Media Molecule made a name for themselves when they released the ambitious platformer Little Big Planet back on the PS3. A platforming video game where you can build your own levels and logic was a novel idea at the time. Little Big Planet was great, but it had its limitations. You were limited to the objects which were available to you, mostly pre-created props, and Sackboy was always the star. Levels were prone to breaking once they became too complex and the feeling of a physics-based platformer where you couldn’t really adjust the physics left plenty to be desired, and the game was really only built with 2D side-scrolling in mind. That didn’t stop people from building replicas of calculators and other impressive logic-filled levels that went far beyond what the software was designed for.
Dreams was one of the first PS4 titles announced, and for years people weren’t sure what to make of it. Was it an art program or a 3D Little Big Planet? Was it ever even going to come out, considering how ambitious it appeared. It turns out that what it is is a gamified development tool for building, well, games. Or 3D art, music, or whatever you can digitally think of. The public hasn’t really had a chance to get their hands on it, until now. Once the “creators” beta invites went out I signed up right away to see exactly what Dreams was.
The beta starts by tossing new players into a movement and control tutorial to familiarize the player with the basics. After finishing that it dumps you into a home hub you can play around in an customize, but from there you can go out to a menu which allows you some preset options to quick-start you on your way to creating or start exploring what people have created. However, if you want to start creating doing the tutorials is a must.
What takes the most getting used to are the controls. Moving both the cursor (represented as a customizable anthropomorphic cotton ball called a sprite) and the camera is a bit like attempting to constantly pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. A press and hold of the options button to recenter is one of the first things taught to the player in the game’s opening tutorial, and you quickly learn why. The sprite is moved via the controller gyroscope, which has a tendency to drift off after a while.
For anyone attempting to do fine artwork, you’ll quickly discover that even after snapping the painting to a 3D canvas and locking down everything, that you’ll just not have the fine motor controls needed for intuitive drawing. That isn’t stopping the pros from creating luscious art in this beta, but it increases the learning curve. Luckily, the default impressionist style brushes and the way you can apply textures lends itself to making more, well, dreamy scenery. This game isn’t going to suddenly turn you into an artist, but it will allow people with limited artistic talent still manage to make a fluffy little cloud or a happy little tree, then animate them and make them talk.
The tutorials, however, are a must for anyone diving deep into the creation tools. (Have I mentioned the tutorials? TUTORIALS.) Hopefully, there are plenty more of them available when the game launches because some of the tools still feel like a steep learning curve is in place. When you deep dive into the options available there’s a point where you find yourself in menus which look like desktop windows and sliders in Photoshop. Everything is tweak-able down to a remarkable level. So much so that the organization of elements in large projects is going to become complex to manage. (Even with the grouping controls.)
Have I mentioned there’s an entire music composition tool with full synthesizer effects and instrument sets included? Plus, if you have a PlayStation Eye camera you can import your own sound. That alone you could easily become lost in for days. Although it really needs a better way to control the notes and timeline. Music creation doesn’t need to be a 3D experience.
Now, the biggest question many are probably wondering is the performance. I’m very impressed with the stability and quick loading of the levels. Even with a huge amount of movement and objects, everything loads incredibly snappily. Technologically, it’s ridiculously sound. The developers have said that things can become bogged down if every single item in a level or scene you create is unique, but most players will be cloning and copying objects, which puts no extra strain on the level.
At this point, you’re probably thinking “this sounds more like learning Creative Cloud than a video game.” If anything all the tools at your disposal are a bit overwhelming. If you don’t have the patience or the art or music skills you’ll probably bounce off the creator tools this is not going to make you the next Picasso. The good news is if you’re not creatively inclined there will be a whole little campaign when the game launches. In the few weeks, this beta has been available some truly amazing content has come out of the community, and they plan on carrying that content over to the final release. It’s incredibly easy to just jump in and surf around other peoples creations, which range from short animated vignettes to still art to music to all genres of games from horror to racing to FPS. People have already recreated levels of other games with the tools available.
Overall, I’m shocked at the polish already shown. We have no idea when Dreams will officially come out, but when it does it’s sure to make just as huge an impression as LBP did, if not larger. It’s simply astounding what MM has built and what the community has already built with it.
I have no idea what I'm doing: pic.twitter.com/nCk5dJt0TQ
— Kate O'Neil (@Sonicbug) January 29, 2019
