Consuming issues are an extremely delicate matter, so I used to be cautious after I discovered about Devour Me, a sport that turns a teenage lady’s insecurities into minigames and useful resource administration. After finishing the story, nevertheless, I am so glad it exists. Devour Me is a touching, hilarious, often visceral expertise instructed from a perspective video video games do not contact on as usually as they need to. Its meta commentary on the risks of utilizing sport methods to measure sophisticated, real-life points is poignant and distinctive. Its ending is disappointing, but it surely’s uncommon to play a sport that feels so private to its creators, and it makes Devour Me one thing particular.
The sport opens with an attention-grabbing content material warning, not simply mentioning the story’s probably troubling material, however clarifying that Jenny’s weight-reduction plan habits – the first gameplay mechanic – is just not one thing to be replicated. I’ve by no means performed one thing like this: It is a sport about how gamifying actual life is not all the time a good suggestion.
Jenny, primarily based on the sport’s creator with the identical title, is a excessive schooler about to start out her senior yr. After a remark from her mom about Jenny’s weight, Jenny decides to start out weight-reduction plan, meticulously monitoring her meals consumption and train habits. On the similar time, she’s acquired to handle different features of her life: chores, cash, and homework, to call a number of. Every exercise is represented as a microgame, just like one thing you’d discover in WarioWare, the place you carry out easy, typically difficult actions in an expressive artwork model. For probably the most half, they’re charming and enjoyable, and even those I used to be much less keen on are over shortly. Devour Me comes throughout as a narrative-first expertise, however I genuinely regarded ahead to booting it again up and managing my poisonous behaviors.
The sport you may play probably the most usually has you construct Jenny’s lunch plate. Meals are represented as Tetris-like items you need to match onto a grid, filling within the starvation squares whereas trying to keep away from the empty ones. Every meals additionally prices a distinct variety of bites (the sport’s summary model of energy), so you need to stability the act of becoming items within the grid with avoiding unhealthy meals to maintain your chunk depend low. Go over the restrict, and you will have to train later, wasting your time you may use for different actions. Mismanage your puzzle items, and you may fail to fill all the required squares, inflicting Jenny’s starvation meter to take a success. Regardless of the upsetting objective, I take pleasure in this puzzle, and did not thoughts taking part in it each in-game day.
As you get later within the story, it is extremely simple to see how somebody like Jenny can fall into dangerous spirals of habits. If I eat a lightweight lunch – an alternate meal choice I unlock that prices fewer bites – my power stage takes a success, but when I drink an power drink, I replenish it. Nonetheless, it seems that over-reliance on caffeine causes Jenny to develop complications over the day, and I can not do away with them except I do one thing that raises her temper. The best means to do that is by consuming a bag of chips, which places me over my chunk objective, bringing me again to the issue I used to be attempting to keep away from within the first place.
All I needed to do was eat a little bit bit much less, but it surely began an unavoidable chain of occasions that solely makes Jenny’s issues worse. It is a genius entice that I did not notice I might fallen for till it was too late, very similar to actual life. It is a type of creative expression and schooling that may solely be communicated by means of a online game.
The artwork and animation oozes with character, its pixels giving off a hand-drawn aesthetic to characters’ hyper-expressive faces. The participant strikes Jenny by means of cutscenes with swipes of the mouse or joystick, however you by no means actually know what you are about to make her do, and it is a enjoyable shock to observe how she nervously picks up a greenback off the sidewalk or refuses to get away from bed. The subject material would possibly suggest a dour visible tone, however Devour Me is something however. It helps to offset the very actual stress I’ve attempting to stability Jenny’s life whereas additionally representing the ways in which consuming issues can seem invisible to the skin world.
Second-to-moment dialogue writing can also be sharp, and Jenny is a memorable, endearing protagonist who’s simple to root for. I had no downside seeing issues from her perspective, and whereas I began as an outdoor observer, I shortly discovered myself invested sufficient to get nervous about ending my homework and earnestly hoping a boy would really like me again.
Regardless of loving the sport’s characters and early hours, its final chapter falls flat for a number of causes. First, faith is launched as a consolation for Jenny late within the sport (full with a musical prayer sequence). Conceptually, I’ve no downside with this, but it surely comes out of nowhere and feels misplaced. It isn’t talked about a lot beforehand, and it turns into irrelevant by the story’s conclusion. Jenny can pray as soon as a day to take away psychological blocks that maintain her from learning, but it surely additionally barely fills her temper, power, and starvation bars. Bettering her temper makes excellent sense, but it surely’s the latter meters that really feel at odds with Devour Me’s themes. Jenny’s greatest flaw is convincing herself that with sufficient psychological effort, she will be able to drive her physique to realize unhealthy ranges of productiveness, whether or not that is staying up late or ravenous herself, and it is inconsistent that praying would exist as a consequence-free power booster or alternative for consuming.
When Devour Me’s story does in the end finish within the catastrophe its content material warning foreshadows, faith does not appear to be an answer, and regardless of saving Jenny in a later chapter, it is swept apart unceremoniously. It is onerous to finish biographical narratives, particularly when the topic continues to be alive, as a result of real-world occasions that make the compelling premise to a narrative not often resolve cleanly. Nonetheless, the story’s main sources of drama type of slip away, with Jenny in the end outgrowing them reasonably than confronting them.
It does not assist that we play as Jenny on her spiral to all-time low, however we’re caught watching a barely interactive montage as she lifts herself out of it. The entire sport leads as much as her inevitable crash, the place she learns how damaging her behaviors are; nevertheless, as soon as it lastly occurs, the sport is actually over. It is like Mario learns his princess is in one other fortress, however as a substitute of resulting in a boss battle with Bowser, we simply watch him beat Bowser in the long run credit. The story continues to be there, however as a participant, I am compelled to finish on a loss.
Gamifying your meals habits is, certainly, an terrible concept, and Devour Me lays it out in a way I discovered deeply compelling and entertaining. Even when you ignore the content material warning, its message is obvious from its opening moments. If its ending hadn’t stumbled, it would’ve been one among my all-time favorites, however there’s nonetheless loads to like right here regardless of that underwhelming conclusion. Devour Me is teeming with creativity and character, and for that, it is earned a particular place in my coronary heart.
