Cosplay Maker PC Review by Bijouxdemon of We Touch Games, Edited by Kytten of We Touch Games
Genre: Indie, Simulation
Developer: Locked Door Puzzle
Publisher: Lupus Studios Limited
Release date: Dec 10, 2015
Cosplay Maker is a management game in which you are a newbie to the cosplay world. Through the game, there is a story mode where you progress further and unlock more costumes to progress as you win more of the convention cosplay contests. Along the way, you encounter other characters that you can communicate with and build strong friendships (and even romances!) with. It’s a very simple point and click management game. From there though, the game does take somewhat of a downward turn in terms of the graphics, gameplay, as well as the audio.
You start off with your main character, you do not have the option of choosing your gender, you’re stuck as a female for the entire game. All of the cosplays that you make through the game are reminiscent of other video game/anime/fandom characters, but obviously the names and some coloring and designs are differed to avoid copyright issues. Graphically, the game is very basic in design and in the characters appearances. Nothing stands out as being particularly spectacular about it.
The design of the menu of the game is somewhat confusing, not to mention gameplay isn’t made clear on how to start off making your cosplays and the game doesn’t exactly give you any explanation on how to navigate it; so it’s a bit of trial and error. You create the cosplays while also managing your week of relaxing (de-stress and rebuild energy), work (get money for the supplies for cosplays and entry fee to cons), socializing (build friendships), facebooking (build popularity), and studying (build up skill levels in cosplay). It’s a little hard since you have either days or nights to do stuff during the week and the whole weekend to do one activity. It takes a while, and there are times you end up working for a whole month straight just to build up enough money for supplies.
During the time that the week plays out, there is an animated segment that shows off the activities you took during the week. They use electro-swing music in the background during those parts but with only 3-4 tracks repeated each time, it gets extremely annoying and I eventually ended up muting the game. As for progress, it takes a lot of gameplay and time, to the point that it gets extremely tedious without any huge incentives to keep pushing forward. The story is a bit lackluster at best, and without a driving story to keep pushing me through, I eventually just stopped playing the game. It has a lot of potential to be a very good micro-management game, but there has to be an update to graphics, an increase in audio playing in the background, side quests to accompany the main story for more play incentive, and a better intro tutorial system and menu management to keep this game interesting.
Recommendation: If you want something simple to kill a bit of time, it’s not a bad game, but the graphics, story, and lots of work with little pay off for a good amount of the game don’t really have me recommending this game on a larger scale to others. I definitely wouldn’t say it’s worth the $14.99 USD that it’s priced at on the Steam store.
Bijouxdemon gives Cosplay Maker a Drastik Measure 5.7 out of 10.0 (57).
Ratings:
Graphics: 6/10
Audio: 5/10
Gameplay: 6/10
