Dream Day Returns by Way of the Big Apple

The Dream Day hidden objects game franchise returns with Dream Day Wedding: Married in Manhattan, its fourth game in the series. Once again, the series introduces features that enhance the game. Sometimes a game in a series would receive new features that look like an ugly attempt to claim the game isn’t a rehash of the previous with a new storyline thrown in.

Oh, I’m not saying sequels can’t recapture their predecessor’s success with a new story, new sets, and new characters. Fans love getting more of the same. With casual games coming out with a new game on a daily basis, it takes no time for a game to look dated. In fact, I’m judging handheld games — the same category I did last year — and these categories have no new games. The games look and feel dated.

Back to New York. Dream Day First Home introduces the two story route. Dream Day Wedding applies this feature by giving us two couples from which to choose. Play one first and then play the other couple next time around. I run into a technical problem (fixed) with the first couple after almost finishing the game play, so rather replaying them — I switched to the other couple for a change of pace.

Dream Day games come with a Choose a Story, which lets players decide where the story takes them next by picking one of three options. At the end of a Choose a Story, players earn a Time Booster item. Remember the item as it won’t appear on the list of things to find and gain one minute when you find it.

Bluebirds also appear in every scene save for Wedding Crises scenes. For every five bluebirds found, you win an extra hint. The scenes — prior to a mini-game or Choose a Story — come with three hints plus whatever you earn in finding bluebirds.

Mini-games fit the game’s wedding planning theme perfectly. After finding all the objects for a level, you’ll get the wedding registry scene where you pick a gift to open that leads to either the Choc-O-Matic Fountain or Party Puzzle (seating chart) mini-game. Players need to turn metal tubes in Choc-O-Matic Fountain to ensure the chocolate can flow from start to end in every pipe or else guests won’t get their chocolate in the wedding. Not a good thing!

Party Puzzle brings something I haven’t seen appear as a mini-game. Each placecard contains a guest with one or two colors on the sides. The colors on the sides of the placecards must line up with like colors. One joker is available to help you out of a rough spot.

After completing one of the two mini-games, you play the apartment puzzle. The bride gives you, the wedding planner, a key to her apartment where you hunt down the list of things she needs. That list takes you through the next few scenes.

The apartment puzzle has no time limits, so explore the scene and figure out what to do. While you can press “Solve” if you get stuck, these don’t take a lot of work to figure out. Just look for clickable items or watch for the sparkles giving you a hint of where to look. Some items will go into your inventory so you can use them with other objects to make something happen.

Now that you have the list, move on to the next scenes to find them. Sometimes the bride will ring you up and announce she doesn’t need an item on her list anymore — saving you one item to find… IF you find your cell phone before it stops ringing. Clever! A surprise waits in some scenes. You find an item only to discover you’re stuck in a room and you must quickly find your way out in the Escape Puzzle.

The Wedding Crisis has appeared in the previous Dream Day games. In these scenes, players have less time and must dig through the messier and busier scenes to overcome a crisis whether the roses the bride wanted sell out or the bakery can’t do the wedding cake. Once the crisis passes, you design an item that will appear in the wedding and its album.

The scenes repeat often and the objects rarely change locations. The only things that change are the Apartment Puzzles and Wedding Crisis. However, if you play the game again to try taking a different route in the Choose a Story, you’ll have to work through the same scenes again. Considering I play one couple twice due the technical problem, it’s a pain as I feel like I’m repeating everything I had done the first time.

One more disappointing element — other than in the name and the logo, you wouldn’t know you’re in New York. It’s a wonderful city with beautiful architecture and great scenes — why bother adding “Manhattan,” if you’re not going to showcase the Big Apple?

Dream Day Wedding: Married in Manhattan takes a few pages out of its previous games and adds a few original ideas (Escape Puzzle, bride calling you, and Party Puzzle) while also copying similar features found in other games first (Apartment Puzzle) and finding a bunch of one item in scenes (eggs, arrows, etc.). Dream Day Wedding: Married in Manhattan still provides a pleasurable adventure for fans of the series. It’s also a good one for those new to hidden object games and may not challenge the seasoned players.

We give Dream Day Wedding: Married in Manhattan a 3.5/5 diamond rating.