Home Sweet Home bringing Interior Design to WiiWare

There’s a fine line that all publishers walk when porting an old game to a new console and that line is all the more fuzzy on Nintendo’s WiiWare service. With brilliant offerings like LostWinds rubbing elbows with GameLoft’s glut of cheap cellphone ports, it puts extra scrutiny on every title announced.

However, once I tried the demo of this six-month-old PC game my skepticism was neatly brushed into a corner and spruced up with a nice accent lamp. Oberon Games has taken the interior design obsession from The Sims and boiled it down to a puzzle game with two phases. First you design the designated room to the client’s cryptic specifications with a catalog full of themed furniture, accessories, rugs, wallpaper, lighting and more. You have a budget to work within, an approval meter to fill, and a specific number of items you have to use, so not everyone gets the leather couch and the plasma TV.

Then it’s onto the Build phase where you manage three employees that actually build the items you chose. Yes, it’s a little odd to see an old man hammering away at a paining but I’m willing to go with it. You’ve also got a time limit to keep an eye on and energy meters to keep perked up by refilling your employees with coffee.

It borders on genius, how simply all the complicated processes of designing and building are boiled down into something fun and creative. It really is a great fit for the Wii and a game with enough broad appeal that it could prove a casual hit like Majesco’s Cooking Mama. No price or release date yet but publisher Big Blue Bubble promises it’ll be available “soon”. In the meantime, there’s always that PC demo.