[Pokémon Fusion is a website that allows you to combine two Pokémon to create a new Frankenstein-like Pokémon. Add a pinch of Pikachu and a spoonful of Diglett and you have Pikaretto, a yellow, earless, subterranean electric monster. Adorable!

The open-world monster-battle RPG "Cassette Beasts" seems to be strongly inspired by "Pokemon Fusion. "In Cassette Beasts, you explore New Wirral Island, encounter and fight monsters, and record them on 1980s-style and record it on an audio cassette. A very fun trailer can be seen above. [Cassette Beasts" sends your collection of monsters into turn-based battles and shows you actually transforming into them during battle, rather than piloting yourself as a bystander. You can also combine the forms of your monsters with those of your NPC companions to create new, more powerful creatures.

Cassette Beasts is being developed by Bytten Studio, the former developers of Chucklefish, who worked on Stardew Valley and Starbound. The official website already has plenty of information on the attack types (including fire, plants, water, poison, and even plastic) and the monsters themselves, including the Dandy Lion, the Mascaratl, and the fan-favorite, the adorable Pomeranian bomb Chuck, Pombon. Cute and deadly.

You can already play with the Fusion demo, which mixes the DNA of two cassette beasts to generate a third.

No word on when Cassette Beasts will be released; Bytten Studio is currently looking for funding and a publishing partner, but hopefully the "coming soon" on the Steam store page is accurate.