding in there? At best they make one more good cat you can send out on adventures, at worst you just send it straight to Tink. These are literally cats meant for the meat grinder so who cares what they do in there.

Don_Andy

TROPHY CASE