Dressmaker

Title: Dressmaker
Publisher: Free Lives
Developer: Cozy Lives
Release Date: September 21, 2026
Genres: Indie, Simulation
Platform: Microsoft Windows, Steam
Where to Buy: Steam, itch.io
Rating:

Become a dressmaker! Choose fabric, cut out patterns, and sew them all together to satisfy (or sabotage!) townsfolk in this cozy crafting game inspired by real dressmaking.

Whether your pattern is aligned to the grain or cut on bias, how you choose to arrange and cut out your fabric is what appears on the final dress. Take full control over what fabric to use for each panel of your garment.

Meet a whole town of people hoping to fill their wardrobes with custom-made dresses tailored specially to important events and their individual tastes. Create dresses to impress them, or display your own designs in your shop window and sell pre-made dresses off of the rack.

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Review

Dressmaker is a cozy little indie game that upon release took the streaming space by storm, and for good reason. It is an impressively detailed sewing simulation game that has you taking all the steps from designing the dress, choosing and cutting fabrics, and sewing each piece together. The actual pieces you cut show up on the dress exactly the way you cut it and it’s just incredible.

The game also includes the ability to add buttons, jewels, lace, and other little accessories to really elevate the creative design options. There are a lot of styles that you can choose from to create any dress you can dream of. I was blown away by the level of customization, and it hours before I even realized that I could change the sewing speed on my sewing machine, or change the thread color, which is otherwise unnoticeable and does not appear on the final dress. When sewing you can move the dress as the needle is moving to adjust position, and the game actually allows for two methods of feeding the dress into the machine: either by holding down the space button or with the scroll wheel on your mouse. Each game design choice feels intentional with a high level of care for detail.

Certain aspects of sewing and creating clothing are simplified compared to reality, but the general consensus that I’ve observed from seamstresses and cosplayers that have streamed the game is that it is fairly accurate. The player community has been active uploading their creations and some dresses are honestly breathtaking.

One of the unexpected highlights of this game are the characters and each of their stories. As the new dressmaker in town you are tasked with creating custom dresses for the distinguished ladies of society. As you fill requests you learn about the local gossip, and there is plenty of tongue in cheek humor throughout. The setting is entirely fictional with fantastical elements but resemble the 1800s broadly, though the types of dresses you can create come from multiple time periods. The art style is a blend of 2D characters and 3D modeling for the sewing parts but the overall art style has a dreamy hand drawn feel to it.

Many “job simulator” games feel low quality and have repetitive game mechanics and focus more on maximizing profits. Dressmaker is a cut above other games in this genre and is filled to the brim with charm. Dressmaker is definitely the sleeper hit for this year and a wonderful first showing from a team of developers that are clearly passionate about the art of clothing design.

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