House & Furniture Guide

Your house is the backbone of everything in Mewgenics. It determines how many cats you can keep, how well they breed, how fast they heal, and even how likely they are to develop mutations. Every room has invisible stats driven by the furniture you place in it, and understanding those stats is the difference between a thriving cattery and a chaotic mess. This guide covers everything you need to know about managing your home base.

Room Stats Explained

Every room in your house has five stats, each driven by the furniture placed inside it. Four of these are per-room stats, while Appeal is unique in being house-wide. These stats affect your cats passively between runs, so optimizing them is critical for long-term progression.

Appeal (House-Wide)

Appeal is the only stat that applies across your entire house, not just one room. It determines the quality of stray cats that show up at your door each morning. At 100+ Appeal, strays are guaranteed to have a second active ability. At 200+ Appeal, strays also come with a passive ability. Since strays always have an inbreeding coefficient of 0, high-Appeal strays are your best source of fresh genetics. Decorative furniture like paintings, rugs, shelves, and gem items boost Appeal.

Comfort (Per-Room)

Comfort governs how well your cats rest and recover, and directly affects breeding odds overnight. Higher Comfort improves healing between adventures and increases the chance cats will breed. Each cat beyond 4 in a room reduces Comfort by -1, and each pile of poop on the floor also reduces it by -1. If Comfort goes negative, breeding stops entirely and cats fight instead. Beds, cushions, and soft furnishings are the primary Comfort sources (Pot O' Potty +3, Outhouse +3, Washer/Dryer/Fireplace +2 each).

Deliberately tanking a room's Comfort triggers the "Fight Club" effect: cats in uncomfortable rooms will fight each other between runs, and winners gain random stat boosts. This is covered in the advanced section below.

Stimulation (Per-Room)

Stimulation is the most important room stat for breeding. It directly affects every inheritance probability through reverse-engineered formulas:

Stat inheritance = (1.0 + 0.01 x Stimulation) / (2.0 + 0.01 x Stimulation). This determines how likely the offspring inherits the better parent's stat. At 0 Stim it is 50/50. At 25 Stim, 55.6%. At 50 Stim, 60%. At 100 Stim, 66.7%. At 200 Stim, 75%. Note that stats are never averaged between parents; the game picks one parent's value per stat.

First active ability inheritance = 20% + 2.5% per Stimulation point. Guaranteed at Stim 32. This is your most important breakpoint.

Passive ability inheritance = 5% + 1% per Stimulation point. Guaranteed at Stim 95. This is the stretch goal.

Second active ability inheritance = 2% base, scaling slowly. Guaranteed at Stim 196, which is practically unreachable without extreme furniture stacking.

The best Stimulation furniture includes Toxic Waste Barrels (+4 Stim, -2 Comfort), Dead Rats (+3 Stim, -1 Health), Robo set pieces (+3 Stim, -1 Comfort each), and Bleach Jugs (+3 Stim, -1 Comfort, -1 Appeal). Most high-Stim furniture comes with Comfort or Appeal penalties, so you need to offset with comfort items.

Health (Per-Room)

Health boosts overnight recovery from injuries and disorders. Cats in high-Health rooms are less likely to develop disorders and recover from injuries faster. Low Health increases disorder risk. Food items (Milk Jug, Water Bottle, Potato: +1 each), Sausage (+1 Health, +1 Comfort), and Fairy in a Jar (+2 Health, +1 Comfort) are good Health boosters. Keep food bowls and litter boxes on opposite sides of the room to reduce cat stress and prevent illness.

Mutation Rate (Per-Room)

Mutation Rate increases the chance of offspring developing random mutations overnight. Mutations are powerful heritable traits that can give cats significant advantages. The best Mutation Rate furniture includes Ethereal Skull (+4 Mutation, -4 Appeal), Brain of Glorg (+4 Mutation, -4 Appeal), Ooze Canister (+2 Mutation, -1 Health, -1 Appeal), and lab equipment like Flasks and Test Tubes (+1 Mutation, -1 Comfort, -1 Appeal each). Be aware that higher Mutation Rate may also increase defect risk, so balance accordingly. Use mutation furniture in targeted bursts rather than permanently.

Room Expansion (Frank)

You start with a single room. Additional rooms are unlocked through Frank, the contractor NPC, accessed via the pipe on the left side of your house. Frank appears after your first combat expedition. The unlock milestones are based on how many cats you have retired (donated to Frank) over your entire save file:

1 retired cat: Unlocks the Attic (extra storage space).

25 retired cats: Room 2.

60 retired cats: Room 3.

100 retired cats: Room 4.

That gives you a total of 5 spaces: the starting room, 3 additional rooms, and the attic. Each room holds cats and furniture independently with its own per-room stats. This lets you specialize rooms for different purposes.

Cat Population and Food Economy

Each room has a soft cap of 4 cats. Every cat beyond 4 in a room reduces that room's Comfort by -1, which tanks breeding odds and can trigger fighting. With 4 rooms fully unlocked, your comfortable maximum is 16 cats.

