How these indie devs turned teenage anxiety into a video game

Consume Me, a slice-of-life indie game, which won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at this year’s Independent Game Fest, is a proud work of autobiography that loosely adapts the story of co-creator Jenny Jiao Hsia’s teenage years and her struggles with diet culture. It’s a story that unfolded in real space across New York City, contained in real scrapbooks and dusty storage boxes overflowing with memories. Simone de Rochefort and Giovanni Colantonio sat down with Hsia, lead programmer AP Thomson, and background artist Jie En Lee to learn how the game went from notebooks and box's in Hsia's parents' apartment, to being nominated for Games for Impact at the 2025 Game Awards. 0:00 What is Consume Me? 1:55 The origins of Consume Me 4:58 Unboxing Jenny's keepsakes 7:26 How Consume Me portrays disordered eating 8:51 Examining Consume Me's design documents 10:41 Sharing memories with friends 13:28 dog *IMPORTANT LINKS* Polygon Newsletter: https://www.polygon.com/pages/newsletter TikTok: tiktok.com/@polygon Twitter: http://bit.ly/PolygonTwitter Instagram: http://bit.ly/PolygonInsta Facebook: http://bit.ly/PolygonFB And for more gaming and entertainment coverage, visit http://www.polygon.com