Shining Princess Fashion Makeover

The screen opens on a princess standing in a palace dressing room, bare-faced and waiting in her underlayers. Your first real choice is usually a gown, because that sets the color for everything else. Pick one and it snaps onto her instantly, so you can cycle through five or six silhouettes in a minute just to see which one feels right. Shining Princess Fashion Makeover moves fast like that: click, preview, keep or toss.

The wardrobe splits into gown, shoes, jewelry, crown, hairstyle and makeup, laid out as rows of icons you scroll through. The gowns run from puffy ballgowns to slim empire-waist dresses, and there are tiaras, long gloves, drop earrings and jeweled necklaces to stack on top. Hair goes from loose curls to high buns with braids wrapped around them. The makeup tab has its own set of steps: eyeshadow color, lip shade, blush, and little details like sparkle accents near the eyes. Pieces layer properly, so a necklace sits over the gown's neckline and a crown sits on the hairstyle you chose, not on some fixed head.

The twist in this makeover game is that makeup is not an afterthought tacked onto the end. The face gets its own full sequence, and the look is not really done until lips, eyes and skin tone agree with the dress. When you finish, you get a finished portrait of your princess to save or admire.

Work top to bottom: gown first, then hair, then jewelry, then makeup last so the lip and eyeshadow colors can match the fabric. A pastel gown with a silver tiara and a soft pink lip reads as classic royal. If a crown looks off, try switching the hairstyle before swapping the crown, since buns and loose curls hold tiaras very differently.