Art imitates life, so I'm munching through walls while an AI chatbot tells me to buy a gun in Drywall Eating Simulator

Lately, I've been getting angry a lot. I'm always being sold something, or trying to guess what I'm being sold. Social media has become increasingly isolating, with meaningful interactions outnumbered ten to one by sports betting adverts, AI slop, and bad-faith actors who incite hatred for profit. We've locked ourselves in a bear-baiting noosphere and swallowed the key. But what if there was a crunchy way out?

Drywall Eating Simulator is a tranquilizer for my tortured brain. An indie comedy from developer Peripheral Playbox, Drywall Eating Simulator is about acknowledging the anger that modern-day life seems intent on stoking, and directing it somewhere that won't feed the Engagement Machine: munching yummy, yummy drywall.

Plaster in Paris

The first level begins, and I'm late for work. A visual effect that looks like greasy VHS tape and migraines gives my apartment block a sickly sheen, and to make matters worse, cleaning supplies block the way to the stairwell. With no clear way forward I stroll into the apartment next door, where my neighbor politely insists I leave.

Instead, I scare his son by letting myself into his bedroom. Only one more apartment remains, but it's another dead end – occupied by a frantic Girl Mom and a girl who seems to know I'm in a game. After a few minutes of searching for a way forward, I arrive back at the ominous child. Speaking with her makes my character angry, the crackle in my peripheral blooming. Still, no way forward. Unless…

Crunch. With a click, her bedroom wall gives way. Chunks of drywall tumble down, and it leaves a hole big enough to climb through. I fastidiously munch the bits of wall that have fallen to the floor. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The noise is cathartic – but unlike the sprinkling of water in Stardew Valley or rustle of paper in Pentiment, it doesn't appeal to the part of my brain that likes to read books and watch my dog play. This is a noise designed for running your tongue over your teeth and imagining the plaster crumbling between them, and how much better it would make you feel, and oh wouldn't it be so good to eat drywall for real.

So begins the cycle: get mad, eat drywall to calm down, get mad again, eat more drywall. There's no shortage of things to make you angry. Eating into another apartment reveals a woman who has allowed AI to decide what she knows, although it's unclear if the AI she uses for horoscope readings is the same as any of the AI she's dating. The ensuing rage sends me careening through her living room wall – crunch, crunch – and into her neighbor's sparse living room, where a tech bro talks about being too busy with work to decorate. For two years. Crunch.

Yes, Drywall Eating Simulator has its own bones to pick. An AI chatbot tells me to buy a gun, while another AI chases rent because it's my landlord. CRUNCH. Poking fun at capitalism is the vogue right now, but Drywall Eating Simulator feels more authentic than most. This is a cathartic thrashing against the helplessness of it all, and by not trying to actually answer anything, it's all the funnier. What are we doing to ourselves? It doesn't matter, eat drywall. Why is that child from the apartment block watching me from the loading bay at work? Eat. Drywall.

There is a story threaded throughout Drywall Eating Simulator, but it's short and straightforward enough that I'd prefer you see it for yourself. The whole thing reminds me of this I Think You Should Leave sketch – what did they do to us? – but just as eating drywall cools your anger in the game, there's a perverse solidarity in knowing that other angry humans made this; a message in a bottle from other castaways. Go ahead, take a bite. You'll feel better for it.

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