This game has one of the best portrayals of disability in recent memory
Been having plenty of fun with the game over the past month (with the occasional frustration point), and I just wanted to collect my thoughts about the way disability (and chronic illness) is represented in the game.
For a game about literal eugenics, Mewgenics has a very compassionate, sensitive, and mechanically-interesting portrayal of disability, especially in the medium of video games.
Portrayals of disability in books/TV/movies/video games generally fall into a few categories. 1) disability is present but in a patently offensive way that demeans individuals with disability or falls into the "savant" trope, 2) disability is presented as something to "overcome" through personal effort, not to be lived with and accomodated, or 3) not mentioned at all.
I think Mewgenics avoids this in the way it presents disability as something that has both positives and negatives. A cat with Autism, for example, is not identical to a cat without it, but when properly accomodated can meet and even excel beyond able-bodied cats. I had a psychic with Autism who was born with Ponder, and he was one of my best cats ever. At the same time, it wasn't like he was automatically good at everything, and the game avoids the patronizing "savant" trope pretty well.
It also really plays into themes of the game, where eugenics is really portrayed in a negative light >! by you literally going against god, among other things !< . I feel good about having cats with disabilities or chronic illnesses, and was excited to find ways to accomodate those cats' weaknesses and take advantage of their strengths. I didn't find the game needing or wanting you to "correct" disability, rather the gameplay loop encouraged me to roll with it and make do with what I had. Disability is just different, with its own challenges, but which is not exclusively negative.
Overall, for a game with as juvenile humor as Mewgenics, I was pleasantly surprised by how it chose to portray a sensitive topic close to a lot of people, myself included.