♥Magical Makeover♥

by S. Woodson profile

Fantasy
2014

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Reviews and Ratings

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Number of Ratings: 53
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- Julia Myer (USA), August 30, 2017

- Wanderlust, August 3, 2017

- mirandamiranda, June 30, 2017

- Laney Berry, May 16, 2017

- herguitar, October 29, 2016

- E.K., May 27, 2016

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Entertaining, if wordy, parody, May 24, 2016
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: sanguine

Magical Makeover is a self-styled parody of over-the-top Flash games 'for girls', namely those whose interactivity consists wholly of choosing outfits. It starts with floridly named makeup products and a rhyming, snarky mirror but delves into a touch of body horror, and into riffs off fairy tales.

This game is generous, in various senses of the word. The writer revels in description, evoking sparkly, colourful images. While the passages got lengthy at times, this was made up for by the wit: the game lampshades tropes from fairy tales and adventure stories. ‘Lampshades’ doesn’t even begin to describe it - much of the game felt more like an exuberant riff.

The level of story branching was certainly generous as well. As the author says, there are seven possible endings, but I was impressed by how distinct and well-developed each of them were, with their own backstories.

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- rollingredhills (Ireland), April 29, 2016

- Brendan Patrick Hennessy (Toronto, Ontario), April 5, 2016

- MBC, February 11, 2016

- Zal (Chicago, IL), November 12, 2015

- shinaka, October 8, 2015

- leanbh, September 20, 2015

- RoboDragonn, August 27, 2015

- Ismarus, August 8, 2015

- zylla, June 20, 2015

- Andrew Schultz (Chicago), March 25, 2015

- hoopla, March 24, 2015

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Body-Horror Godmother, March 22, 2015
by Sam Kabo Ashwell (Seattle)

A familiar tack of Twine advocacy pieces: take some problematic social issue, particularly as expressed through games, and make it grotesque and unsettling. In this case, it’s a satire/re-appropriation of beauty-oriented games targeted at young girls: beauty products are presented as uncanny magic, and have actually-transformational results with strange consequences. There is a judgy magic mirror.

Mechanically, it’s a Sorting Hat kind of game: your choices of beauty product determine which of several branches you find yourself going down, most of which are pure-choiceless. Although the results are weird and are at least informed by Twine’s strong taste for body-horror, they don’t get so visceral as to make the piece unsuitable for its ostensive audience; and the story progresses away from its beauty-myth opening into fantasy adventure that’s only tangentially related. The on-the-nose theme and long linear sections could easily have rendered the piece tedious, but it’s buoyed up by a pleasant Diana Wynne Jones-ish ordinariness-of-the-fantastic charm.

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- Khalisar (Italy), March 15, 2015

- Anya Johanna DeNiro (Minnesota), November 12, 2014

- ArchDelacy, November 7, 2014

- EllaClass, November 1, 2014

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Very, very cute., November 1, 2014

I haven't actually played any of the games that inspired it but it's hard to miss the point. It's also absolutely adorable; I've reached three of the available ending types and found each one charming. The dialogue is great and the relationships are fun. Recommended.

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- Danielle (The Wild West), November 1, 2014


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