Dreams (PS4)

[Gamma]

Very late to the party with this, but that just means people have had time to make an absolute boatload of content. So far I haven't so much as looked at the creation tools and am just checking out what's been made by others. I enjoyed the Little Big Planet games and they got pretty ambitious by the third instalment, but Dreams is off the hook. The engine itself is crazy and I'm still at a point where I'm quite happy to wander around aimlessly in things that are firmly in the "interactive art" and/or "walking simulator" category, but there are also some genuinely great games that have been made.

LBP had its share of levels that made you go "wow", but they were generally one-and-done, pretty short-lived experiences. In Dreams some stuff is developed enough that it feels the same as having a standalone game in your collection. The structure of a game is there- intro, title screen, menus with meaningful options, save systems... and there's enough content in some cases that I'll come back to it over a number of sessions. Creators that take the time to design and rig their own character models have come up with some really solid gameplay mechanics, far more in line with modern Mario titles than the floaty feel of a lot of LBP levels. I've played at least half a dozen 3D platformers that were markedly better experiences than some retail releases. There are quite a few Captain Toad-likes, and isometric adventure/platformers. Some amazingly well-made puzzle games (probably the highlight for me so far). A bit of a glut of Super Monkey Ball / Marble Madness style games but the more polished efforts are quite fun- someone has recreated Marble Madness in its entirety, music and all. Lots of "MY PHOTOREALISTIC FOREST" levels that bring the base PS4 to its knees but may fare better on a Pro. Media Molecule seem to have taken a more hands-on approach with curating what's available to play, so it's easier to find the good stuff.

Anyone can upload anything, so of course there's still a lot of janky shit- while impressive in their own way most of the FPS stuff I've played feels pretty bad coming off "real" games. Arcadey racing games are fine but I'm not sure the physics engine is up to task of a poor mans Forza or GT, though it doesn't stop people from trying. Some platformers just control poorly, I think a lot of people want to create worlds and levels but since it's so quick and easy to plonk an existing model in compared to building one from scratch you end up with QWOP legs and too much inertia for precise platforming. It's annoying how many people don't bother disabling the default mapping of the SixAxis to the character leaning over, so you end up slouching all the time unless you hold the controller perfectly level and can even tilt the controller back 90 and limbo dance your way through stages which looks ridiculous.

All in all I'm glad I picked it up. Anyone else given it a look?

[Ambrose Burnside]

Dreams is one of those games I'd be all over in theory, but I just know I wouldn't stick with it in terms of making my own thing

[Gamma]

I managed to snag a cheap sealed "preowned" retail copy on launch in February because it was bundled with consoles at JB (I think) and all the dudebro CoD players immediately traded it in at EB, but it sat on my shelf for quite a while before I found time to fire it up and I felt like an idiot for leaving it so long. I think it was in the last PSN sale for about $30, but most brick and mortars seem to have reduced it to $30-40 now anyway. Absolutely worth it just to check out the content even if you never create anything, I assure you you'll get your money's worth out of it. It's basically YouTube but games instead of videos.

TBH I suspect it would be a bit of a pain to make stuff if you don't have two Move controllers to do the whole 3D sculpting thing, but like I said I haven't tried it so it wouldn't be fair for me to judge. The whole system interface is built around pointing at stuff with the DualShock 4 and works surprisingly well so maybe the controller isn't too much of a handicap. It feels at least as accurate as pointing with a Wiimote, except it's all motion controls, no sensor bar triangulation. Pretty impressive really. I haven't spent much time poking around on the Dreams subreddit but some of the creators there swear by using the DS4 and have the results to prove it can be done. Someone modelled this in 4 hours after using Dreams for a week or two and with no prior modelling experience, all on the standard controller. I'm no expert but I've used LightWave 3D enough to get some decent results and there's no fucking way I could pump something like that out in that timeframe.

I have the opposite problem to you I suppose, I'm acutely aware of how much time I sunk into making my level in Little Big Planet, and though I have the time at the moment I really don't want to commit to spending it on Dreams creations. Easier to do that if I just keep the can of worms closed. I'm (slowly) building my own game from scratch when I can find the motivation to work on it and won't get anywhere if I'm caught up making content for someone else's game.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Own game? Do tell!

[Gamma]

It's a little puzzle game based on Sokoban. I spent a long while brainstorming ideas before arriving at something that was small enough in scope to be a good first solo project, but not just a straight clone of an existing game- something I'd actually want to play myself that isn't already out there as far as I'm aware.

The main point of difference is that instead of pushing boxes around they're bubbles which stick to each other. Doesn't sound like much, but it means you can join them together into larger shapes and move them as a single unit, which means there are ways to get them away from walls and even out of corners despite still only being able to push and never pull. There's also a mechanic to separate bubbles again using the walls, and because they're not solid like boxes there's now the possibility of squishing and popping them which leads to a fail state. I've implemented infinite undo so the gameplay's more exploratory- this allows the puzzles to be more difficult without punishing simple mistakes and forcing the player to restart the level, something that always annoys me in these kinds of games.

Basically if you take an existing Sokoban level and apply these rules instead, some of the really difficult levels become trivial, and some trivial levels become impossible. I'm finding it's an interesting design space- though to be clear I'm not lifting any level designs from elsewhere. Whether it's enough to sustain interest over a whole game I'm not yet sure, but I guess I'll find out. I'm just going to make something I like, and if anyone else likes it, bonus.

Development is slow mainly because I'm lazy when there's no deadline to meet, but I'm at a stage now where I've got a working prototype and can build and playtest levels. The keyboard controls are currently unwieldy and it uses placeholder graphics at the moment so it's too rough to share just yet, but importantly it all works and everything has a state that can be polled so I can add visuals, animation and sound as I get to them. I've done a bit of work on the tilesets and stuff, so the next major steps will be to add the graphics, tighten up the controls (will add controller support too), and make a proper level editor so I don't have to manually edit level data files. I have some ideas to make the music more dynamic than just some tunes that play in the background, and I think I'd like an overworld connecting everything rather than a series of discrete levels, but that's still a maybe- gotta keep an eye on that feature creep. I hop randomly between coding, art, and music, basically whatever I feel like doing at the time.

Don't hold your breath, but whenever I've got it to a point that I can call it a playable demo while keeping a straight face, I'll be eager to get feedback from anyone who wants to check it out.