Game: It’s Not You, It’s M.E
Genre: Simulation, Indie
System: Steam (Windows)
Developer | Publisher: Closed Forum
Controller Support: None
Price: US $1.99 | UK £1.79 | EU €1,99
Release Date: December 1, 2025
Review code provided, with many thanks to Closed Forum.
It’s Not You, It’s M.E is a very short simulation of what it feels like to be extremely ill. You have a pile of things that need to get done, but you have a limited amount of energy each day to do them.
The Gameplay of It’s Not You, It’s M.E
It’s Not You, It’s M.E is a pain simulation title. Similar to others in the genre, such as Pathologic, the focus is more on the meaning of the game than the gameplay itself. The only interactions you have with it will be pointing and clicking, whether it be to do another chore or complete a mini game.
You wake up with a very limited amount of energy. If you push yourself too hard one day, the next day, you will start with even less energy than you did before. Instead of going out with friends and having a life, you are stuck inside your home, barely able to take your meds, bathe, brush your teeth, feed yourself, and do laundry, much less work.
In the bottom right, you have a to do list, but you will not be able to finish everything on it no matter what you do. This is the main point of pain simulation games; to show what it feels like to be forced into making difficult decisions where there is no winning.
Pain Simulation
It’s Not You, It’s M.E has stumbled into a long argument that many people have had over other titles: do video games have to be fun? While the ludic interactions of most games are designed to light up the reward centers of our brains, what does it mean for a game to be intentionally impossible and avoid giving you the dopamine rush of a job well done by your main character?
I have long held the belief that, like books and movies, video games have the ability to be art in their own right; therefore don’t have to be fun. I have heard a lot of discourse about this particular topic surrounding games like Pathologic and Actual Sunlight, but also parts of others. For example, how the combat in Silent Hill 2 is unwieldy on purpose to simulate how fighting when you are shaking and scared would actually feel or how the genocide run in Undertale is miserable to play.
It’s Not You, It’s M.E falls into this category of games that aren’t fun, but are instead here to tell a story about what something feels like to live through.
Being Sick Is the Opposite of Fun
As someone with a chronic health condition that makes some days incredibly difficult, I get It’s Not You, It’s M.E. Some days, it’s just challenging to get out of bed, and doing your normal routine feels impossible. You can do a lot and feel like you are dying the next day, or you have to live with yourself, not finishing your checklist.
I think that It’s Not You, It’s M.E is a great game for teaching an important lesson. While the ludic interactions are like a very basic point-and-click, and the mini games are pretty boring, the story it tells is incredibly important.
It’s Not You, It’s M.E has a kind of boring, dreary background in muted colors that simulates how confining and dull your own home can become when you are basically a prisoner inside it. All the colors are muddled and muted, and you are stuck moving between the handful of rooms, and you never step outside. As the day progresses and you lose energy, the music begins to slow, and the lights become dimmer.
A lot of things were done right with It’s Not You, It’s M.E. There seemed to be real thought put into this game to make it feel as depressing. It feels real and, while not fun, it is educational and has an important message.
The Cons of It’s Not You, It’s M.E
There are some downsides to It’s Not You, It’s M.E, however. The mini games are very basic and don’t seem to actually change anything that happens in the game. While that fits with the narrative of the rest of the game, I feel like this particular set of mini games distracted from the message.
I think a good way to change this would be if It’s Not You, It’s M.E gave you nothing for completing the mini game well and gave you a very distinct negative effect if done poorly, but the mini games should also be meaningful. For example, you could click on your computer to get some work done, but a mini game pops up where you have to try to ignore the doomscrolling on your phone during a meeting. If you succeed, perhaps you lose some energy points, but if you fail, then you get written up at work for not being properly present at the meeting.
Just popping bubbles or clicking on pills to make sure you take your meds feels thrown in, and it could have been used to push the message of the game even further.
Conclusion
It’s Not You, It’s M.E tells an important story about how difficult life can be with an illness. It felt real and had a great message. I liked a lot about it, but I feel that the mini games didn’t add to the game; they felt like an afterthought. Overall, it’s an impossible game that teaches an important lesson.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
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