A bite-sized (literally) comedic adventure where you relieve the stress of ordinary life by biting through walls. Therapy is expensive, but drywall is plentiful.
Developed by: Peripheral Playbox
Played on: Steam
Length: 1.5 hours
A review key was provided by Future Friends Games.
Drywall Eating Simulator may not be the best game to play while actually stressed. Or maybe it is the perfect reflection of the extent at which humans throw themselves against the wall for things that don’t really matter. It depends on how existential you’re feeling, I suppose.
I was definitely in a mood when I clicked the play button on Steam the other night. I had just finished a long day of work, and had an even longer, unending list of tasks waiting for me to begin the next day. Everything on the screen in front of me was beginning to blur into one incomprehensible blob when I decided to tackle this fateful game from my backlog.
Drywall Eating Simulator is a game that is exactly what it says on the cover, for the most part. You play a human character, or a presumably human-like character, who is placed in familiar human scenarios that will test their patience. From dealing with pesky neighbours, to navigating grating conversations with tech bros, the player is given a series of fetch quests that place you right in the middle of it.
That’s where the drywall eating comes into play. For unknown reasons, the only thing that lowers your stress is the unpalatable taste of chalk white drywall. But your strange eating habit also opens up new pathways that allow you explore uncharted areas, navigate behind locked doors, and discover secrets literally hidden in the walls.
Hence, the gameplay loop for Drywall Eating Simulator takes on a strange rhythm. You start by talking to people to raise your stress levels, then once you start seeing red, you gain the ability to bash your head against the wall. You do this again, and again, and again until it breaks off into smaller, appetising chunks. Eating the drywall lowers your stress, but not for long, until you begin the cycle all over again.
The visual static and audio buzzing effect when you raise your stress levels can get overwhelming, and combined with the animation of bashing your head against the wall, the game starts to feel fairly overwhelming for a gag game. If you’re sensitive to those things, you can turn down the VFX in the settings menu, or maybe you prefer to become fully immersed in your in-game character’s emotional state.
Is it distressing at first? Quite. Is it also relatable? Very. The game takes the universal urge to bang your head against the wall after experiencing a stupid situation, and puts you into a handful of scenarios that are so intentionally rage baiting that it actually starts to become hilarious. We all know what it’s like to have stupid conversations with strangers, coworkers, and even friends before. But general societal niceties ensure that we never get to act on our most disruptive impulses. Until now.
For around 90 minutes of playtime, Drywall Eating Simulator is a pretty fun time. The game manages to keep things fresh by changing locations with every level, paired with satiric writing that will earn a chuckle here and there. A particularly good level was the office scenario, which really pushed the limits of the game’s structure in a fourth wall breaking way. Compared to that, the final level of the game does land a little flat, but the overall length of the game is so short that it hardly matters.
The ending does leave me wondering if there’s a true ending in store, but I’ll leave that to the more dedicated drywall eaters to find out. As for me, I’d be interested to see more from Peripheral Playbox in the future.
Verdict: I ate.
Drywall Eating Simulator is a game that is exactly what it says on the cover, for the most part. The game takes the universal urge to bang your head against the wall after experiencing a stupid situation, and puts you into a handful of scenarios that are so intentionally rage baiting that it actually starts to become hilarious. Consider playing it the next time you survive a stupid conversation with a stranger.
