This week end I wasn’t feeling well and retreated to the couch with my tablet. The games I had been playing were getting boring, and my husband had been nagging me to install Angry Birds on my tablet, so I removed the games I had and went to the Google Play Store.

I did install one version of the Angry Birds, but while I was waiting for it to install, my eye caught glimpse of another game. This game is call Dance School Stories. The goal of the game is to reach the top of the leaderboard or be the best dancer in the dance academy.

The game starts out by showing a glimpse of the incident, which was someone cut the stage lights to make them fall on the dancer… you.

You can then begin the story eight months earlier, by creating your dancer, and teaching her to dance. In the beginning you are very inexperienced, and it is hard to get a compliment from the instructor. You are taken to the avatar build mode and can pick simple features such as the shape of their head, their eye color, and eyebrows.

Once you have created and named your dancer, you are sent to class to meet the instructor in the ballet studio. You will immediately begin learning to dance by following the instructors lead. This dance class consists of 4 different colored circles. The instructor will show you the dance, and the colored circles will light up in a certain order. You must repeat the sequence until the end of the lesson.

At first these lessons are very easy, but they get longer and more difficult as you progress through the levels and dance classes. If you can complete the dance lesson, you are given points towards your final grade and the semester completion. Every activity in the game also increases your skills as a dancer.

After your first dance class, you are told that you will need to impress the head of the school, Madam Truffa. But first you will need to get ready. If you are playing the free version, you will need to open certain clothing and accessories by watching a short 30 second video. You can bypass this by purchasing the game items. Some items are only opened at certain semesters.

You will also begin the dance school drama by meeting your first friend. This drama throughout the game increases through interactions with other dancers. As your skills increase, so does the competition. Throw in the competition for a guy, and you have all the elements for an attempted murder. At this point, you are no competition to anyone, so you must go through the quests to level up your dancing skills.

Once you have picked out your very simple outfit, you can receive your reward and go to the dance recital. It does pay to open all the available options in the other modes because your style is included in your dance recital score, and your final grade for the semester.

Once you are in the concert hall you can pick a song, pick the stage floor, the backdrop, and the lights. Each of these stage props will have the option to open more by watching a video. You can confirm the stage you like and begin choregraphing your dance moves. You are given four free moves and can open more with in-game purchase to make your dance longer.

Once on stage, you can choose from the dance moves you have learned this semester to create your performance. You can remove the dance moves by checking on the red x and then arrange the dance moves until you like the complete performance.

Once you confirm your selections, you are given the stage, and your dancer will perform the choregraphed dance moves you selected from the list. On the bottom of the screen an effects menu will appear. There you can choose effects such as butterflies and ribbons.

Depending on the dance you are performing, and your skill level, more effects will be available to use during your dance recitals. You will have one dance recital every semester. Once you are done with your performance, your dance is saved. There will be a video of your dance that others in the game can review and vote on later. (You can also see the dance with the effects on the video.)

The game gets better as it continues improving the options to dress-up your dancer, and the ability to dance. At the gym your dancer is given fitness skill points. You can tap the circles as they appear on the screen to rack up the points. Your fitness skill level helps you dance better.

There are more classes to choose from. You will have the choice of going back to ballet class or take a hip-hop dance class. Eventually you can also take jazz and Latin dance classes. Each of the different dance styles comes with it’s appropriate clothing and make-up options.

As you level in the game you can unlock different options giving your dancer more polish to go with her skills. You will also be able to color their hair different colors and fix new hair-dos every semester. Any new items in the menus will be marked. You always have the option to purchase new items with real money. But you can get good grades by using the free video watching options. (This will run down your battery.)

I played this game for a long time, past the attempted murder, and on to make some very cool videos. I did have trouble taking off the clothes from one semester to another, so my dancer had miss-matched outfits for a while and wore heart shaped sunglasses to her ballet recital.

I also noticed people asking about removing costume items in the comments. I eventually figured out that if you go back to the building on the map of the clothing style you put on, the option to go back into the clothing store opens. I was then able to go back into the dressing room, take off the clothing I did not want, and then click enough options to complete the dressing room quest and go back to dress for another class.

This is a cute little game and it is addictive. I would recommend it to anyone who likes to dance or dress up avatars. I can’t wait to see if the best dancer in the school was the one who clipped the ropes on the stage lights, or if was my other friend, because you see she liked this guy and he liked me…. It’s very complicated.

I just wanted to show this game to ya’ll. If I can figure out how to share my videos, I will share them with ya! In the meantime, here is a video I found of the first 18 minutes of the game. You can see everything I have explained, and the different menu options and games offered in the Dance School Stories game.

Let me know in the comments if you tried it too!!

Until next time,

Happy Gaming- Sim Girl