The Wild World of Flash Games: “Meowcenaries” on the Move
Adult Swim’s “Meowcenaries” is a top-down action game loaded with cartoony violence and cute cats.
Before support for Adobe Flash was officially ceased in 2021, it was the delivery method for some of the wildest and most bizarre interactive games the internet has ever seen. Some creations led to amazing things. Some floundered in obscurity. Others were simply too strange to ignore. Whatever they may have have led to, these games deserve to be illuminated once more.
This time, we’re taking a look back at Adult Swim once more for a game they were more than happy to promote. As mentioned my look at another flash game hosted by the late-night network, Turbo Turbo Turbo, Adult Swim’s website was once home to a plethora of equally fun and bizarre flash games from numerous authors, be they independent creators or contracted studios. Meowcenaries firmly falls within the latter, although the company responsible for its creation may surprise you. More on that later.
For now, let’s take a look at the game itself. It’s one that Adult Swim devoted a substantial amount of attention towards, going so far as to create not one, not two, but three separate television commercials that don’t fall into their quiet, simplistic “bump” aesthetic. Instead of white text on a black background, they opted to use stock images of cats. No skimping on the budget this time around. While no official upload of these commercials can be found, an unofficial archive provided by SwimCeej on YouTube has been made available for your viewing pleasure.
Playing Meowcenaries
Meowcenaries has a fairly straightforward plot, one that heavily draws from the highly-prominent presence of cats on the internet around the time of its release. When the president is kidnapped by Evilcat and his army of malevolent Badkatz, the only solution is to send in the titular Meowcenaries in order to rescue the president and shut down Evilcat’s operations. The journey will take you to from the jungle, to the desert, to the snowy mountains, and even to the interior of a violent volcano in order to get the job done.
As for actually playing Meowcenaries, it follows a fairly simple gameplay pattern. Taking after isometric action games like Cannon Fodder, Meowcenaries sees you controlling four of the gun-toting kitties with your mouse. You’ll guide them across a sprawling map in order to accomplish a small variety of objectives, which vary depending on which mission you’re currently playing. Sometimes you’ll have to eliminate all enemies in a level. Sometimes you’ll have to blow up a set amount of enemy structures. Sometimes you’ll have to recover kidnapped soldiers, or capture specific enemy territories. You’ll occasionally find combinations of these objectives that all need to be accomplished in order to complete the mission. You can also collect cheeseburgers throughout each level to unlock special bonuses.
Unlike Cannon Fodder, however, the control you have over each of the Meowcenaries is fairly limited. They all move in a single, contiguous line that bends and shifts to accommodate obstacles, lacking any ability to control each one separately or in smaller groups. The same goes for attacking: all four Meowcenaries vaguely shoot in the direction you’re pointing at, with their most accurate attacks being reserved for the utilization of explosives. Grenades and rockets don’t come into play until a little while into the game, but they do even the playing field somewhat. They’re also the only means to more effectively damage tougher enemies and structures.
But your Meowcenaries aren’t immortal. Just as a single shot is enough to take down a single Badkat, each Meowcenary can die from a single blow. Once a Meowcenary is dead, they’re gone for good. Upon a completing a level without a full party of Meowcenaries, you’re given the option to press on without them, or to retry the level to keep them all alive. Should you go with the former, those who survived will have gained more experience, making them more competent at fighting things. Those who have died will be forever immortalized underneath your current roster.
It should amount to a game that’s fairly simple to play, if not a little repetitive: the perfect example of a time-killer that you pickup and drop at a moment’s notice. But there are a few problems.
An (Overly) Ambitious Shooter
There’s a shocking amount of content in Meowcenaries. Giant levels, lots of enemies packed into every corner, unique boss fights, it all amounts to a game that doesn’t skimp on what it has to offer — especially when you remember that it was available for free. That said, it presents an issue.
Having a lot to do means large levels, and by no exaggeration, these levels are pretty large for what you’ll be doing. Though you have a map, which is dynamically updated with your current position, you’ll inevitably end up having to snake your Meowcenaries across the level to nab different objectives, sometimes having to scour and sprawl across the entire map to do so. Limited explosives also means you’ll be saving them for larger enemies more often than not, as they’re often the only means of actually dealing damage to them.
Technical performance in flash games does occasionally come up from time to time, and it’s especially noteworthy in Meowcenaries. In short: it’s not great. Near-constant stuttering, assets that occasionally suffer from animation sputters or simply drift out of existence, and an overall sense of choppiness throughout makes wandering through the gargantuan levels a chore at points. It also makes the level of precision and reaction times needed to keep your Meowcenaries alive occasionally frustrating. With how often sprites will seemingly clip in and out of existence, having one of your Meowcenaries die due to something out of your control is pretty obnoxious.
Outside of these issues, the presentation is endearing at least. Simple but cute artwork provides a funny contrast against the wanton violence and destruction, and the irreverent utilization of “leetspeak” that firmly dates the game in the late 2000s all makes for a charming time. Enemy variety is also appreciated, with the numerous themes that tie specific levels together having their respective enemies donning appropriate clothing and weaponry. There’s clearly a lot of effort put into the game’s visual design here.
Who Made Meowcenaries?
It was more surprising than usual to discover who developed Meowcenaries for Adult Swim. As mentioned previously, this was a contracted studio that had a history of developing flash games for hire. What you might not expect, however, was that Mediatonic developed this particular title.
Yes, the very same Mediatonic behind Fall Guys and, to a less-popular extent, Murder by Numbers, originally started life as a work-for-hire studio that specialized in flash games. Adult Swim was just one of numerous partners that the studio worked for, collaborating with PopCap to translate their existing games into flash while also developing smaller projects for Big Fish Games, Bandai Namco, and even Lego at one point.
Meowcenaries would be one of a handful of games Mediatonic produced for Adult Swim, being one of their most publicly advertised but certainly not their most popular overall. That distinction would have to go to the illustrious Amateur Surgeon franchise, a series of challenging surgery-themed games that were published both online and on iOS from 2008 all the way to 2013. It’s certainly an impressive legacy, considering those games were once a flagship property for Adult Swim’s game lineup.
The success of their contract work would eventually allow Mediatonic to take on more projects, not only growing as a company but also expanding their output to the world of publishing in addition to developing wholly original games. Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess, 1000 Tiny Claws, and Hatoful Boyfriend would come out as full commercial games in the coming years, with their contract work continuing up until the release of their latest success: Fall Guys, which came out during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s become their most successful title to date, selling over 10 million copies on PC (per PC Gamer) prior to their acquisition by Epic Games in 2021. Shortly thereafter, they would transition to a free-to-play model. Even after a round of layoffs that struck the studio throughout 2023, development and continuous patches are still on the cards for Mediatonic’s most popular current property.
Mediatonic’s proven track record in the world of flash allowed them to blossom into a well-respected studio that really took off with Fall Guys, cementing their place in the history of the medium during a particularly volatile point in history. While Meowcenaries isn’t necessarily the greatest flash game ever made, its a game whose repetitiveness and annoyances can be assuaged by playing it in short bursts — much like you would when flash games were a staple of boring days at the computer desk.