Princess Dress Up Games

Why a princess game is not just a long dress

Every other shelf here gives you an outfit. This one gives you a plot. A coronation, a ball, a rivalry, a school where the villains have just enrolled. The wardrobe exists to answer a question the story asked.

That changes how you play. In a normal styling game you build the look you like best. Here you build the look that wins the situation, which is a different and slightly meaner instinct, and it is why these games are more replayable than they look.

Two kinds of princess

There is the fairytale princess and there is the historical one, and they want opposite things.

The fairytale version is the one everybody pictures: a gown with more fabric than sense, a tiara, a staircase. Princesses Now And Then is the clearest example, six characters dressed twice each, once for a cocktail party and once for a royal ball, and the challenge is keeping each of them recognisable across both.

The historical version is stranger and better. Medieval Doll puts you in a Celtic church with a wardrobe layered the way real medieval dress was, chemise then kirtle then gown, with the headdress marking the century. Victorian Alice does the same for the 1880s, bustles and button boots included. Greek Gods goes back further still, to a wardrobe that is entirely drape and pin.

If you only ever play the fairytale version you are missing most of what this shelf can do.

Gowns, tiaras and the rest of it

The wardrobe in a princess game runs deeper than anywhere else here, because a gown has more parts than an outfit does: the skirt, the bodice, the sleeves, the train, the gloves, the tiara, the jewellery, the shoes nobody will see.

The trick most people learn is to choose the tiara last. It is the loudest thing on the character, and picking it first quietly decides everything else for you.

The second trick is that a gown is a silhouette before it is a colour. Get the shape right in grey and it will work in any shade; get the shape wrong and no colour saves it.

The crossover with fantasy

A good half of princess games have one foot in myth. Goddess Freya is a Norse goddess with a falcon-feather cloak. Sun Dress comes from a Grimm tale about three impossible gowns, one as bright as the sun. Ice Ballerina is a dancer who controls frost.

When the character stops being human, the shelf you want is fantasy. When she is human but the story is not a court, try dress up. And to build the princess herself before dressing her, start in doll creator.