From the moment you start creating your personal avatar - or one for your child if you're helping them along - you get the idea that a lot of work has gone into creating a fully functional online world for teddy bear fans. Buildabearville is a town where you can meet friends online, play minigames, and extend your love of teddy bears beyond the one sitting on your bed. There is of course a way to shop for more teddy bears or accessories, but its nicely unobtrusive and doesn't detract from the fun. This is a big bonus in my book, because you can just have fun and its free. There are of course areas that you can't get to unless you have a furry friend from one of the retail stores, but even without a Build-a-Bear teddy you can still play many of the games and browse around.
The minigames are quite fun, and they can actually be very challenging. The Bear Hugging game I found almost addictive. Think of Whack-a-Mole where the object is instead to hug teddy bears as they pop up through the clouds. It was very fast-paced and I can definitely see my young one asking me to play along with them. The availability of chat, emotes, and avatars are something I can see my much older niece being interested in, which shows the designers were thinking of a very broad age range. The site does seem to be more bent towards females - every "male" avatar customization choice still seemed a bit female to me - but younger male children who enjoy teddy's will most likely still enjoy the content available.
