Wii Rally

I have to admit that deep down that I wish I was an interior designer. How much fun would it be to buy home furnishings and then place them into a house. It would be fun but not sure if I’m really cut out for it. Sometimes it’s best just to dream of doing something and not actually ruin it by doing it for a living.

I do enjoy games that allow me to decorate homes, amusement parks, cities, etc. That’s why Home Sweet Home really caught my attention. After playing it for an hour, I was undeniably hooked. This fun game will also be available for the Nintendo Wii through WiiWare, Nintendo’s new service to bring casual games to Wii owners by allowing them to purchase and download the games from their Wii.

In Home Sweet Home, you are challenged to decorate rooms according to the client’s wishes. The first home is very easy since the clients give specific details as to their likes and dislikes. Later clients will not be as easy as their instructions will be more cryptic than straightforward. For example, just what captures Halloween smiles or bunny food to you?

Luckily you will have an approval meter, so when you do place furnishings into an area if the client will like it, the meter rises. Once you have furnishings in a room, you can rotate them or sell them if it is something that the client will not approve of. Watch your budget because buying furnishings is just part of where the money will go.

Once you’ve bought all the furnishings, it’s time to hire a crew to build it. You have so many days to complete the room, and you start off with a crew of three people. When a crew member gets tired, you can give him some coffee to revive him/her. Also during the building stage you will have to hand tools the crew or you might have to administer first aid. Decorating is only half the battle as you have to help the crew make it through the build and finish on time. If they start a project and then get hurt, all of their progress on the piece is lost. This can really put you behind schedule especially with bigger projects like flooring or walls. It’s best to match up the workers with jobs that are best suited for them. If a worker is outlined in pink, then jobs that are highlighted in pink are their expertise. It’s like Garanimals but without the loud, flowery prints.

Home Sweet Home allows my inner designer to come out and have some fun. Since most of the controls in the PC version are point and click, it should very intuitive to play with the Wii remote. WiiWare launches next month and will give gamers a chance to buy new casual games for the Wii. You buy games with your Wii points, the same currency used to buy games for the Virtual Console. WiiWare games will vary in prices but should run anywhere from 500 to 1500 Wii points.