Build-A-Bear Workshop and online game review

Well, I was in Metrotown mall today, with the main intent of browsing some items in a few shops. However, as my fiancee and I walked past this interesting looking shop “Build A Bear Workshop“, she pretty quickly exclaimed that she wanted to build a bear!!  So, we went in and checked it out!

I was laughing at first because you choose from a pretty wide selection of stuffed animals to “build”, but they are all in “non-stuffed” state – basically I was looking at boxes of what looked like lifeless animal pelts.  Pretty hilarious!  When I was in high school I used to crack jokes about skinning beanie babies and stuff (so as to attach the “pelts” to my backpack hahaha), so it was pretty funny to see boxes of them like that.

Anyways, so my fiancee, Dawn, chose the one she liked – a Kuddly Koala bear.  We went along the process and watched as a couple young kids had their bear stuffed, along with a funny process of choosing a heart for the bear and doing some rituals to give the bear life (like rubbing the heart and clapping on it 4 times to “give it life”).  Obviously something more for much younger kids, but it’s not like we didn’t know it’s a kids’ type of store.  :P

So then we went along and chose some clothing.   It’s pretty funny because you can choose everything for your bear to wear.  So my fiancee chose a white dress and some shoes and stuff for her bear, while I stood around imagining that all the kids around me are probably wondering why the hell I am there.  I tried to blend in as much as possible but it’s tough when you’re wearing a shirt with a huge skull on it, with the words “My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult” around it.

The main reason I’m posting about this, though, is the online game that Build-A-Bear offers.

Online game, “Build-A-Bearville”

They have a pretty comprehensive online game (called Build-A-Bearville) which you can play for free after purchasing a bear in one of their stores.  I think you can play without buying anything, but I think you get a lot more gameplay functionality by purchasing a bear.   In fact, each bear you purchase at a store can be brought into the online game with you by entering its unique ID that is generated when you buy the bear.  Very cool.

So, if you’ve ever played games such as NeoPets or WebKinz,  it’s that same kind of concept (in fact, it’s a little closer to WebKinz from what I can see).  A flash-based online game, with plenty of other players.  Of course you can play a huge variety of mini-games to gain in-game currency (“Bear Bucks”).  Dawn managed to get 6th place in the high scores for the mini-game “Bearriffic Drummers”, netting a decent profit!  In the game, you also get your own house where you can buy furniture and whatnot – you can also get clothing for the in-game representation of your bear.  The home customization actually reminded me a bit of Ultima Online‘s housing system.

Anyway, so it’s not really my usual topic of post, but I was pretty impressed by how huge of a game the Build-A-Bear company have developed, playable for almost completely free.  I thought it would be a pretty great gift for a kid, to go into the shop and make the bear and then also get to play online all the time with the game.  You can make friends in-game and play a lot of the mini-games with other people.

While I’m on the subject, feel free to share your best techniques for making Bear Bucks in the game!  Lots of the games only give a small amount of Bear Bucks, and Dawn is curious which ones will be the most profitable.  ;) Oh, if you want to add her as a friend in-game, her name is “DawnLoveable18″.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend this as a totally fun place to take your kids, especially for something like a birthday party (yes, they have birthday parties apparently).  Or.. maybe a good place to take your girlfriend, too!  hehehe

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Tags: games, software