I finished Consume Me recently. I thought it was excellent. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game quite like it. It’s a semi-autobiographical recounting of a teenage girl’s experiences with dieting (and other things) in the last year of high school and first year of college.

The art style is striking–a kind of MS Paint-chic with bright colors and evocative, cartoony designs. Everything is impressionistic with frequently exaggerated (often to the point of impossible) movements. This allows the mundane tasks you’re constantly doing to feel way more fun, even after you’ve done it for the 3rd dozenth time.

The gameplay is split into two tiers. Each activity involves short minigames. They each take only a few seconds but are usually both funny and evocative of the challenge of these everyday tasks like reading, exercising, or doing laundry.

The second tier is managing your four meters: bites (kinda like calories), mood, energy, and guts (hunger plus courage). Each task may increase or decrease these meters and accomplishing your goals may take certain amounts. One of main goals is keeping your bites under a threshold, partially by trying to eat healthy, partially via exercise.

You get a certain amount of time per day (by default 2 units) to do activities. A lot of the game is about time management via various means to achieve your goals in the ~week you get per chapter.

The gameplay gives a satisfying challenge and keeps on theme. It’s not a massively mechanically rich game, but pulling off the balancing act is fun. And the style of everything does a lot for it.

It’s also uproariously funny. I lost count of how many times I laughed out loud. Jenny’s situation is specific–American of Chinese descent, living in New York City, dealing with an eating disorder–but the observations of her life feel relatable, but then again I also came of age in the early 2010s.

I really can’t recommend this enough. At the very least it feels like the most unique game I’ve played in years, but every aspect of it is just incredibly well done.