Dressmaker game is a remarkable sewing simulator with lush attention to detail

Dressmaker is clearly created by someone who loves sewing. Far beyond being a simplistic simulator, this game goes in depth with the art of sewing: how people sew, why they sew, and the magic and beauty that can be realised by tailoring custom clothing.

In Dressmaker, it’s all about creating just the right dress for an ever-growing list of clients, and seeing the joy on their faces when your creativity sparks new inspiration, helps them find their own personality, or just causes drama at the local ball.

With each dress made, you also learn more about the game’s many characters and get glimpses into their inner lives.

Finding your needles in the world of Dressmaker

Dressmaker begins similarly to many other cosy narrative games. You arrive in a new town and are immediately the subject of curiosity. Armed with needles, fabric and a variety of accessories, your job is to become the most prominent – or at least the most reliable – dressmaker in town, using clever thinking to create dresses to dazzle and delight.

At first, the townsfolk doubt your prowess. Kindly, at least. One at a time, they stumble into your newly-established shop and test the waters with simple requests. In light and often funny dialogue, you’ll get a relatively vague brief, requesting a dress that is professional or fun or gothic or warm. There are dozens of types of dresses that can be requested, and it’s your job to listen carefully, and then plan designs that fit your new friends.

One character might want a work outfit, necessitating a plain dress with professional fabric. Another might ask for a completely black, gothic design for a funeral. You also get numerous requests for practical workwear dresses, dazzling ball gowns, creations with tassels and ribbons, and more.

It’s all about restraint and good design choices.

There’s a very clever system that determines whether your dresses fit the brief of your clients. They all want to hit certain categories and scores in their overall design, so you must make informed choices about which fabrics to use and what accessories to add. Each comes with their own style score, allowing you to pick and choose various combinations that will hit all the criteria that your clients expect.

At first, this might seem simple, as there is plenty of flexibility in design choice. But it’s easy to miss important touches and get swept up in fun design, to the point where you create a dress that your client might not be happy with.

You must pay attention and watch how your score changes with each new decision. A dress that’s professional with a slim design and black-and-white pinstripes might not fit the client if you choose to add a garish pink ribbon trim or a large brooch. You need to constrain your ideas of creativity to suit each and every new design.

Sometimes, it’s about balancing personal taste with the brief to create a dress that allows you to feel creative and free, but also gives the client exactly what they want.

Dressmaker is elevated by clever, tactile mechanics

There’s a lengthy and compelling story to follow along with here, which is revealed in dialogue snippets as you canvas new clients and their desires. It provides plenty of encouragement to keep forging on. Alongside the story, the game’s mechanics also keep you hooked, because they so lovingly replicate the joy of sewing.

There is a familiar flow in how Dressmaker empowers you to create. After a brief story cutscene with your latest client, you’ll be able to take their measurements, then head to your trusty design book to map out options for meeting criteria. This includes a system for mixing and matching bodices, sleeves, collars, skirts and fabric colours, all of which can redefine the shape and style of your next dress.

Once you’re happy with a design that hits all the criteria, or that you think will be successful with the addition of new fabrics and accessories, you’ll take stock of your current materials or head to the emporium to purchase more.

As should be common, the game encourages you to purchase at least five metres of material per dress to make sure you can complete it as intended (although you can go ahead and purchase more during the creation process – you’re not locked in to your initial choices).

Once you’ve got the design in your head and your fabric sorted, you’ll sit down with a fun cutting mini-game, using patterns to cut out each and every panel you’ll then need to sew together. The system asks you to find the grain or bias for each piece of fabric and then lay out your patterns to cut each with a minimum of fabric wastage.

You don’t have to physically cut each piece, which is a nice touch. This is one bit of busywork that’s glossed over to create a system that has just the right amount of friction without being too cumbersome.

When the pieces of your dress are ready to put together, you’ll head to your store mannequin and begin the process of slowly putting the puzzle together, figuring out which fabric pieces go where, and then using the game’s wonderfully real-feeling sewing mini-game to combine them.

Anyone who’s ever used a sewing machine will know they can feel your fear. It’s all about the commitment: putting your foot down slowly and steadily so you can ease your fabric through. Dressmaker replicates this feeling well, with a sewing system that requires steadiness and patience. You’ll feed your fabric into the machine, then use spacebar to advance stitches, while using a mouse to guide along curves and other lines.

If you get it wrong, the game’s machine will clunk and sputter in a way that makes your skin crawl, particularly if you’ve experienced the same in real life. There’s a nice bit of tension created here, as any mistake will reduce the quality of your dress, adding plenty of anxiety to your sewing journey.

Bright, fun characters and consistent progress keeps you creating

Even with its friction, the dress-making system of Dressmaker is brain-tickling and satisfying. Its mechanics help to create a sense of freedom, exploration and experimentation as you figure out what works best for your creative process and what fabrics you like most. (I’m very partial to the game’s many sequined fabrics, and a few nice ribbons on a dress.)

It’s a slow, meditative process to create a new dress, with multiple time-consuming stages like finding client measurements and adjusting your mannequin. But this gives you ample room to plan, and to find your creative juices.

Getting to pop into Dressmaker over the last few weeks, creating a few dresses at a time in each session, has been a pure and fulfilling joy.

The desire to keep going, even with elements of repetition in dressmaking, is aided by a moreish narrative with fun characters, and a system of consistent unlocks that allows for new and more ambitious dresses to be attempted following each major quest and narrative beat.

From the simple dresses of the opening chapter, you can eventually create large, flowing princess gowns decked out with multiple tiers of fabric and accessories. You can even create dazzling goth dresses, cutesy gardening outfits and eye-catching numbers for the local eccentrics of town.

Dressmaker hands you the tools to create any kind of dress you like, with set bounds in each quest giving you goals to work towards and impetus to create ever grander and more beautiful designs. With its semi-realistic mechanics, it’s a great representation of sewing for veterans and those curious about the art. As a cosy game, it also brims with kindness and joy, in a way that inspires you to strive onwards.

This is a considered, artful game and one that’s so clearly created with love. For any fan of sewing or tactile creativity, it’s a must-play experience.

A PC code for Dressmaker was provided and played for the purposes of this review.

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