Gaming Review & Giveaway: Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia (PC)

I recently had the chance to try out Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia, a Windows PC game.

Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia is a hidden object search and find game. You are a wedding planner, and you are hired by Andrew, who wants you to help him plan the perfect proposal in Italy for his girlfriend Isabella. After you help with the proposal, they ask you to help plan the perfect wedding!

There are two ways to play the game, in Classic (timed) and Carefree mode, where you can take all the time you need. (Great for us Moms getting distracted every 2.2 seconds!)

In the timed play, clicking too often will deduct time from your total amount, so be careful on clicking mindlessly - you'll have to pay attention to your list. It can be hard to stop yourself from wanting to click on things, especially in some places where you have 50+ things to find, and the whole list isn't showing yet. There are also hidden bluebirds throughout each scene - finding five of them will give you an extra hint. You can still find these bluebirds in Carefree mode too.

Rolling over certain active areas and objects will bring up messages to help you solve each puzzle. In some areas, you can move items around with your mouse to find other objects, which is pretty neat. You'll also find a choose your own adventure feel to the game - in some scenes, a person will pop up. How you solve the situation will gain you more objects to find, or cross items off your list.


In some scenes, you will find your entire search list in Italian. You'll need to find dictionaries hidden throughout the scene first in order to translate your list back into English. You also may end up "trapped" in a scene, where you must hunt for objects to get you out of your situation, all without a list.

Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia is full of mini games and puzzles, which are skipable except when playing Seasoned Traveler mode. The little games include matching engagement rings, and plenty of Find The Difference scenarios (some of which I really struggled on - if you skip, they don't know you which differences were remaining which drove me NUTS the one time I skipped in desperation - I wanted to know what it was! lol)

Some of the scenes do repeat - you go back and forth through areas of the bride's family villa, your hotel room, etc, but you are always searching for different areas. There is supposed to be 77 locations total, but I didn't keep track. (sorry) The graphics are clear and vibrant, though some of the objects you are looking for are very small, and it can be a struggle to find the objects on a computer screen. (I would LOVE to play this one on our big screen tv). The small screen also meant that sometimes I swear I clicked on an item, and it wouldn't register. I'd use the hint in frustration, and there it was where I swear I just clicked!

If you are struggling to find items and are out of hints, you can sometimes go back to the scene after you've done a different scene on the page. It does help if you are a Fashionista to play this game, so you understand certain shoe and purses style in some of the puzzle scenes. (but of course, not necessary) Also, as the game progresses and some of the lists get longer and longer, the entire list won't show on your screen. Even if you're pretty sure an item you see in the picture is on the list, you'll have to wait until others items showing on the list so far have been found before you can click on the item and have it removed from your list - otherwise, you'll get the time penalty for clicking too much.

During several of the mini games, you'll have the option of choosing from several options to really help plan the wedding, and towards the end, you'll see what you've chosen in their little wedding album.

All in all, if you like hidden object puzzle games, and love the mini games, you'll enjoy playing Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia. It does have a romantic theme going on with the wedding and love, so if that's not your usual thing, you may gag at the sappiness, but it's still a fun one regardless. (by the end of the game I was wishing I had gotten married in Italy! lol) There's certainly a good 8 hours worth of playing time, plus the bonus of replaying the game in Seasoned Traveler mode after you beat it - this mode is more difficult, with even more objects to find, and no way to skip through any of the mini games!

Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia is rated E for everyone, with some alcohol and tobacco references... though I can't say I ever saw anything that had to do with smoking, unless they are counting the matches for the candles. The alcohol is just bottles and wine glasses, as well as when you make your own wine by finding grapes in one scene. It's not a big deal, and it IS after Italy. I personally wouldn't have a problem with a pre-teen playing the game, but that is just my opinion. (No one is ever seen drinking)

Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia requires Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, Pentium III, 1000 MHz, RAM: 512MB/XP and 1024MB/Vista/Win7, Video Memory: 64MB, Hard drive space (uncompressed): 192 MB free hard disk space, DirectX 8.0, DirectX 9.0 recommended. There is a free trial where you can try out the game before buying, and for iPlay Gamesaver Platinum members, it retails for just $6.95 - and definitely worth the price for hidden object fans.

Win it! Would you like to play Dream Day Wedding: Bella Italia? One reader will win a copy too! To enter, tell me your favorite computer/video game.

As always, if you have completed the first entry above, you can also receive extra entries for:

-Subscribing to my feed OR following my blog
-Blogging about this giveaway with a link back
-Tweeting about this giveaway (leave the link or include @psychotichouse)

That's up to four (4) possible entries! Giveaway ends April 10th, 2010 at 11:59 PST. US Only, sorry. :( Please leave your email address in your comment, or have it available in your profile so I can contact you if you've won. Winners drawn via Random.org.

I received an unlock code to play this game online. One reader will win the prize above.