Free dress up games have been extremely popular since the mid-1990s when web technology made them possible, and for good reason! For any girl spending a significant amount of time on the Internet, a dress-up game satisfies that natural hunger left unsatisfied by Farmville and the male-oriented alternatives like World of Warcraft and Mob Wars. Rather than play boring Minesweeper or make a cat’s cradle, spend your spare time honing your keen eye for fashion!
Online free dress up games are basically a variation on the childhood game so familiar to all girls (and even some boys), where one would dress up in mom’s clothes, perhaps on your own, staring at yourself in the wall-length mirror; or playing with friends and dressing each other up for extra fun. The simplest online version usually takes the form of a doll, often in a quasi-anime/half-Barbie style, with pixilated “clothes” and accessories you can drag-and-drop onto its body. Many of these games allow you to print out or copy your design to the clipboard so you can show off your work or just stick it around your bedroom. There is usually a ‘style’ or theme associated with each particular doll or game: in some, you may have clothes from the latest Gucci winter line, while in others you can dress a matador or even an astronaut with the latest mall fashions. The enormous variety of games of this sort at girlsgogames.com shows just how popular this simple, unmutable formula has become for girls all across the planet. Fashion is a language we all understand!
Dedicated message boards even exist for posting links to new free dress-up games, reviews of existing ones and pics of your latest creations. And if you don’t have a community yet as crazy as you are about fashion, why not check out the chat rooms at the official Bratz or Barbie websites? Few sites, games or communities require money, so you can dress to your heart’s content forever in every shape, color, style and brand possible. In fact, at Gaia Online, one of the Internet’s largest websites, you get paid in clothes scrip just to post! Imagine if in real life you could pay for all your pairs of shoes just by talking to your friends!
Free dress up games aren’t confined just to those with two legs, either. A whole wealth of free dress up games exists, many based on the same doll-and-clothes drag-and-drop model, that allows you to dress up your pets! Ever thought of giving your dog a manicure? How about a hot pair of pumps for your grumpy cat? Perhaps a sleek haircut and a silk scarf for your guinea pig?
This influence has permeated popular games intended for both genders, and even some intended largely for boys. MMORPGs are particularly attuned to a girl’s desire to play dress-up. In Maple Story, for example, you can dress your avatar not only in equipment you find in quests and on fallen monsters, but in customized dressware and clothes produced by you and the userbase. In Habbo Hotel, as with many social MMORPGs, your avatar is truly who you are – and you’d better flair it up so you look good!
