Consume Me Review

Consume Me is difficult to pin down and describe, in a way that can only be true of a game that is deeply personal and honest. On the face of it, it’s a narrative game that is composed mainly of a series of quirky, charming, and sometimes deviously frustrating mini games. Digging deeper, it’s actually a simulation game about managing the many pressures and expectations of life as a young woman. Vibes-wise, it delivers a raw and genuine personal confessional that feels reminiscent of the bygone MySpace and Xanga days. In reality, Consume Me is all of those things and more. 

Consume Me was developed by an ensemble cast of creatives: Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, and Ken “coda” Snyder. This disarmingly adorable game follows the semi-autobiographical tale of Jenny’s adolescence and young adulthood, as she faces up to the expectations of her peers, parents, teachers, boyfriend, but especially her own. The gameplay revolves around Jenny’s to-do list, with a revolving door of tasks and goals that offer a window into her priorities and the expectations she feels she must live up to in order to be deserving of success, love and friendship. Each chapter opens with the setting of a new list of to-do’s, with the help of Jenny’s own reflection in the mirror, who regularly berates and belittles her for not living up to the world’s standards.

Consume Me in Action

Now is a good time to mention that one of the core goals that players must achieve each chapter is to manage Jenny’s physical figure through a series of restrictive dieting and exercise routines. The developers are very upfront about this and include a thoughtfully worded content warning at the beginning of the game. Personally, as someone who has struggled with my relationship to food and exercise in the past, I can absolutely see how this game could be potentially triggering to someone actively or formerly struggling with disordered eating. That said, the game design presents these topics in a sensitive way, by never displaying any numerical weights during Jenny’s weigh-ins and by replacing numerical calorie values with an invented stand-in called “bites.”

Each chapter, players get a new to-do list that aligns with a specific milestone in Jenny’s life, be it an academic goal, a significant relationship event, or some combination thereof. During each day leading up to the day of reckoning, players help her accomplish her tasks and inch closer to her goals through a series of minigames. Will she spend her free time by studying for her biology test or exercising to burn off some of the excess bites she ate at lunch? How will she balance her need to save money to visit her boyfriend with buying makeup to achieve her goal of practicing to get her look just right? 

Snack-sized gameplay experiences

The minigames are generally all very easy to play (many only require one button) but unexpectedly difficult to get good at. Exercising, for example, requires trying to guide a stretchy, rag-doll Jenny into various poses while what feels like the shortest countdown timer in the world ticks down. Reading requires a single tap to try to orient her constantly swiveling head towards her randomly rotating book. They sound easy, but are delightfully devious in their difficulty.

Every minigame impacts at least one of Jenny’s stats, which must be carefully managed so that she doesn’t, well, completely crash out by the end of the chapter. Her stats include: mood (which represents happiness or at very least mental stability, which felt relatable), energy (which is self explanatory) and guts (which presumably represents fullness or feeling nurtured through food).

Trying to balance accomplishing Jenny’s goals with trying to keep her in a good enough mental state to proceed felt like a zero sum task most of the time, which I think is the whole point. Walking the dog would burn bites and boost her mood, but spend energy. Drinking an energy drink to build that back up would add to her bite count. Studying for an exam would tank her mood, but doing anything to boost her mood would waste valuable time. The anxiety set in and that all-too-relatable feeling of never quite being able to measure up started to creep into both Jenny’s subconscious and my own.

It gives context to the fictional Jenny’s struggles and shows that the antidote to a highly regimented life slowly falling into shambles doesn’t involve more organization or tidiness. Instead, the solution for real life Jenny was an equally challenging and uncomfortable, but far more fulfilling journey full of twists and turns and plenty of authenticity, vulnerability, some second-guessing, and a lot of courage.

An all-too-relatable uphill battle

Consume Me served up an incredibly accurate analogue to my actual young adulthood, which I didn’t fully realize until I reached a cutscene between Jenny and her boyfriend where he expresses concern that she’s bending over backwards to achieve these goals, just to earn his love. He’ll still be there for her, he says, even if she doesn’t stay thin or if she isn’t able to call him at least once every other day. The conversation had me tearing up and I realized how much of the anxiety I had imagined for Jenny was actually building up inside me.

Without realizing it, I had started to obsess a little over optimizing my minigame choices and gameplay, which becomes increasingly insurmountable over the course of the story. If she could just achieve enough, if she could succeed at her goals and meet everyone’s expectations (real or otherwise), then just maybe she would be ok. Maybe she would be worthy of good things and could finally breathe. Uh oh, this minigame-based narrative adventure just got too real.

The emotional impact of Consume Me is undeniable. Sadly, there still aren’t many games out there that offer such an authentic and relatable window into the modern adolescent girl experience. In addition to accurately conveying the ever-rising tides of stress that come from constantly feeling like you’re falling short of unreachable expectations, I think the game also correctly identifies the source of all that pressure, in a smart and nuanced way.

Consume Me Trailer

Through Jenny’s relationships with her friends, boyfriend, and mother, we see that it’s not all just in Jenny’s head (but some of it is). Bit by bit, we see the seeds of self doubt that get planted over time, stemming from jealous friends, hypercritical parents, and out-of-touch teachers. But we also see how Jenny picks up and carries the torch of those great expectations, which in turn can cause her to hurt those around her.

If the narrative struggles at all, it’s only in its attempt to bridge a tightly packaged fictional story with a messy and nuanced, but beautiful real life “happily ever after.” The transition between art and biography stutters just a little bit, which I get the sense was also felt by the development team in making the game. Even so, I absolutely loved the inclusion of details and artifacts from Jenny Jiao Hsia’s actual personal journey.

It gives context to the fictional Jenny’s struggles and shows that the antidote to a highly regimented life slowly falling into shambles doesn’t involve more organization or tidiness. Instead, the solution for real life Jenny was an equally challenging and uncomfortable, but far more fulfilling journey full of twists and turns and plenty of authenticity, vulnerability, some second-guessing, and a lot of courage. In my opinion, especially amid the uncertain times we’re currently living through, there’s no better life lesson to be learned. If you have a teenage daughter, know someone who was once a teenage girl, or were one yourself once upon a time, I implore you to play this game.

Emily was provided with a review key of Consume Me by popagenda

About No Small Games

No Small Games is an indie game recap and review podcast brought to you by hosts Kate and Emily! They became friends while streaming on Twitch and bonded over their love of indie video games. In each episode of No Small Games, the two will discuss an indie game they both played independently. They’ll compare their experiences: the good, the bad, their most memorable moments of their playthroughs.

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