Consume Me, the winner of this year's Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival, is a remarkable indie title that blends a teenage slice-of-life tale with an energy-management challenge and a satire of diet culture. Despite its prestigious award, the game has seen underwhelming early sales and a surprising lack of reviews, highlighting ongoing issues of discoverability in the gaming industry.
Developed over a decade by Jenny Jiao Hsia and collaborators, Consume Me is a quasi-autobiographical story about an Asian American high-schooler trying to lose weight while navigating teenage life. The game involves efficient management of energy and time, with a content note warning about themes of bullying, fatphobia, and disordered eating. Yet, it remains one of 2025's funniest games, deftly negotiating a tonal minefield with playful satire.
Mealtimes are abstracted into puzzle form, where players slot foodstuffs shaped like Tetris blocks into a grid representing the protagonist Jenny's stomach. Players must keep her energy and mood above zero while balancing tasks from chores to studying. The game's minigames have the antic energy of Nintendo's WarioWare series, but time is the enemy, and balancing needs becomes trickier as the game progresses.
Consume Me is beautifully observed, with ominous music accompanying weekly weigh-ins and overbearing parental inspections. The game cleverly re-contextualises love as an obligation and source of tension in each chapter. Despite purposeful repetition, Consume Me never settles into a routine, finding inventive uses of systems to punch home its themes without losing its sense of humour.
