Mewgenics players complained the tutorial boss was too hard, so the devs made it 20 times stronger

One of the most anticipated roguelikes of 2026, Mewgenics, might also be one of the meanest – developers Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel responded to players' complaints about a difficult tutorial boss, just not in the way anyone expected.

Glaiel, who previously collaborated with McMillen on cult-hit games like The End is Nigh back in 2017, shared the story in a February 19 post on Twitter. He framed it as a "fun little tidbit about the Mewgenics tutorial" before telling a tale full of caprice and malice.

Glaiel recalls:

First iteration of the tutorial had Pebbles' Boulder Drop do 50 damage. There was usually a visceral negative reaction to this, "that seems unfair".

In response to the complaints, Glaiel helped turn Pebbles into an even bigger rock monster.

Changing it to 999 fixed the problem entirely as that reads as "scripted death".

In its current form, the boss fight is guaranteed to obliterate one of your kitty characters with the unavoidable Boulder Drop attack. Though after Pebbles unleashes the big rock, your surviving cat still has a chance to fight back and revive its fallen friend.

In that sense, McMillen and Glaiel cranking up Pebbles' damage output isn't as truly evil as it sounds – it's more just plain rude to your KO'd cat. But that's the brutal nature of Mewgenics.

"It's obvious in retrospect," Glaiel adds, "but we did spend some time trying to get the number lower but still be a guaranteed kill before figuring that out."