The people who play the games of Facebook are creative; but, games that encourage creativity through user-generated content are few and far between. Wedding Street breaks this mold from the very beginning.
Do not let the name fool you; this is no click-fest to get to the wedding on time. Your job, should you take it, is to create the perfect wedding: from designing the perfect cake to the most glamorous dress; from a reception so regal a prince would luxuriate in celebration to the simplest, most petite and elegant bouquet of flowers to ever grace a bride’s hand. At your fingertips are a multitude of choices as each item is made from scratch, by you – no templates, no guides. Each color, flower, and pattern will be chosen by you to make the lucky couple happy on their special day.
The people who play the games of Facebook are creative; but, games that encourage creativity through user-generated content are few and far between. Wedding Street breaks this mold from the very beginning.
Do not let the name fool you; this is no click-fest to get to the wedding on time. Your job, should you take it, is to create the perfect wedding: from designing the perfect cake to the most glamorous dress; from a reception so regal a prince would luxuriate in celebration to the simplest, most petite and elegant bouquet of flowers to ever grace a bride’s hand. At your fingertips are a multitude of choices as each item is made from scratch, by you – no templates, no guides. Each color, flower, and pattern will be chosen by you to make the lucky couple happy on their special day. And yes, I was a little overwhelmed at first, too.
Immediately when you start to play, you are introduced to Honey (“Just call me Hon, everyone does…”), who will guide you through a brief tutorial. Clients with varying deadlines (1-5 days) and varying budgets (this changes depending upon your level) come to you to complete their wedding. You choose the clients you would like to work with based upon three criteria: the length of time – can you complete the wedding before the time ends (ergo, will you be online?), the budget (have you unlocked some of the more expensive items), and the client’s theme, color, and style preference. This last one can make for some really… well, let’s just say that not every client has taste that matches mine. Gothic , yellow and hip? European Escape, purple, and homespun? Who are these people?
Once you’ve chosen your client you will be given tasks to complete.
This is where the fun starts. Depending upon the length of the job, you will have 2-4 primary tasks and 2-5 micro-tasks. The primary tasks are the really fun jobs where you get to be creative such as designing the dress or cake. Micro-tasks are the minutiae of wedding planning but are put together in a way that makes it fun. An example would be the task, Design the Ceremony. In this task, I am given clues about what venue, musician, officiant, type of entrance and sendoff, and photography the couple would like for their special day. Each item in the six categories has information in case I am unsure of its significance so that I can best choose based upon the couple’s request. My goal is to get as close to their budget as possible. Each time I choose an item that matches their preference exactly, I earn a Happiness Heart. If I come within 50-90% of the budget, I earn an extra heart. What do these hearts mean? They are a measure of my overall success at planning the wedding. The micro-tasks are pretty straightforward; it is just a matter of making choices that give you the best budget – sometimes you want the more expensive location, sometimes the lesser.
But the real fun is in making things. This is the true fun of the game and where even the least artistic of us gets to be creative. Although everyone can agree that pie is good, we will be making cake today! Wedding cake! (All of the creative endeavors work similarly to cake – dresses, bouquets and events.) As you make your item, your clients will let you know just how satisfied they are with your choices by those Happiness Hearts. The good news is, you can make cakes without your clients (because clients like some really ugly cakes). You have a display case to sell them from to earn extra coin and you can also play in sandbox mode, making cakes and sending them to your friends all day to your hearts delight! But first, let’s make a cake!
First, you must choose – two tiers or three? Then you must choose a shape. Currently, there are four shapes to choose from: round, square, Hexagonal and Petal. Next you must choose a pattern. There are 35 different patterns to choose from but not all are available at the beginning of the game. Some are premium and must be purchased (I’ll get to that momentarily), and some items must be unlocked. An item that must be unlocked is done so simply by playing the game and completing clients; that is all it takes. Of the 35 patterns, all but two have more than one color and most have nearly 200 combinations. For the purpose of this article, I am going to choose a three-tiered, hexagonal cake with three tones of green frosting and white lace. Then I must choose ribbons and edging… then decorations – flowers, candies, additional frosting… and finally a topper. I’ve added small white beading, some calla lilies and to be whimsical – Teddy Bears! This cake could have been nearly anything.
The length of time needed for your creations will depend on the cost and boosts. Boosts are items you can buy with the in-game currency you earn. Boosts affect not only creation time but the costs of items (so you earn more) and the happiness of your clients. In the dress shop you can buy interfacing, pressing cloths, and extra sharp cutting blades. Boosts wear out over time – usually three days; another option is to purchase upgrades. Upgrades work as boosts to but are permanent. For these you will have to pay Honeys – the real world currency of the game. Examples of upgrades at the florist are refrigerators (where bouquets are created), fans, stem-cutters and ribbon racks.
Honeys are also used to open other options for creating items – new bodices, skirts, venues, and linens – all of the items that you’ll use to create the perfect wedding. You can buy them in bulk using PayPal or a credit card but earning them is rather simple as this is where friends become a big part of your experience. One of the boosts I haven’t mentioned is coffee. Coffee will speed up all of the timers in the game – there are many different types of coffee and each has a different duration and adjustment. But you earn one Honey per person per day for each coffee you send. I have 17 friends playing Wedding Street. Each day I earn 17 Honeys for sending coffee.
You can also use your friends to help you complete jobs. If there is a type of job you just don’t care for – for example, I love to make bouquets but I have just not mastered moving the flowers and placing them. It becomes a mess! Each time I send a friend an item to complete, I earn a Honey (whether the friend completes it or not). If that friend completes the item, that friend earns a Honey. Finally, there are times it is simply difficult to make the client happy. Perhaps you haven’t unlocked the needed items for that theme, the client is just too picky, or (like me) you refused to hang the Disco Ball in the Camelot Castle just because the client wanted hip. Completing the wedding always entails trivia questions – not just about American weddings but about weddings the world over. If you don’t know the answer, send it out and let someone else answer it. You will both earn a Honey. There are more ways but this is getting looong.
Finally, I must mention the cityscape and upcoming features for this game is not yet one month old. You can customize the look of your city to your heart’s content with different facing, rooftops, crenellations, window dressings, trees, cars, pets… the list goes on. But what makes it truly wonderful to watch is the scene change with the time of day – your time of day. The clock on the dress shop is your time. As the sun sets wherever your computer is, the sun will set in the game, the flag will be brought inside, and lights will come on. When it becomes dark you will see headlights appear on the cars, the animals will go to sleep and the vehicles (except for the sports car) will slow down. Eventually, the seasons will change but this feature is set for a later date.
In the future you can also expect to design invitations, visit your friends’ shops and help with wedding emergencies, look in their portfolio at weddings they have completed, and watch their cityscapes as the sun fades in their time zone. Oh! And sound… I play my games without sound so I’d forgotten that sound is not yet in the game. But I don’t think of sound when I am looking for the best length dress for a chic, blue Indian dress or designing a glamorous, purple Japanese reception. Nonetheless, it is coming.
I still do not see myself as a wedding planner – perhaps an event planner. But I must say, I really enjoy being creative. I enjoy seeing the creations of others, voting on those I like best, making a cake for a friend’s birthday and sending it to their wall – a cake of my own creation! Some days, I even enjoy the wackiness of the clients. I would never consider a mermaid-cut mini-skirt in purple with butterflies but sometimes, it just works. Kudos to Wedding Street for creating a game that truly is about players being creative. The first month has shown great promise and I look forward to many more.
