The One Button to Light Up Mewgenics

Main menus are boring! I wish games went past them most of the time. I like the flow of starting to play right away, without any formal clicks. When Grand Theft Auto V did it, I thought that was one thing to copycat. But even Rockstar had to succumb to the needs of Online. Then everybody started to do onboarding flows. And even these lead to main menus now, sort of negating the idea of a flow. I know, programmers will tell me a myriad reasons why main menus are there: input, scene logic, logins, syncs, loading assets, you name it. But it doesn’t make me less sad.

Mewgenics makes me happy not only with its great tactics, just enough roguelite to process, and crude humor. It has an unassuming button in the main menu that says “Meow”. I press it, and it randomly plays a voice clip from one of dozens who provided the developers samples of their copycatting. That’s it. There’s no grand design, intention, value. It’s pretty dumb. It’s something I’d implement when I have a free hour, especialy for a game that takes more than a decade to make, even if with huge breaks. I like it because it puts a smile on my face. And what else is entertainment for if not this?

In a game that is going to last me dozens of hours, clicking a button to play a random meow isn’t a waste of time. And who knows, maybe someone will uncover in many years that pressing it multiple times does affect the game in an unexpected way? But until then, I’ll advocate for games having not only features and not even Features. I’ll ask for a small thing or two anyone on the team can do because they feel like doing it. A private space in an environment that even when truly collaborative, too often doesn’t feel personal enough.