Style Savvy: Styling Star makes players part of an active community

In each of the Style Savvy games, there is banter with the customers before helping them with their fashion needs. As part of their request, they may explain why they need specific kinds of clothing or outfits. While in past games, this was mainly to help with customer service, it is more than flavor text in Style Savvy: Styling Star. This entry attempts to insert players’ avatars in the world as a meaningful part of things.

As with all Style Savvy games, Styling Star begins with the player taking the reins of a boutique. Your uncle, Tim, hands it over to you, before heading off to see the world. As you serve customers each day, you gain experience that allows you to level up. After gaining levels, new people will come to town. By helping them with their fashion requests, you will get to follow their storylines and become a bigger part of their life.

The three singers are the best example of how this structure works in Style Savvy: Styling Star. Nin10 Pro, a talent agency, has its headquarters in the same square as your store. Leveling up will result in Rosie and Yolanda coming to town, as well as being exposed to Alina when she shops for bread in the square on the weekend. Each of these young women will ask for your help, first for common clothing items. Then, when they are recruited by Nin10 Pro and begin their careers, you will be called upon to provide them with official stylist services for concerts and modeling engagements. Before they have auditions, they will come in asking for specific pieces of clothing.

This means you get to see specific storylines for each character play out. When Yolanda is on the verge of her mother discovering she is the starlet Lady Moon, you will help her find a new outfit, decide on a different hairstyle and pick out new makeup as a disguise. Later, you follow along as she tries for her first movie role, going from audition to actual gig. You determine whether Rosie will become a pop or rock star, help her find clothing for personal and professional outings and are there as she gets close to her hero.

Smaller Nin10 Pro professionals also end up turning to the player for advice, allowing you to become more of a fixture. This makes it less odd that you are only helping the agency when it comes to these three performers. It all feels more real when you see you are being relied upon for the company’s whole stable of performers. Elsie is one of these models. You determine which path her career takes. She comes in wanting to be a model for a rather girly magazine, but another model she has idolized thinks she would be perfect for a more bold modeling career. You help her get scouted by providing an initial outfit, pick out clothes for her first shoot, then later choose an outfit to determine which brand she goes with.

But Style Savvy: Styling Star does not limit you to becoming indispensible among the rich and famous. The game uses regular customers to help integrate you into the community at large. One example is a young woman named Hafsa, who is new to town. You help her pick out an initial outfit to help her at work. Eventually, you pick out clothes that let her connect with a new friend group. After a while, your choices lead to her finding a best friend, who she then brings into the shop to get her own new outfit and meet you. You are part of the reason they got together and get to see their relationship grow as a reward. In another situation, a man and woman have just gotten engaged and are about to tell their parents at a dinner. You first pick out an outfit for the women at your own store. Then, after it goes well, you head to the menswear shop to choose an outfit for the man too.

Involvement is critical in Style Savvy: Styling Star. You are a part of a world that has multiple storylines running. Your decisions to help customers helps you get involved in their lives. It does not matter whether or not they are famous. The services you provide influence their lives. Sometimes, they even determine which one of two paths they go down. It forces you to put more thought into your decisions and provides more satisfying payoffs.