I like to think we've all grown up to the point where we no longer split games into 'real' games and 'not real' games. A quick look at the rest of my work at TheGamer will reveal a black-hearted critic who will never march to the vapid tune of 'let people enjoy things!', and even I don't stoop to the level of dismissing games as being 'not real', as writing off their quality and purpose as so insignificant that they become fictional. However, fashion games are still routinely dismissed as being 'not real'. Fashion Dreamer might not change that, but it will at least give the genre a shot in the arm.
Before we split games into 'real' and 'not real', we had the equally inane categories of 'boy games' and 'girl games'. Girl games were worse, and not because girls are smelly or gross or have cooties, but because girl games were made with lower budgets and lower standards, and while games for boys often attempted to push forward the still-developing medium, games for girls were cheap tie-ins and generic reskins of the most basic interactive experiences. It was from this way of thinking that dress up games were born - much like the dress up games where you'd cut out paper clothes and wrap them around a flimsy cardboard figure, now you could pick virtual clothing and wrap them around a digital figure. That was about it.
Gaming has become less gendered over time, and what that has meant is the games for boys have evolved to feature more female characters, less misogyny, and have grown in depth and quality, while the games for girls have become extinct. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I wrote last year about Horse Tales, a modern version of the horse girl games that were thrown in with the dress up ga🗹mes of old. While I was positive on the game, it was clear it has not had the decades of technical advancement and blockbuster budgets poured into it the way other♌ genres have.
Most fashion fans pointed to Style Savvy after the Fashion Dreamer trailer dropped during the Nintendo Direct, and that's easily the closest comparison. Fashion Dreamer is made by the same devs and is a spiritual successor, but also, Style Savvy is basically the only fashion simulator with any semblance of quality, and the last one came out six years ago for the DS. The Monster High games were very thin and rough around the edges, but they at least attempted to offer a full game play experience. They stopped even longer ago though, ending with New Ghoul in School in 2015.
These days, the most popular fashion sims are mobile games where you dress up Britney Spears/Kim Kardashian/a whole plethora of other celebrities in what is essentially the exact same game, or you unlock outfits as part of a Candy Crush-style rip-off. Without getting into the 'real games' argument, both of those feel less like video games designed to be enjoyed and more like sophisticated money extraction sequences crammed with adverts, temporary bonuses, cooldown timers, and microtransactions bursting out the bottom of their maroon peplum skirts.
Fashion Dreamer is in another league to these mobile titles, which don't feel too distinct from the girl games of the '90s, except they're slower and entirely reliant on using cooldowns to push you towards spending real money. More importantly, it promises to be a step up from Style Savvy, and could see a technical and visual upgrade that offers more involved gameplay. It might seem like there's not a lot of gameplay you can do with a fashion sim, but it also feels as though no one has really tried. It might have a lower ceiling than the open world genre, but they're still real games and, with Fashion Dreamer, hopefully they get some real respect.