Mia Beach Spa

Mia lies back on a lounge chair with a cucumber slice already over one eye, and the first real choice is which facial treatment to click through before anything else unlocks. Mia Beach Spa opens on her bare face and a shelf of spa tools along the bottom edge, so a single click on the mud mask or the exfoliating scrub changes her skin from blotchy to smooth before hair or makeup even come into play.

The tools split by station: cleansing wipes and a mud mask for the face, a nail file and a rack of polish bottles for hands and feet, a curling wand and a row of clip-in braids for hair. Beach extras sit in their own row, a wide-brim hat, a striped one-piece, tinted sunscreen that leaves a slight sheen. Each station builds on the last, so a fresh manicure carries over once you move to picking out a swimsuit and beach cover-up.

A plain salon sim would let makeup go on any time, but here skin care has to finish first: a rushed player ends up caking foundation over an unfinished treatment, and it shows immediately in this makeover game. The session wraps with Mia posed on the sand in her finished look, saved as a photo instead of scored or ranked.

Finish every face treatment before opening the makeup palette, since foundation applied too early just sits on top of leftover redness. Matching the swimsuit color to the nail polish instead of the hair pulls the beach look together fast. The hat brim can hide a hairstyle almost completely, so it helps to pick the hat before locking in a braid or curl choice underneath it.