Games' Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book of Players, Pawns, and Power-Ups

9. Girls Gone Gaming

67 9 Girls Gone Gaming It’s getting tougher and tougher to say simply, “This is a game for boys,” or “This game is strictly for girls.” The reason for this is that both genders are finding enjoyment in games that are targeted toward one particular sex. Nevertheless , there are still numerous games made for boys, and a growing number targeted directly to girls. The following is a list of some of the best games many people feel are made just for girls. More girls are enjoying video games today. Wikimedia Commons 68 Games’ Most Wanted™ 1. GIRLSGOGAMES.COM A veritable buffet of games of every sort, all designed to appeal to girls, this website offers more than 2,500 games that can all be played online for free. (Girlsgogames.com is owned by Spil Games, a Dutch company that is the largest purveyor of online games on the Internet.) The website is almost a sensory overload when it comes to deciding what to play. The games are sorted by category, which a visitor to the site can review in order to help narrow down choices. Gameplay can range from the simple to the challenging, and nearly all the games on the site are flashbased . Visitors can jump into games right away, or sign up for a free account. Registered users gain access to avatars, which can then be customized, win various awards, and set high scores for games, thus fulfilling a competitive need. Registered members can also provide feedback to the site administrators and interact with other registered users. The site and their owners clearly have met a demand. In a recent interview, the CEO of Spil Games commented that the young girl segment of their audience is seeing the largest growth of all their properties. 2. IMAGINE GAME SERIES These simulation games, launched in 2007 by Ubisoft for the Nintendo DS and Wii, cover a wide array of occupations or activities, with most designed to appeal to young girls and women. Titles such as Imagine: Makeup Artist, Prom, Interior Designer, and dozens more fill the lineup. The rapid release of so many titles in the series (eighteen in 2008 alone) calls into the question the quality of the games, and in many cases, the gameplay has been called “shallow and repetitive.” The series received some heavy criticism in the beginning as many of titles seemed targeted at stereotypical and even archaic female occupations and practices. Ubisoft defended their position by saying they were producing games Girls Gone Gaming 69 in response to research into what young girls were expressing a desire for. Later, Ubisoft expanded their occupations to include such titles as Imagine: Detective and Imagine: Soccer Captain. The games themselves allow for a wide variety of gameplay , depending upon the occupation. Imagine: Detective, for example, allows the player to take the role of a fourteen-yearold sleuth set to root out bullies and bandits. Mini games allow for revealing of clues to a larger mystery. Imagine: Resort Owner sets the player to designing and planning a top-notch resort and desert island, and makes use of the DS’s internal camera as well. All the games have several mini games to challenge the player and advance the internal story. 3. MYSTERY DATE Considered a classic board game from Milton Bradley, Mystery Date was originally released in 1965, with updated versions following in 1970 and 2005. The game has also been adapted, with a version tied into the popular High School Musical franchise from the early 2000s. Gameplay is simple, with the players trying to match various cards to put together the right outfit to match the potential date that may be hiding behind the door in the center of the game board. If the outfit matches one of the date choices (formal, bowling, beach, or skiing date), the player wins. Of course, the player could end up with the nerd or “dud” date. If the outfit doesn’t match the date, play continues. With such basic play, the game has limited appeal, beyond the nostalgia now generated by older women who remember the game with fondness from their youth, whether it was playing the game with older siblings or during a latenight slumber party. The game does represent a much different time period, when many of the products aimed at girls were designed as almost a way for them to be trained for future roles...