My Daughter, the Video Game Reviewer
Early on, I’d envisioned my daughter as a regular collaborator. What I’ve discovered is that, uh, she’s a kid.
My oldest daughter understands I have access to a lot of games, and thus, enjoys borrowing my Switch and flicking through the colorful icons she’s not familiar with, to see if anything interest her. (Snakebird Complete has proved an unexpected hit.)
Sometimes, I’ll track down games that I don’t have a personal interest in because I’m curious what reaction she’ll have. This was Fashion Dreamer, a new Switch game from the developer behind the well-liked Style Savvy games. I am not a clothes person, and like a trash person, rely on my wife to guide me towards not looking like a slob. I do, however, like spending too much money buying horror-themed t-shirts on the regular.
So in Fashion Dreamer, you roleplay an aspiring influencer, putting together outfits for you and others, in hopes of generating likes on the internet. It looked charming, and I wondered if it had more depth than the dress up games she spends time with on her iPad, where the exploitative business models are geared to make children upset their parents won’t pay ridiculous prices for more clothes. (Toca Life: World doesn’t do this!) In Fashion Dreamer, clothes are free. If someone’s wearing it, you can nab with ease.
Sounds nice, right? A potential gaming paradise, even.
But only minutes into Fashion Dreamer, my daughter looked at me.
Daughter: OK, but what do you do?
Dad: You dress up. You collect clothes and you make cool outfits.
Daughter: Are there any mini-games?
Dad: No.
Daughter: Do you level up?
Dad: You can, but it doesn’t really unlock anything.
Daughter: Do the characters do anything after they’re dressed up?
Dad: Not really. You can take pictures?
Daughter: I’m bored with this game.
We turned it off, and she hasn’t asked about it since. Funny enough, these echo critics’ reviews for Fashion Dreamer, which cite a lack of a story or enjoyable meta progression.
“If you treat the game like a sandbox it can be a lot of fun,” wrote David Flynn in a review at GamingTrend. “While I wanted to finish the game for this review, it’s probably best played a few minutes at a time. Just pop in, make a few outfits, collect your points and followers, and pop out. It won’t fix all the game’s problems, but it will make ‘progression’ less of an unfulfilling slog.”
This exchange is exactly what I was hoping for: an honest assessment from my kid. I think it’s useful, and often more useful than what I might think about a game like Fashion Dreamer. The problem, if you can call it that, has been extracting those thoughts on a regular basis. My daughter is my child, not a co-worker.
If she’s not up for playing something, I can’t—or won’t—make her. And over time, it revealed a crack in how I envisioned Crossplay: kids don’t always cooperate.
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