The upcoming sandbox game Dreams is an ambitious project by Media Molecule. If that name sounds familiar, that’s because they are the creators of Tearaway and Little Big Planet. Both of which are games that encourage players to “play, create, and share”. Dreams is no different. The word game, however, should be seen as a loose term. Because while the game has a storyline available, Dreams is really more of a user-friendly content creation engine. And the storyline just showcases what all it can do. This can be seen in the PSX 2017 Trailer below all the content in it was created using Dreams engine.
https://youtu.be/OwNpPoK2PgY
So What Exactly Does This Engine Do?
Its powerful 3D Modeler can be used to create anything that players can imagine from characters to environments and everything in between. And it also has a video editor. This is why just calling it a games engine would do it an injustice. Dreams could be used for anything from interactive movies, short films, music videos, or even YouTube content. In addition, there is a music creation studio for sounds and dialogue. And being 5 years into creation, all of these tools seem extremely polished.
2 Years Delayed For The Better
Dreams was first shown as a technical demo as a PlayStation Meeting in 2013. A teaser was released in 2014 and it was officially announced at E3 2015. While originally set to release in 2016 the games released was push til this year. And that two years has certainly helped to see the engine in the right direction.
In March of this year, MediaMolecule and PlayStation along with a number of other companies sponsored Train Jam. On a 52 hour ride from Chicago to the GDC in San Francisco, a number of developers made games to show off at the events. MediaMolecule used dreams to create a game they called “Comic Sands” and its surprising just how much the team could come up with in just 52 hours with their engine. For a look at the game check out the video below. For more on the development of the game click here.
The Big Claims Seem Believable
Media Molecule’s Website states “Dreams is a space where you go to play and experience the dreams of Media Molecule and our community. It’s also a space in which to create your own dreams, whether they’re games, art, films, music or anything in-between and beyond.” And so far the claims seem believable. A grade 10 student named Yaseen was invited to the studio to recreate some of the characters that he had sketched. This is what he had to say:
“After he (Francis) showed me the basics of using them I had my own go and I was impressed by just how 1-to-1 the movement was with the controllers. It really feels like you’re reaching into the game. While it was difficult at first, it didn’t take long to get used to them as by the end of the second day I didn’t have to think when using the motion controllers and it had become second nature. The gestures are intuitive and they’re still stuck in my head!”
The child continued:
“When initially drawing and designing my characters, I had no clue how the game functioned but I was still able to easily recreate and sculpt my characters in Dreams and I didn’t have to make any compromises to the designs. This shows how versatile the game is and that you really can create anything you can imagine within Dreams!”