Consume Me opens with a content warning for its depiction of disordered eating, dieting, and fatphobia for good reason. As Jenny struggles to juggle the pressures of her life as she navigates her final year of high school and applying for college, her relationship with dieting is inescapable. Far from your only task, the constant drumbeat of the diet serves to underscore how it makes everything else harder, too.
The dieting isn't just inescapable thematically, but mechanically. From slotting together Tetris-like blocks of varying calorie-like Bites, to simply balancing time spent on the likes of dating and studying with ensuring you keep up with a workout routine to keep you under your limit. Do you lose energy staying up later to both study and workout, making the next day harder? Or do you drop one by the wayside which may have different knock-on effects later? Consume Me is a pitch-perfect blend of narrative and gameplay, making it standout as one of my favorite games of the year.
