Consume Me launched in October 2025 and is by American indie game dev Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson. It covers the matter of eating disorders, which Hsia struggled with in her teen years, in a satirical and clever way.
It’s another example of indie games covering serious real world topics to create wider understanding.
As the game really places the player into difficult situations, highlighting the anxiety, depression, and guilt of the main character as she faces prejudice and peer pressure over her weight.
Dieting and Tiger Parenting in Consume Me
Righto, this launched in September 2025 and is available on Steam and macOS.
Consume Me is a quasi-autobiographical tale. Players assume the role of Jenny, an Asian-American high school student who sets her sights on losing weight. This is after she’s monstered by her mother into feeling guilty.
Jenny accepts she could do with losing a few pounds, so sets herself a schedule and begins the process. This is where the player enters the fray. You’re tasking with guiding Jenny’s life, which includes:
- Organising her meals
- Exercising
- Reading
- Doing chores (to please her mother)
- Studying
- Sleeping
- Walking the dog
- Trying not to snack
Each task is broken down into a fun little mini-game (these are kind of like Wario Ware romps). As the peer pressure ramps up, so does the social satire. Jenny’s gamification of weight loss, her paranoia about her crush fancying her, and the desire to shed some pounds FAST ahead of a summer beach party.
There’s a repeating game loop, all played out with cut back and cartoonish graphics, but as the game wears on your self-confidence goes through the wringers. Your efforts try to make Jenny feel better about herself, but it doesn’t always work.
What Consume Me does extremely well is in creating the sense of social pressure and depression on Jenny. Across her weight loss journey she moves through desperate levels of sadness, self-loathing, elation, and depression. It’s almost as impactful as the desperate weight loss attempts of Sara Goldfarb in Hubert Selby Jr’s Requiem for a Dream (1978).
It’s very much the type of game you should play, rather than wanting to.
In the toxic online world of social media bullying and manosphere baiting, of fat shaming and everything else, Consume Me is a humbling and humane experience. Very much placing the psychological experience of an individual at the forefront of the game, ensuring the player feels every bit of anxiety, shame, and potential for societal redemption.
Very impressive indeed. A unique title and one that’s up for Indie Game of the Year at the 2025 Game of the Year Awards.
Jenny Jiao Hsia: When a Non-Gamer Makes a Video Game
See, now this is why we love indie games. Jenny Jiao Hsia dropped out of her medical studies and turned her creative attentions to video games. Once taught about the potential for the independent gaming side of the market, she realised just how far her creativity could go.
Her first game was Beglitched in 2016. She then created a batch of similar mini-game/puzzle game type experiences, such as Wobble Yoga, Morning Makeup Madness, and chat with me (a long-distance dating sim jaunt).
This is common with indie devs. We look up their development history and there’ll be a batch of titles that fell into obscurity, before suddenly they land on a golden idea and it becomes an indie darling.
The market is packed with releases these days (literally every day), but the occasional hit does emerge. Consume Me has had a wealth of attention, such as with The Guardian giving it a 5/5 review (anything but empty calories) and word of mouth has spread it further.
Now that it’s up for Indie Game of the Year at the GOTY Awards (ostensibly the Oscars of the gaming world) it’ll have a surge in sales. Good! As it’s a teachable moment for many people. And a fine example of how gaming can educate, be intriguing, and entertain in thoughtful ways.
