Princess Maid Academy

The first screen puts a girl in a plain maid apron against a soft pastel background, and the category icons run along one side like tabs in a notebook. You start with the outfit since the uniform is what the whole idea hangs on. Tap a dress or a blouse and it snaps onto her right away, so there is no guessing about fit. The title Princess Maid Academy sets up the joke right away: she scrubs floors by day and curtsies by night.

The wardrobe splits into outfits, tops and bottoms, hairstyles, hair colors, accessories, and a makeup row. The piece types are exactly what you would guess: a frilled apron over a long skirt, puffy short sleeves, a lace headband, a pearl choker, a high ponytail, ringlets, a soft pink blush and a rose lip. Most layers stack in a sensible order, so a shawl sits over a blouse and a tiara sits on top of the braid, which means you can build a half-maid half-princess hybrid that still reads as one outfit.

The twist that separates it from a basic dress up game is the two identities. You can build a working uniform and a ball gown for the same character, flipping between them to check that both looks feel like the same girl. A round ends when you settle on a final pair of looks and the character stands there in her favorite of the two, ready for you to keep working or start over.

To get a better result, build the maid uniform first and pick a hair color that carries over to the gown so she is recognizable in both. Keep one shared item, like the choker or the headband, in each look to tie them together. And check the footwear last, since shoes are the easiest thing to forget under a long gown and they change the whole silhouette.