Imagine Interior Designer for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

Imagine: Interior Designer for the Nintendo DS is one of those games where the enjoyment you get out of it depends entirely upon how much you're willing to put in. It's more of a toolset than a traditional game, really. The title is essentially a virtual platform for creative expression and if you're not the type interested in this sort of offering, preferring instead a more linear and directed gameplay experience, there's really no reason for you to even continue reading. Those intrigued by the potential for an open-ended digital canvas, however, will definitely find a lot to like in Interior Designer's freedom-oriented design.



Imagine: Interior Designer puts players in the role of a young woman named Katie as she is given the keys to her cousin's interior design shop just as she's leaving on an extended vacation. This shop serves as the game's hub, the location from which players can accept new jobs, receive rewards for completed work, display custom artwork, share designs with friends, decorate their own pad or access any of the game's seven workshops.



These workshops are the linchpin of the game's creative expression. Each one allows players to take control of the various elements of interior design – including painting, pottery, framing, curtains, surfaces, furnishings and layout. With so many different design aspects to juggle, it's easy to imagine Interior Designer overwhelming players with a host of jumbled, complex menus and options. Luckily this isn't the case, as each workshop shares a user interface distinct enough to set itself apart yet familiar enough as to not confuse players. The workshops flow together organically, moving aspirant designers from one section to the next as each job warrants. This sort of project streamlining is extremely helpful during the more complex jobs that have players jumping from painting to pottery to furnishing to layout in one order, making the game much more accessible than it would have been otherwise.



The painting workshop is by far the most important of them all, as every custom texture and art design you create – of which there will be many – stems from this area. The execution is something of a paradox, as the painting workshop is at once both the most liberating and restricting aspect found within the entire game. The ability to paint anything you can imagine obviously expands Interior Designer's artistic potential, but the technical restrictions of the DS cartridge keep players from really being able to create whatever they can imagine. Specifically, the canvas is restricted to one size – a size which is frankly too small for more ambitious artistic creations.



Outside of simply using the workshops to create your designs, Imagine: Interior Designer provides a wealth of jobs from various clients to give players a bit of artistic direction. These jobs start simply – create a unique painting or design a new frame for an existing piece – but slowly ramp up in complexity until you're redesigning entire rooms, complete with new custom-made furniture and design layouts. These objectives typically provide some very clear directives while leaving the door open for an immense amount of creative expression. This is Interior Designer's most polarizing feature, as gamers willing to take advantage of the freedom will likely find a lot to love while others, gamers who are just looking to advance from one job to the next as quickly as possible, will find the missions to be boring and repetitive.



For instance, a woman walks into your shop asking for a new, custom-made bed. The only requirement is that she's always wanted a four-poster but outside of that one request the design is wholly up to you. Minimalist gamers need only to jump into the furniture workshop, swap the default frame for a four-poster and presto – the task is complete but the act of completing it wasn't very much fun at all.



More imaginative gamers, however, will find an immense wealth of creative opportunities. You could, for example, start in the painting workshop to create a unique design before using said design as the bed's new bedspread. You can then change the color and material of each element of the bed's design, as well. Want to make the bed out of clay? How about steel? Or you could just make the whole thing out of newspaper and call it a day. Once you've customized each and every piece of the bed's design, all that's left to be done is add the four posts and you're done.



Imagine: Interior Designer rewards both methods equally so there's no "right" way to approach objectives, but it becomes obvious after only a few jobs that the former method will yield a dramatically less enjoyable gameplay experience.

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