In Barbie (1985), players step into the shoes of the iconic fashion doll as she prepares for a date with Ken. Released for the Commodore 64, this activity-based title begins when Ken calls Barbie with an invitation—whether it’s to the prom, a tennis match, dinner, or a pool party. It’s up to the player to help Barbie choose the perfect outfit and accessories for the occasion. Barbie drives through town in her convertible, stopping at various shops to browse clothing and hairstyles. Players use a joystick to select items, mix and match styles, and finalize her look before returning home to see if the choices were appropriate. Success is rewarded with a snapshot of Barbie and Ken enjoying the outing; if the outfit doesn’t suit the plan, Ken calls again with new arrangements. As the first video game ever based on the Barbie brand, it marked a notable milestone in both software licensing and the representation of girls in early computer games. It also featured impressive digitized speech—an unusual technical achievement for the time—requiring custom compression routines to play recorded voice samples on the Commodore 64’s limited hardware. The game was developed by A. Eddy Goldfarb & Associates, with a team that included two female programmers, making it a rare case of women contributing to early 1980s game code. While Barbie drew some criticism for its focus on fashion and courtship, it carved out a unique space as one of the earliest lifestyle sims and helped establish a genre that would flourish in decades to come.

This title is nostalgic in the sense that it’s the first time that Barbie ever appeared in a computer game, and had some amazing voice synthesis for the time, but it’s also somewhat dated both stylistically and thematically.  There were some polarizing opinions about the title after release, and this Youtube ranking of the 42 Barbie computer games ranks it dead last.  But, we’ll put up our neon box design against any other Barbie title out there. At the end of the day though, Barbie is the property of Mattel, so you’d need to direct any licensing inquiries to them.