Every cat consumes 1 food per day. Your house starts with a default food storage capacity of 100 units. A full house of 16 cats burns through that in about 6 days. If you miss feeding a cat for 2 days in a row, it dies. Cats left outside the house do not consume food but will eventually die if left out too long.

Buying food: Tracy's Paw-Mart sells 10 food for 5 coins.

Earning food: Combat drops (most reliable), adventure events, and breaking crates/garbage during runs.

Expanding storage: Tracy sells Food Storage Boxes for 100 coins each, adding +40 max food per box. Up to 10 boxes can be acquired for a maximum of 500 food storage. To unlock boxes, you need to donate cats aged 5+ to Tracy (181 total donations for all 10 boxes).

Do not overbreed early. Keep your population lean until you have reliable food income. It is better to have 6 well-fed, well-equipped cats than 14 starving ones.

NPC Donation System

Retired cats are not useless. Donating them to specific NPCs unlocks permanent upgrades. Each NPC accepts different types of cats:

Frank accepts any retired cat. Gives room expansions (1/25/60/100 cats for Attic/Room 2/Room 3/Room 4).

Baby Jack accepts injured cats. Expands furniture shop inventory (1/10/20/30 injured cats for 3/4/5/6 pieces per week). Each upgrade level beyond 4 also gives +1% relative chance of finding rare furniture variants.

Tracy accepts cats aged 5+. Gives food storage upgrades (Food Storage Boxes at 100 coins each, +40 max food) and blank collars. 181 total donations for all 10 boxes.

Butch accepts adventured cats in batches of 20. Gives permanent inventory space upgrades. Items not in storage are lost at end of day, so inventory space is more valuable than it sounds.

Dr. Beanies accepts mutated cats. Gives side quest items.

Tink accepts same-day-born kittens only. Gives breeding information upgrades that are critical for optimization. The unlock thresholds: 10 kittens = icon assignment, 20 = libido indicator, 30 = aggression indicator, 40 = inbreeding status, 50 = sexuality flags, 60 = base vs. bonus stat display (game-changing for breeding), 70 = family tree viewer.

Baby Jack's Furniture Shop

Baby Jack (full name: Jackie Dustin Nickel) is the furniture vendor, unlocked by obtaining any furniture piece. He appears after you clear the Cave region in Act 1. His inventory restocks every Sunday with 2 pieces per week at base level. Donating injured cats expands his stock to 3/4/5/6 pieces per week, and each upgrade level beyond 4 increases the chance of rare furniture variants appearing.

Every furniture piece has a rare alternate variant with doubled stat bonuses and unique visuals (for example, the Touched Toxic Waste Barrel gives +8 Stimulation and -4 Comfort instead of the normal +4/-2). Rare variants are the endgame of furniture optimization. Save up coins for high-impact Stimulation and Mutation Rate pieces, as these are harder to find in the wild.

Furniture Strategy

There are over 600 furniture items in Mewgenics (700+ including rare alternates), and they are not all created equal. Here are the key furniture pieces by stat, and how to think about placement:

High-Value Furniture by Stat

Stimulation: Toxic Waste Barrel (+4, -2 Comfort), Dead Rat (+3, -1 Health), Robo set pieces (+3 each, -1 Comfort each), Bleach Jug (+3, -1 Comfort, -1 Appeal), Large Easter Island Head (+3, -4 Comfort, +3 Appeal), Daruma Statue (+1, -1 Comfort, +1 Appeal).

Comfort: Pot O' Potty (+3, -1 Appeal), Outhouse (+3, -1 Appeal), Washer/Dryer/Fireplace/Shower/Bath (+2 each), Microwave/Newspapers (+1 each), Cat Bobbles (+1 Comfort, -1 Stim, +1 Appeal).

Mutation Rate: Ethereal Skull (+4, -4 Appeal), Brain of Glorg (+4, -4 Appeal), Ooze Canister (+2, -1 Health, -1 Appeal), Toxic Waste (+2, -4 Comfort), lab equipment (+1 each, -1 Comfort, -1 Appeal each), Black Box (+1).

Health: Fairy in a Jar (+2, +1 Comfort), Sausage (+1, +1 Comfort), food items like Milk Jug, Water Bottle, and Potato (+1 each).

Appeal: Small Gem (+2), Bowling Pin/Ball (+1 each). Remember Appeal is house-wide, so it does not matter which room these go in.

Placement Priorities

1. Specialize your rooms. Do not spread furniture evenly. Pick a purpose for each room and stack the relevant stat. A breeding room should maximize Stimulation above all else.

2. Hit the Stim 32 breakpoint first. The jump from 0 to 32 Stimulation takes first ability inheritance from 20% to 100%. That is the single biggest quality-of-life improvement for breeding. Stack Toxic Waste Barrels and Robo parts to get there fast.

3. Offset penalties. High-Stim furniture almost always tanks Comfort. In your breeding room, pair Toxic Waste Barrels with Pot O' Potties and Fireplaces to keep Comfort positive.

