Designer's World is a 2006 plug-and-play TV game – a single-game console which plugs directly into a television – made by Tiger Electronics, a subsidiary of Hasbro.[1] Aimed at preteen and teenage girls, the game revolves around the player building a successful fashion design company, while organizing fashion shows, managing the company's finances, and trying to keep the customers satisfied. The player travels the world designing clothes, hiring new models, buying new fabrics, and entering fashion shows. The player also receives an income for every successful fashion show. In the game, every fashion show takes place in a specific region of the world, and has a panel of three judges. Every judge's difficulty varies from easy, medium, hard, and very hard. The player can find information about a judge or model in the "Profiles" section, found in the main menu. Once the player passes every fashion city in the world, the game ends and shows what the player has done during the game time. Tiger Electronics also produced a similarly themed game also aimed at young teen girls, Dream Life.[2]

Gameplay

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The game simulates both the business and design aspects of the fashion business. To operate a successful business in the game, players design the clothes they will sell, and then select from multiple models to show off their designs at fashion shows in Paris, New York, Tokyo and Milan.[3]

To enter a fashion show, players choose a region to compete in. Then, they are prompted to create up to four outfits to display in a fashion show. Each show has a theme, which can include a variety of rules, ranging from "warm colors only" to specific colors and fabric patterns. Notably, only the garments themselves count toward earning credit toward following the theme, not the accessories that may also be included in an outfit. As the judges' difficulty increases, the number of outfits and specificity of theme increase accordingly.

The clothes are highly customizable, with options to change the style, color, and fabric of each piece. As players earn more money, they can acquire new styles and patterns in the "Magazine" or "End Turn" sections of the main menu.

After all outfits have been completed, players choose a model for each of the outfits they have created. They can choose from three hairstyles and four songs to which they can walk down the runway. At the end of their walk, every model is then giving a rating out of five stars from each of the judges. The more the player caters to the likes or dislikes of the judges, along with following the theme, the higher their score becomes. The average score from the three judges is then used as their overall score.

References

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  1. ^ Hasbro pays tribute to Hassenfeld, gives shareholders glimpse of future, The Providence Journal, May 26, 2006.
  2. ^ Bednar, Joseph: Fun and Games Archived 2007-09-29 at the Wayback Machine, Business West: The Business Journal of Western Massachusetts, May 1, 2006.
  3. ^ Case, Susan: Holiday Gift Guide[permanent dead link], Lifestyle Magazine, December 2006.
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