American Girl: Mia Goes for Great (Windows)

You control Mia by simply pointing and clicking (or by using the arrow keys) and will help her to prepare for her first two figure skating competitions. As Mia, you must select music, secure costumes, design programs that comply with the competitions' requirements, practice, and compete. To accomplish some of these goals you will need to talk with and help many of the town's inhabitants, including Mia's parents, her three brothers, friends, the town's librarian, her skating coach, and store owners. You can talk to each person by selecting conversational sentences from a drop-down menu of possible things to say. You have a backpack in which to keep things you find, and a diary that automatically keeps track of things you discover and generates a "To Do" list which helps you figure out what to explore next. Practicing skating is a timed game of hitting arrow keys as Mia tries new skating moves. The game also has two fun arcade-type minigames.

The game is set against a beautiful backdrop of snowy landscapes and detailed interiors. However, this game suffers a little from presenting such a small world to explore. While girls won't get lost, they might get tired of returning to the same places over and over again. Also, the game does not automatically save when you quit; so make sure to actively hit "Save" so that you don't lose your game's progress.