LOVE/HATE: The Let’s Play a Game Edition

Imagine Wedding Designer

The adorable Audrey recently e-mailed me to ask if I’d seen Nintendo’s Imagine Wedding Designer. I hadn’t, not having a DS or all that much free time to devote to playing wedding games these days. Wedding games have always struck me as a bit odd… planning a wedding is a lot of work!

Here are just some of the things players of Imagine Wedding Designer can do:

  • Design the weddings of six different brides, each with their own personality and specific tastes.
  • Create the wedding invitations, choose the dress, veil, and bouquet and outfit the entire wedding party.
  • Decide on the location, music, venue, decorations, and more!
  • Live the big day and use your camera to capture all the perfect moments for the wedding.

I say meh. I don’t love the idea behind this game, but I certainly don’t care enough about it to hate it. What say you? Wedding games, are they fun or overdone?

6 Responses to “LOVE/HATE: The Let’s Play a Game Edition”

  1. De says:

    I dislike games that try to claim they are open ended but truly aren’t. You don’t ‘design’ anything in this game – you pick 1 of 6 presets and if you pick the ‘right’ one for that bride you proceed, if not you keep choosing until the game lets you go forward.

    I would love a game that would let you design any combination of things into a wedding – that would be fun. But games that insist on certain combinations or ‘rules’ just make me a little sad, because it feels like the game is enforcing stereotypes and preconceptions.

    But then, I’ve always preferred open ended games anyway….so I think I came into this biased. 🙂

  2. blablover5 says:

    I don’t get it. Of course this is clearly one of those ploys the video game industry pulls to try to get more girls to play and buy their stuff. Well we already did cute animals and fashion design, what’s next?

    I know! How about a wedding. All women love planning weddings!

    Give me a break. I’ll just stick with my Oblivion over here, thanks.

  3. Twistie says:

    I hadn’t seen the game, but if De’s description is correct (and I’m more than willing to accept De’s word on it!) then it’s no way a game for me, wedding-obsessed though I freely admit I am. Is it worse than any other puzzle game where you need to match the item to the ‘character’? Probably not. Most of them rely on some sort of shorthand based on broad generalizations, if not outright stereotypes, and most of them bore the socks off me after one or two plays, if I bother to play them at all.

    My game is The Sims, and I play it hacked to the gills. If someone comes out with a bizarre item that allows me to control something the basic game doesn’t, or adds the potential for an unexpected twist, I’m on it like a downloading fool. Open-ended is the way for me.

  4. un-bride says:

    Um … weird. Is this an attempt by the WIC to infiltrate the brains of young girls, and suck them into the consumerist vortex before they hit puberty? Or am I reading too much into it?

  5. jstar says:

    I would never play it, or buy it for anyone I know, but I’ve never been into games that take planning. I am buying a house and getting married within four months of eachother. That combined with being a special ed. teacher makes me want to have fun in my scarce free time, not plan pretend events. But that’s just me. To each his/her own.

  6. 7nina says:

    I actually played a demo of this, and thought it was kind of fun. I don’t think I’d buy it, because like most puzzle and puzzle-like games, once you’ve solved all of them, it isn’t as much fun. But if you’re a fan, like me, of this kind of puzzle game, you might really like it.