10/11/99

Interactive Dress-up Games

I remember dressing paper dolls with tabbed paper clothes and I remember spending hours changing Barbie from one outfit to another. Based on my own childhood memories, I thought today's youngsters would find these interactive dress-up games appealing. All of today's sites require the free downloadable Shockwave plugin. If you don't have it already, you can get yours at http://www.shockwave.com/.

Dinorella

"Shall Dinorella's dress be dowdy or divine? You decide! Use your mouse to drag and drop the darling clothing onto the dainty dinosaur. Decorate her for the dance, or dress her for daily drudgery. Don't forget her diamonds!" Dressing the pink dino includes a satisfying plink sound effect, but I craved creative dressing and was disappointed that I couldn't put her pink fluffy slippers on her ears or her proper white gloves on the end of her tail.

Dunston Checks In: The Royal Suite

"Dunston's got a whole wardrobe of hip clothing. But, typical of most male primates, he can't seem to get dressed by himself." Dunston has found the Royal Suite, and needs your help choosing from a variety of boxer shorts, dresses, swim suits, hats and cool shades. Each click- and-drag has a swell coo-coo-clock sound effect, but like Dinorella, Dunston only can wear his hats on his head, and his sunglasses on his face.

Pain and Panic Get Dressed

These two characters from Disney's animated Hercules movie come with a tall pile of clothes that magically can fit either the skinny Panic or the chubby Pain. Feel free to layer as many items as you please, one on top of other, or to rearrange the pile of clothes by clicking on any of them. The whoosh-splat sound effects are perfect, and even though, again, you can't choose where the clothes are worn (toga on the head, anyone?), the whole game simply works well.

Ricky Racoon and Heidi Hedgehog

Cute little Ricky Racoon can be dressed for the beach, tennis or baseball. If you correctly match all the right clothes and accessories (for example, you bring the sand bucket to the beach, and not the baseball glove), Ricky rewards you with a small animation. Heidi Hedgehog (you'll find her link just below Ricky) can be dressed as a doctor, a soccer player, for playing outside or in fancy grown-up dress-up clothes.

Torture Your Sister: The Bridesmaids Dress-Up Game

Now for something a little different. "Click on the various outfit parts until the bridesmaid screams for mercy. Hint: Watch her face for signs that she's about to blow her top." Owning half a dozen ridiculous pink bridesmaid dresses myself, this dress-up game made me laugh out loud. Even though the little ones won't get the humor, they'll still enjoy designing their very own pink bridesmaid dress.

Please send questions or comments to feldman@surfnetkids.com.