4. Clean poop regularly. Each pile on the floor is -1 Comfort. Neglect this and your carefully balanced room stats will collapse.

5. Swap furniture based on your current goal. Furniture is not permanent. If you are pushing for mutations, load up on Mutation Rate furniture temporarily. When you get what you want, swap back.

The Three-Room System

Once you unlock your third room, the community-optimized setup is the Three-Room System:

Room 1 (Breeding Suite): Max Stimulation, moderate Comfort. Keep exactly 2 cats here (the breeding pair) to avoid the Comfort penalty from overcrowding. Stack Toxic Waste Barrels for Stimulation, offset with comfort furniture. An "open hub" layout with the central area clear and interactive objects along walls reportedly increases daily breeding attempts by about 20%.

Room 2 (Recovery Ward): Max Comfort, high Health. All cats returning from adventures go here to heal. Use Totem furniture to prevent accidental breeding in this room.

Room 3 (Fight Club / Mutation Lab): Either zero Comfort (to trigger cat fights for stat boosts) or max Mutation Rate (for mutation breeding). Swap the furniture based on what you need.

When you unlock Room 4, it usually becomes a dedicated Mutation Lab, freeing Room 3 to be a permanent Fight Club.

Breeding and Genetics Deep Dive

Mewgenics uses a Mendelian genetics system with dominant and recessive alleles. Positive traits (Strong, Agile, Tough, Smart, Quick) are dominant. Negative traits (Weak, Clumsy, Frail, Dumb, Slow) are recessive, meaning carriers look normal but can pass defects to offspring. This makes Tink's base vs. bonus stat display (unlocked at 60 donated kittens) critical for identifying hidden carriers.

The 13-Step Kitten Birth Process

When a kitten is born, the game runs through these steps in order: (1) Furniture effects calculated. (2) Stats inherited using the Stimulation formula, picking one parent's value per stat (never averaged). (3) Skill Share+ passive guarantees its paired ability transfers. (4) First active ability inherited (20% + 2.5% per Stim). (5) Passive abilities inherited (5% + 1% per Stim). (6) Parental disorders: flat 15% chance each parent passes one disorder (furniture-independent). (7) Birth-defect disorder roll: 2% base + 40% per inbreeding coefficient above 0.2. (8) Birth defects check triggered if inbreeding coefficient x 1.5 exceeds random number. (9) Body parts: 80% all from parents, 20% one random part-set rerolled. (10) Symmetry enforcement for paired body parts. (11) Unknown value: 98% from parents. (12) Voice: ~98% from parents, ~2% rerolled. (13) Birth defect application: 1 pass if inbreeding <=0.9, 2 passes if higher.

Inbreeding

Each cat has an inbreeding coefficient from 0 to 1+. Strays always have 0. Breeding closely related cats increases it. The consequences scale steeply:

Birth defect disorder risk: 0.0 coefficient = 2%, 0.5 = 14%, 0.7 = 22%, 1.0 = 34%, 1.2+ = 42% (capped).

Body defect risk: 0.05 or less = 0%, 0.3 = 45%, 0.5 = 75%, 0.67+ = nearly 100%.

Introduce unrelated stray cats periodically to reset genetic kinship and avoid inbreeding spirals. Tink's inbreeding status display (unlocked at 40 donated kittens) lets you check coefficients before breeding.

Notable Disorders Worth Keeping

Not all disorders are bad. Dwarfism gives +2 DEX, +2 SPD, and +2 LCK, making it arguably better than many mutations. Tourette's Syndrome gives a 33% chance of casting a free spell each turn. If your cats develop these, consider keeping them in the breeding pool.

Advanced Tricks

The Fight Club

Strip a room of all Comfort furniture and place 2 or more cats inside. With Comfort at zero (or negative), cats will fight each other between runs. The winner gains a random stat boost. This is a reliable way to grind stats on cats you are not actively taking on adventures. The downside is potential injuries, so only use cats you can afford to have out of commission for a run or two.

Neverstone XP Funneling

The Neverstone item locks a cat at level 1. If you equip it on a cat that joins adventures but does not need to level, all XP that would go to that cat gets funneled to the other cats in your party. This is a way to power-level your carry cats quickly.

Breeding Priority Order

Start breeding for Constitution and Speed first, as these are the most impactful combat stats. Once your cats consistently hit 6+ in key stats, introduce Mutation Rate furniture to start rolling for powerful mutations. Use the Skill Share+ passive to guarantee specific ability transfers to offspring.

Food Management Tips

Keep your cat count lean in the early game. Retire cats aggressively to work toward room unlocks while keeping food costs manageable. A good early target is 4 to 6 cats: 2 breeders and 2 to 4 adventurers. Scale up only when your food income from adventures consistently exceeds your daily costs. Remember that retiring cats is permanent progress toward NPC upgrades, so it is never wasted. Prioritize Tracy donations early to unlock Food Storage Boxes and Tracy's shop.