Nov 7, 2025
Rob, Sarah, and Doug chat with Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson about Consume Me, an award-winning autobiographical resource-management RPG about the pressure cooker of young adulthood. We discuss the game’s ten-year development cycle, balancing dynamic difficulty in a game about overachievement, the complex dynamics of mining your own story, and more!
Heads up: This episode includes discussion of disordered eating and religious upbringing.
Audio edited by Dylan Shumway.
Mentioned in this episode:
Consume Me
https://hexecutable.itch.io/consume-me
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2359120/Consume_Me/
Prototyping Personal Experience – Jenny's talk at A MAZE
2017
https://youtu.be/iQ-PaGTr-iI?si=RIAWQMFZfMWCVCsN
Papers Please by Lucas Pope
https://papersplea.se/
Nina Freeman’s games on itch.io
https://starmaidgames.itch.io/
Triad by Anna Anthropy
https://w.itch.io/triad
Reigns by Nerial
https://www.reignsgame.com/reigns
Long Live the Queen by Hanako Games
https://hanakogames.itch.io/long-live-the-queen
Perfect Tides by Meredith Gran
https://granulac.itch.io/perfect-tides
Look Back (movie)
https://www.amazon.com/Look-Back-Kiyotaka-Oshiyama/dp/B0DH5DMSRW
Look Back (manga)
https://www.viz.com/look-back
Jenny’s TikTok
https://www.tiktok.com/@q_dork
AP’s Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/bad_tetris/