Indian Wedding Stylist by Happy Melon Games is a classical “dress up” game aimed to suit ages 12 and up, but it’s good for girls of all ages. It is relatively simple and straightforward, though there’s a competition component as well which is more likely to keep you playing. The Indian cultural twist on the dress up game is also a unique touch, which will appeal to many. There are two modes of the game - Indian Makeover and Indian Bridal Competition. Basically, these different modes are a room for practice and a room for competition.

Time to play

Indian Wedding Stylist Gameplay

You start with having zero coins and later you are able to earn them by doing something in the second part of the game. But we will explain that later. The first part is for single players and it’s a virtual room for dressing and doing make-up for your basic-looking character. If you are familiar with dress up games in general, or maybe Sims type games, you’ll see similarities. To be fair, this is quite simple, and it is exactly how it looks. You choose a dress or a sari, shoes, accessories and of course “Mehendi” - Indian style henna paintings on hands - this is an Indian wedding after all!

It is worth mentioning that not many items of clothing or patterns (if it’s for Mehendi) are available in the beginning. The majority of the nicer options can be available if you buy them for coins that you earn in the second part of the game, or by watching a rewarded video. Some of them are locked in the beginning and will open only on certain levels.

The make-up menu contains a choice of skin tone, types of eye make-up, lips, etc and acesssorries from earrings to “bindis” (forehead dots) and a “nath” (a type of nose ring). Again, for those who played Sims-like games with lots of customisation available, this will look very basic as the choice is small and there isn’t much creativity.  For example, “eye make-up” has ready pre-sets, you cannot choose the type of eyelashes or the colour of eye apple, separately eyeliner or anything like that. Just a “eye makeup 1”, “eye makeup 2” etc. Hairstyles are also kind of simple and you don’t have a possibility to change the colour or hair length. If the player already likes dress up games however and are content with the simplicity, most likely this goes for younger users, this may not be an issue however.

When you’re done with the make up and clothing, you proceed to a “judge” point where some artificial bot scores your stylist abilities. In our case it scored us with 8 out of 10:

Depending on your score you receive coins and by watching a sponsored video you can double this amount. These coins are needed to buy fancier pieces of clothes, accessories or makeup options.

The Competition mode is probably the more interesting aspect of the game. It is the same room for dressing but with a timer - you are given 2 minutes to complete the best look. You’re doing it simultaneously with someone else real-time.

Indian Wedding Stylist PVP

Aaaaand…. Battle!

Someone in a jury scores both outfits and puts their marks. In our case we won! If the lack of customization is off putting, at least here there is a draw that may keep you playing for a bit longer. Next thing you’ll find yourself wondering what combination of Bindi, Sara and Nath will get the edge over the competition, and you now have an incentive to unlock more and more.

Monetization model

As you can already see, and as is common in many of these dress up games, there is a large amount of ads. There are two options of getting rid of annoying ads - remove them for $1.99 or to remove them and buy access to all locked accessories for $9.99. Younger players may be more tolerant of such advertising, however, parents should be careful of any accidental (or not so accidental) payments. Adult users may not feel the game is engaging enough to warrant the fee.

Pay to remove Ads

This proposition will be seen very often with a demonstration of what exactly you can get for your money if you decide to to so. This annoyance may either convince you to bite the bullet and pay the fee, or to turn the game off:

All in all, this customization light dress up game may not be enough to keep your attention; however the competitive component is a fun aspect to Indian Wedding Stylist and is generally good to spend a little bit of time on. And for the younger users, it will probably be satisfying enough to keep them happy to dress up the characters, though some older users will more likely enjoy the competitive aspect, even if it’s hard to say if it’s enough. As well, the unique Indian cultural aspect makes it stand out a bit, introduces a new culture to some, and of course represents a large demographic around the world. Essentially if you like dress up games, this is a variation of a theme which may keep you entertained, but this would be unlikely to convert anyone else.

By Iryna Shapoval for Gamesforum