Thanks to a partnership between Ubisoft and CleverGirls Collective, my daughter Petunia and I received a review copy of Style Lab: Fashion Design for her Nintendo DS. To a girl who has asked Santa for a sewing machine and fabric, this game promised a cyber-version of some of what she's hoping to do in real life!
Petunia delved into the game instantly, picking an avatar and spending mere moments finding her way around the software. For ease of use, this game gets an A grade. The items available for custom design are various shirts and hoodies, hats, and bags. One sets up the game with an avatar (that can be changed) then commences to build a wardrobe of saved designs. Saving is another feature that received an A grade from Petunia; not only is it easy to save and to scroll through designs, but, also, when your little brother accidentally/on-purpose slams your DS shut after you've spent half an hour on a design, guess what? SAVED. (So was his skin -- thanks, Ubisoft!) Petunia has built up quite a wardrobe now, and she's having a blast toying with color, patterns, layout and overall outfit coordination. You can see her avatar sporting her creations along with the game's menu at the right.
I played the game a little, too, and agree with Petunia's assessments. Generally, both of us found the game easy to play, fun, and loved that quick-save feature. However, both of us wondered why the game is limited only to tops, bags and hats. We especially wondered this because, having forgone instructions and media materials to dive right into the game, we hadn't figured out that these designs can actually be ordered on-line through Zazzle -- a cool, exciting partnership that we'll explore further in the coming days. I suspect that the limited fashion choices are, in part, because everything drawn on the DS can actually be created and bought; but, that said, little girls like mine need their dresses and skirts -- especially skirts that can be layered with leggings and cool tops. The absence of those items is significant to my kid, who really could care less about the hat designs and wants to complete the look with some stylish bottoms.
So, would I recommend this game? Sure. It's going to make my holiday gift guide this year because of its multi-purpose use: fashion design and production. And I'm going to tell my kid that she can use the sewing machine that Santa will bring to solve her "bottoms" problem, for I hear that plain A-line skirts are pretty easy to sew. (I wouldn't know. My own fashion this month involves whichever jeans are the least dirty, tee and hoodie combinations that may or may not match, and some Uggs. My daughter is frustrated by me.)
It was a real pleasure to review this game, and I look forward to toying with the custom ordering feature some more this weekend. It may take us some time to figure out, as Petunia has the oldest DS model, so I'm not even sure it has wifi... but we'll figure it out, and, once she's produced one of her items, I'll display it on here.
Thanks to Ubisoft and to CleverGirls Collective for the opportunity to review this game. Not only did we enjoy it; we spent some quality mother-daughter bonding time over fashion that involved lots of giggles and no tears in fitting rooms, so thumbs-up for that!
If you'd are interested in picking up your own copy of Style Lab: Fashion Design, here's a link to it on Amazon.com.
While Ubisoft provided me with this game to review, the opinions I've expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Ubisoft, Clever Girls Collective and I promote Blog With Integrity.
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