I played Roblox's hottest game that's sweeping social media and got my ass handed to me by a bunch of 12-year-olds

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(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

Now I may be approaching 30 at a terrifying rate, but the little fashionista in me has yet to crumble into dust. Dressing up virtual characters is still very much my jam—after all, we know fashion is the real endgame in any game that lets you customise your character. With The Algorithm forever listening, it means I’ve been fed a ridiculous amount of Dress to Impress clips across all of my social media for months now.

(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

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I drop in right on the tail-end of a runway as the theme “Visual Kei” is emblazoned across the top of the screen—think a blend of harajuku and glam rock à la Kiss. Yo, cool, I’m a huge visual kei fan! Except, er, hardly anyone strutting their stuff on the catwalk is really in visual kei getup. A couple people get close to nailing it, while everyone else seems to have gone for “random pretty outfit” instead. A thing, I will discover, that is very common when nobody gets what the theme is supposed to be.

(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

Finally, the round is over and it’s my turn to have a go, with the theme being “Future Career.” I start as a shockingly slim, dark blue, faceless entity. A blank canvas, with which to do whatever I please. I’m used to being able to take my time with my virtual outfit planning, so having to rush around Dress to Impress’ spacious dressing room in five minutes made me feel like I was doing a design challenge in RuPaul’s Drag Race.

My first problem is that I have no idea how to change my skin colour, a thing I eventually end up Googling in old-aged desperation. Not in time for this runway, mind you, meaning I ended up sauntering down the runway in all my Avatar-toned glory. Thankfully, I easily find the hair and makeup stations to make me look slightly less sleep paralysis demon. The makeup presets are all bold and glamorous with smokey eyes and huge plump lips, reminiscent of my Bratz doll days. Very few of them have noses, and the ones that do are strangely upsetting. There’s an option to be able to pick and choose individual elements to build my own Instagram model face, but they’re locked behind a real-money purchase. Bummer.

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As I mess around with the hair, I completely miss the fact that you can layerabsolutely everythingin this game. Nothing comes off unless you go out of your way to remove it, and I leave the salon chair looking like I haven’t brushed my hair in six weeks while birds have started to build a nest in there. Not sure how I’ve managed to make my model look so tragic in a game where that state of being is nigh impossible, but here we are.

As you can tell, my first attempt at cobbling together an outfit was going stunningly.(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

I go very basic and decide that my “future career” is some sort of generic office worker. I don’t have time to figure out where everything is and what it does. I’m accidentally opening random menus and clicking on random objects like a grandma trying to navigate an iPhone that isn’t magnified to shit.

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The five minutes is up, and I hit the runway with the rest of my competitors. This is my time to shine—I’ve seen far too many TikToks talking about “pose 28” over the last few months, which sees my Dress to Impress model do a strange lean-back-splits while cupping her hands behind her back. I do that a few times, really selling the garments, before I slide off into the void to let the next ultra-glamorous model come out.

(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

Blood surgeon ends up coming third, however, with another “generic office worker” fit taking first place while another player who I assume opted for the aforementioned “random pretty outfit” choice somehow nabs second.

That’s something that, as I continued to play more games, I came to realise: The game is goddamn rigged, y’all. People show up with their friends, throw on a random fit and get first place for the pleasure. “Omggg tysm” was a regular response to it, with all the same sincerity of an actor who knew they were about to win an Oscar. Should I be mad about this at my big age? No, but was I mad about it? A little bit.

High fashion

I use all this arcane knowledge for the next theme Dress to Impress throws at me: Elegance. This should be an easy one to nail a win for. Instead of opting for the fishtail dresses everyone seemed to be immediately throwing on—partly because I didn’t have it and was still blissfully unaware of the existence ofDress to Impress codes—I went for a more classical French elegance. Eating a croissant while drinking a cappuccino kinda vibes, y’know?

(Image credit: Roblox Corporation)

Dress to Impress

The runway happens, I strut my stuff and then the drumroll commences. The screen fades out to the podium, and there I am! Second place! I’ve finally secured the approval of my, presumably, significantly younger fashionistas-in-arms. I feel a weird sense of accomplishment about the whole thing, and a desire to dive back in and school these kids all over again. I go for one more round, and place dead last. Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

I did have a surprising amount of fun in Dress to Impress. It has its issues for sure: There’s only one feminine body type, and of course it’s painfully thin while somehow being curvy in all the “right” places. There’s a masculine body type too, but the game only offers a puny corner of clothing choices for it. There’s also an extortionate amount of clipping that happens with all the clothing and hair which can make combining some items frustrating, but hey, it’s a free game in Roblox, not a thing I shelled out $70 for.

I have to admit I’ve been dipping back in for a couple of games here and there since wrapping up my initial curiosity session. I’m sure the limited selection of clothing and children calling me things like “fatso” and “uggo” will steer me away eventually. For now, it’s a great throwback to my childhood, strange cyberbullying and all.

Dress to Impress codes: Get fast fashionAnime Defenders codes: Free gems and unitsBlox Fruits codes: Double XP and free statsAnime Reborn codes: Free gems and traits

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Shop ‘til you drop#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

In Vogue#

High fashion#

Shop ‘til you drop

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

In Vogue

High fashion