Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.“The path of a stylist has many twists and turns, it’s a big responsibility,” I’m told gravely by Dada, head of the Stylist’s Guild in the picturesque lakeside town of Florawish. She’s intimidatingly glamorous, with a pair of heart-shaped glasses balanced atop her champagne-coloured hair. But the heroine I am cast as, Nikki, is up to the task. In my frilly cerulean dress, with candyfloss-pink hair in two immaculate bunches and dewy eyes brimming with optimism, I’m ready for the challenges ahead. If you’re wondering about the intense focus on clothing, it’s because style is the main event in Infinity Nikki. In this cosy open-world adventure game from Chinese developer Papergames you ride bikes, chat with locals, go fishing and chase the dream of having the perfect outfit for every occasion.Dress-up games have long been maligned by “serious gamers”, dismissed as shallow entertainment for young girls. But Infinity Nikki proves them wrong. With more than 20mn downloads in its first week of release, Infinity Nikki caps off a year in which games have taken a big step towards shaking off their cultural reputation as a boys’ club and catching up with reality — about 50 per cent of today’s gamers are women.Children have played with paper dolls with swappable outfits for centuries. The first games targeting girls followed their example: 1996’s Barbie Fashion Designer allowed players to design and print out clothing for their real-life dolls. More recently, the fashion-inclined have flocked to Nintendo series Style Savvy. Large communities have grown around styling characters in life simulation games such as The Sims and Animal Crossing. Certain fashionistas also enjoyed the four previous games in the Nikki series, but these were far less sophisticated, simply 2D dress-up games with storytelling in the visual novel style.Infinity Nikki is an ambitious evolution, setting players in the fantasy world of Miraland where outfits are imbued with magical powers. Each time you perform a special ability — such as double-jumping, catching insects or playing the violin — you briskly change into a downright adorable outfit corresponding to the task at hand. It is to the game’s credit that these clothes never sexualise the heroine, an unfortunate rarity among anime-style games. In Miraland you solve mysteries, craft garments and engage in style battles, alongside rudimentary combat which uses the euphemism of “purifying” rather than killing enemies. It is an undeniable joy to spend time in this gorgeous world. Its charm might well owe something to the involvement of Kentaro Tominaga, a key designer on landmark open-world game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.Infinity Nikki rounds out a year in which the gaming industry has started to take dress-up and conventionally feminine themes seriously. Nintendo finally ceded centre stage to its most popular heroines — both Princess Zelda and Princess Peach got their own games in 2024. Princess Peach: Showtime! in particular leaned into dress-up elements, with the princess donning stylish outfits for each distinct challenge, be it figure skating, baking, sword-fighting or detective work.Over the summer, the Roblox platform enjoyed viral success with Dress to Impress, a multiplayer fashion showdown in which players improvise a look based on a theme and are then judged on the runway by their peers. The game was so influential among Gen Z players that it tempted singer Charli XCX into a digital fashion drop tied to her Brat album.Fashion in games has always been a universal concern. Dress-up is an essential ingredient in all manner of genres because it’s a key part of role playing. It’s quite normal to spend hours in character creator modes tweaking the beard length of your dwarven warrior in Dragon Age: The Veilguard or the precise shade of teal of your character’s eyes in Cyberpunk 2077. Hardened gamers know that, in games ranging from Elden Ring to sci-fi shooter Destiny, it’s only after you’ve beaten the final boss that you travel the land obsessively searching for the coolest trousers.So it is telling but not surprising that the Infinity Nikki message boards are brimming with middle-aged straight men admitting that, to their surprise, they love the game’s high-concept fashion. With flawless execution and expert taste, Nikki reveals a truth: that deep down, everybody loves playing dress-up. It has just taken time for some of us to admit it.infinitynikki.infoldgames.com
