Pony Pet Salon Game

The first thing on screen is a pony standing in a grooming tub, soap suds up to its knees. You start with the bath, dragging the sponge across its coat until the dirt meter drops. Every tool you tap shows up at the bottom of the screen as a little icon, so the whole routine reads like a checklist. Once the coat is rinsed and towel dried, the pony gets led out to the salon chair and the real choices begin. It plays like a classic makeover game, just with a very patient four legged client.

The toolkit is split into three stations. Hair covers the mane and tail, with braids, ribbon wraps, dyed streaks and long flowing trims you can mix together. The nail station has little hoof caps in pastel, sparkle and fruit patterns. The spa section holds face masks, a rubber ducky rinse and stickers that sit on the pony's flank. Layers work here, so a dyed mane can still hold a braid on top of it, and hoof caps go on over a painted base.

The odd one out is the spa station. Most animal salon games skip straight to bows and glitter, but this one makes you earn the cute part by finishing the wash and mask first. A round ends with a photo of your finished pony on a little podium, and you can save the picture before starting over with a fresh coat of mud.

Do the bath completely before touching the mane, because some hair pieces will not click into place on a dirty coat. Try a single bright mane color with plain white hoof caps instead of matching everything, it reads cleaner. And check the sticker sheet in the spa tab, since a few of the best decals are tucked on the second page where you would not think to tap.