This app places your child in an interactive fairy world. Your child begins by creating her fairy avatar in the vanity or you download one from your PixieHollow.com account. You can choose her facial features (eye color, skin color shape of her face), her hairstyle (including color and highlights) and also her wing style. Visiting her closet will allow you change her outfit and add accessories, but it only comes with a couple clothing items to start.
Inside your fairy boutique are little bug helpers. Several games are within this section, and your child can earn practice points which improves their skill and speed, such as teaching the spider to stitch and shearing the fur off of a caterpillar. I did have to read the directions once to my five year old, then she was independent with all the games after that.
Pixie customers then start to enter your boutique and place orders. This is the part, where if your child isn’t an independent reader, you’ll be playing the game with them. My daughter and I had a great time fulfilling the pixie’s orders with the assistance of our little bug helpers. Depending on the complexity of the outfit, it takes your helpers varying amounts of time to complete it. One shirt she designed took 15 seconds, but another skirt she chose took 30 minutes. You are also timed in how long until your customers expect to receive it. It counts down in real time, so 15 minutes will actually take 15 full minutes and you’ll have to be sure that you have enough time left to complete the order.
In the game you can earn stars, diamonds and pixie dust. All are used as currency to purchase new patterns so you can create endless “pixie-riffic” outfits and accessories. For example, a shirt pattern may cost 1 pixie dust, but you can turn around and sell it for 50 pixie dusts! In this way you can earn more and more currency, working towards larger purchases. This is where the in-app purchases come into play. Instead of waiting to earn the currency, you can purchase it in the iTunes store. You can also purchase materials, mannequins, room themes, wallpapers, floors and even an entire boutique (The Fashion Suite costs 50,000 pixie dust and holds 5 mannequins. To purchase 65,000 pixie dust outright costs $4.99). These items are important as you build your fairy fashion empire. More mannequins mean more “off the rack” shopping and displays your outfits to attract more customers.
The game gives you goals, too. As a “Tailor in-training” you must create 20 patterns, which unlocks the next tier level of patterns. Fully training your little bug helpers will give you 100 stars each! There are 80 goals in all.
This is a fun app for little girls, especially those into creating and selling fashion! There is a lot of play in the free version, but paying for the extra supplies will give unlimited fairy fun!
I would recommend this for ages 6 and up (independent readers). My daughter is 5 and was able to figure a lot of the games out herself, as well as style her fairy, but she missed out on the interactions with the other fairies that would visit her shop since she couldn’t read their requests. I also enjoyed going into the boutique to make a few items of my own to surprise her…she loves it!
Cost: Free (plus in app purchases) http://itunes.com/app/
-Heather
* We did not receive monetary compensation for this review. Heather downloaded the app for free from the App store to facilitate this review (but so can you!). Heather also received an iTunes gift card to explore the paid levels of the app. This will in no way sway our opinion of the product or service. The review is in our own words and is our opinion. Your results and opinions may differ.
