Consuming problems are an extremely delicate matter, so I used to be cautious once I discovered about Eat Me, a sport that turns a teenage woman’s insecurities into minigames and useful resource administration. After finishing the story, nonetheless, I am so glad it exists. Eat Me is a touching, hilarious, often visceral expertise instructed from a perspective video video games do not contact on as typically as they need to. Its meta commentary on the hazards of utilizing sport techniques to measure difficult, real-life points is poignant and distinctive. Its ending is disappointing, nevertheless it’s uncommon to play a sport that feels so private to its creators, and it makes Eat Me one thing particular.
The sport opens with an fascinating content material warning, not simply declaring the story’s doubtlessly troubling material, however clarifying that Jenny’s weight-reduction plan conduct – the first gameplay mechanic – isn’t 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 at all times a good suggestion. Jenny, based mostly on the sport’s creator with the identical identify, is a excessive schooler about to begin her senior 12 months. After a remark from her mom about Jenny’s weight, Jenny decides to begin weight-reduction plan, meticulously monitoring her meals consumption and train habits. On the similar time, she’s received to handle different elements of her life: chores, cash, and homework, to call a couple 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. Eat 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 will play probably the most typically has you construct Jenny’s lunch plate. Meals are represented as Tetris-like items you must match onto a grid, filling within the starvation squares whereas making an attempt to keep away from the empty ones. Every meals additionally prices a special variety of bites (the sport’s summary model of energy), so you must stability the act of becoming items within the grid with avoiding unhealthy meals to maintain your chunk rely low. Go over the restrict, and you will have to train later, squandering precious time you would use for different actions. Mismanage your puzzle items, and you will fail to fill all the required squares, inflicting Jenny’s starvation meter to take successful. Regardless of the upsetting aim, 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 straightforward to see how somebody like Jenny can fall into dangerous spirals of conduct. If I eat a light-weight lunch – an alternate meal possibility I unlock that prices fewer bites – my vitality degree takes successful, but when I drink an vitality drink, I replenish it. Nonetheless, it seems that over-reliance on caffeine causes Jenny to develop complications over the day, and I am unable to do away with them until I do one thing that raises her temper. The best manner to do that is by consuming a bag of chips, which places me over my chunk aim, bringing me again to the issue I used to be making an attempt to keep away from within the first place.
All I wished to do was eat a bit of bit much less, nevertheless it began an unavoidable chain of occasions that solely makes Jenny’s issues worse. It is a genius lure that I did not understand 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 way of a online game.The artwork and animation oozes with persona, its pixels giving off a hand-drawn aesthetic to characters’ hyper-expressive faces. The participant strikes Jenny by way 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 look at how she nervously picks up a greenback off the sidewalk or refuses to get off the bed. The subject material may suggest a dour visible tone, however Eat Me is something however. It helps to offset the very actual stress I’ve making an attempt to stability Jenny’s life whereas additionally representing the ways in which consuming problems 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 straightforward to root for. I had no downside seeing issues from her perspective, and whereas I began as an out of doors 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 couple 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, nevertheless it comes out of nowhere and feels misplaced. It is not 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 hold her from finding out, nevertheless it additionally barely fills her temper, vitality, and starvation bars. Bettering her temper makes good sense, nevertheless it’s the latter meters that really feel at odds with Eat Me’s themes. Jenny’s largest flaw is convincing herself that with sufficient psychological effort, she will be able to pressure her physique to attain 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 vitality booster or alternative for consuming.When Eat Me’s story does in the end finish within the catastrophe its content material warning foreshadows, faith would 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 remains to be alive, as a result of real-world occasions that make the compelling premise to a narrative hardly ever resolve cleanly. Nonetheless, the story’s major sources of drama kind of slip away, with Jenny in the end outgrowing them quite than confronting them.
It would 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 harmful her behaviors are; nonetheless, 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 an alternative of resulting in a boss battle with Bowser, we simply watch him beat Bowser ultimately credit. The story remains to be there, however as a participant, I am pressured to finish on a loss.Gamifying your meals habits is, certainly, an terrible thought, and Eat Me lays it out in a way I discovered deeply compelling and entertaining. Even should 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 rather a lot to like right here regardless of that underwhelming conclusion. Eat Me is teeming with creativity and persona, and for that, it is earned a particular place in my coronary heart.
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