In Dressmaker, you play the role of (would you believe it) a Dressmaker. You take orders, design and draft new dresses, choose the fabric, cut the patterns, and sew them all together. Once you start, you will find yourself four hours deep trying to figure out if a mermaid tail skirt really is the best choice for this particular dress (it probably is), and if you can fit another hobby into your day.
New Shop in Town
Recently, I discovered a new game (and obsession): an indie darling called Dressmaker. Currently available in pre-release on itch.io as the developer works towards a Steam release. It’s by Elyaradine, Raithza, and Oomsarel, published by Cozy Lives. While anything in this review may change, Dressmaker’s well-thought-out core elements deliver a relaxing and enjoyable experience.
Connecting Threads
Fabric and accessories are organised and easy to navigate for purchase, with clear benefits shown for each material. The storefront is divided into Fabric and Accessories tabs. The Fabric tab contains six sub-tabs (All, Cotton, Linen, Wool, Silk, Velvet), making navigation and selection straightforward. Choosing fabric before designing a dress is recommended. The design interface provides all the relevant information required to complete each order.
Making dress designs in Dressmaker is done through your sketchpad. With a simple selector menu, you can change the various parts of your dress (Bodice, Collar, Sleeves, Skirt), apply fabric swatches and accessories, and use your pencil to visualise the dress’s colour layout. Once you are happy with your design, you “draft it”, which adds the pattern to your inventory, ready for the cutting table. The sketch pad is also used to track your game progression as a folio of work, allowing you to go back and review your own designs.
In cutting patterns, the game makes you consider space and fabric grain direction; balancing these two elements is crucial to finding the middle ground between material wastage and dress quality. The process is simple enough: choose your fabric, take the patterns from your inventory, rotate your pattern to align with the fabric’s grain, once you are happy, use the scissors to cut the patterns, and finally move the cut patterns to your inventory for the final stage.
When sewing the dress, you start by applying the patterns to your mannequin. You then choose which seams you want to sew. The sewing machine is both relentless and forgiving in equal measure, giving you a reasonable amount of room for error, but having intersecting controls which may give those of us with a less steady hand some difficulty.
Fashion Forward
Dressmaker feels incomplete in its graphics, with the hub area (your shop) feeling like placeholder artwork that’s been sketched with no animation. The fabric store is only a UI with no background. Your design diary, similar to the fabric store, has no background. However, the artwork for the diary itself is impressive, with lots of little details that bring it to life and really get you invested in the process. The cutting table is organised and features a simple wood-textured background.
The mannequin and sewing machine are by far the most graphically complete spaces. Every part of the spaces feels alive. The backgrounds are simple but appropriate, and the detail on the sewing machine makes you feel right there, plying your trade as a Dressmaker.
The Fabrics themselves are gorgeous and show the time and effort put into the design of this game. Some textures give you a sense that you could almost feel these dresses. There’s already a wide range of fabrics to choose from, each with its own patterns and textures that make them feel unique and elevate your designs.
Closing Stitch
In its current state, Dressmaker is an unpolished gem just waiting to be worked to a final lustre. With its well-implemented mechanics, Dressmaker is more than playable. The unfinished environments do take away from the feel, but not enough to be problematic. Dressmaker’s music is soft and delicate, adding to the cosy feel. If I were to score the game out of ten, I would give it a solid seven and hope to see that come up as the game reaches completion.
Developer: Elyaradine, Raithza, and Oomsarel
Itch Page: here
Steam: here
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