“Hey remember when your parents, your friends, and society at large all conspired to make you feel ugly, lazy, stupid, and unloved despite the brilliant human spirit contained within you? No? Well, allow us to refresh your memory via the timeless medium of a slice-of-life role-playing game!”
Consume Me is a semi-autobiographical game that uses a host of repetitive-yet-difficult mini-games – emulating a mundane battle with everyday life – as Jenny wrestles with maintaining her relationship with her parents, friends and boyfriend, all the while trying to keep her grades up at school and sustain a restrictive diet and strict exercise regimen.
As Jenny’s body image becomes dangerously intertwined with her self-worth and relationship with others, Consume Me hits hard, capturing a volatile adolescence where amidst the chaos of school, parental expectations and romance is a desire to take control. All the while, the game manages a certain levity in its humour, its hand-drawn graphics and bubblegum colours.
Content warning: Consume Me depicts dieting, disordered eating, and fatphobia.
Claire Osborn-Li
Claire Osborn-Li is a writer interested in art, videogames and digital culture. She is a recent participant of the NGA's Young Writers Digital Residency and one of the guest editors of Artlink's Warltati / Summer issue of 2024. Her work has appeared on the ACMI and NGA website and in Cordite, ArtsHub, GamesHub and Memo Review. She's played many videogames but among her favourites are Mutazione (2019) and Red Dead Redemption II (2018).
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