Nothing is easier than messing around with other people's games. Anyone who thinks he can do better than Activision, Electronic Arts and Co. can now prove this without training as a game designer, because the PS4-exclusive editor Dreams from the Little Big Planet creators Media Molecule brings everything, what you need to create your own game. It is another matter whether it makes sense to master such a complex task on the PS4.
Dreams is more than just a level editor like Super Mario Maker. Even Little Big Planet, which spawned ingenious projects in its vast complexity, pales in the face of this ingenious piece of software. It is about an exemplary concept by which all editors for user-created content will have to measure themselves in the future.
Dreams is a fantastic tool for people with high creativity, but also a source of endless surprises for players who don't want to get creative themselves, but simply want to enjoy. Both parties require a copy of the game for this because finished works cannot be published as a standalone program. In fact, a watermark sticks in the bottom right corner of the screen during creation and play, which clearly indicates the source: "Made in Dreams".
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This is a small disruptive factor, but ultimately a low price for creative people. It has never been easier for laypersons to create their own graphic presentations, small levels or even entire games with several hours of playing time, without any prior knowledge. When I first realized how complex the possibilities are and what tricks the designers at Media Molecule used to circumvent some of the most complicated processes when creating games, my jaw dropped ten meters below sea level.
I'm not just saying that, I'm drawing on my wealth of experience. I create all kinds of content on my PC, can use Photoshop, Inkscape and Blender, which enables me to create 2D and 3D graphics. I have experience with gaming tools, for example with Unity or with the Unreal Engine, have even published my own virtual reality experience and a few mobile games. In addition, I compose music for my projects with the DAW Reason. I may not be a professional by any means, but I know how much effort goes into the many individual tasks that are required to create games – and how many different programs are required for this.
That is exactly why I pay deepest respect to Media Molecule. Dreams for PS4 combines many of these functions in one console program, simplifies their handling for laymen and saves storage space. A complete multifunctional editor that swallows less than 20 gigabytes? This is pure witchcraft! In the Middle Ages, the designers would have ended up on the stake, because at first glance this cannot be right.
A question of perspective
A hint of magic is actually behind it, not to say design alchemy, because Dreams does not provide its creative users with the usual tools and materials that are used in the industry. You don't fiddle with polygon geometry, you don't create meshes or splines. UV mapping? Normal Maps? Screen space reflections? All just foreign vocabulary!
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Dreams shifts the creative perspective to the perspective of the player. He does not have to know which individual parts the graphic elements consist of or which code is hidden behind the logic of the game elements. He just has to know what he wants to achieve with it. Honestly: I wish that professionally used engines would follow this example instead of hiding every small function behind a theoretical facade and exaggerated technical terms.
But what does that mean specifically? What can you do with Dreams? The answer: almost everything, albeit with certain restrictions. The bottom line is that these restrictions are hardly worth mentioning unless you have professional requirements. Whether first-person shooter, 3D jump-and-run, racing game or pixelated action adventure in retro style – dreams make dreams come true when you are ready to invest time and effort.
However, time and effort are factors that should not be underestimated. Despite many auxiliary functions and prefabricated components, nothing happens here in a day. While you can get a good Mario Maker level up and running in a few hours, days, weeks and months pass before content worth seeing is ready. Graphics, music, sound effects, logic logic, animation of characters – you can do all of this yourself, but it takes time.
After all, you are not thrown into cold water. Countless tutorials that prepare practical examples in a playful way guide you through the entire design process. And in mini steps that are easy to digest, but overdo it a little with their consideration for slow learners. There is a lot of material to be internalized bit by bit, so I find some of the tutorials too excessive. I often felt like suggesting to the virtual speaker that he should finally get to the point instead of talking around the bush. Fortunately, you can rewind and rewind the accompanying videos of the tutorials at 10-second intervals.
Shapes, colors, sculptures
The graphic offers a clear example of the complexity of the material. You can create every conceivable object or living being by shaping it from geometric templates, which you can modify and manipulate using various modifiers. The simplest method for doing this is similar to a round of handicraft with plasticine or clay. You glue clumps together, so to speak.
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It gets more complicated with the subtleties – i.e. when sculpting, because this is similar to the sculpt mode of modern 3D programs – see Blender, 3DS Max or Cinema 4D. The transition between the two methods is fluid. The common denominator is that you don't draw polygons. The graphics of Dreams consist entirely of small mosaic stones, which perform a similar function to voxels (volume pixels).
From a technical point of view, a stylistically daring but efficient grip on the bag of tricks, since objects do not set any mathematical limits. Due to their computing intensity, polygon objects would have to be automatically down-calculated and deformed so that they are less at the expense of the CPU and graphics unit in the background of a scene – see the typical "level of detail" of a modern game. The mosaic stones of the Dreams graphic can be summarized much easier as soon as they have reached a certain display size. Instead of a number of polygons, only the memory used limits creativity.
The disadvantage of this method is obvious: voxels cannot guarantee infinitely fine sharpness. So means rounding and the smallest details on an object look pixelated if you fall below a certain size. In addition, simple forms consume the same number of resources as complex ones. So there is no way to save computing time or memory using design tricks – although this is not 100% true, since Media Molecule automatically applies some simplifications when the resolution of an object falls below a visible level. But that would go too far to explain.
The key point is accessibility. Everyone knows how plasticine works. So everyone can shape an object in their dreams, finalize it and save it – be it for their own use in a game or as a building block that is made available to the entire online community. Color and determine surfaces? No problem either, just paint the object and choose the surface texture from a range of rough specifications such as metal (reflective or matt), wax or dull surfaces.
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The only question is how exactly the end result should correspond to the ideas. Despite little helpers such as a mirror function, grid for geometric alignment, object instances (here called clones), arrays and so on, you need a lot of practice and patience before the design process starts right away. In addition, certain options are missing, which are replaced by stylistic tricks. See about grass. The surface editor allows you to create a stylistically beautiful meadow area reminiscent of oil painting with just a few clicks. Particle grass from sprites falls under the table, however, and creating something similar as a sculpture would be like shooting cannons at sparrows.
The offered alternative solution should be more than sufficient for laypeople, especially since it is really only about details. Some early access creators impressively prove that even photo-realistic creations are possible. A whole range of presentations is just food, for example, from fried eggs to sausages. Crazy what you can get on the chain with the existing tools.
It is the same and similar with all sub-aspects of the artistic work in Dreams. That means: The existing tools are based on counterparts customary in the industry, but simplify their theoretical handling. Working on the animation of a game character is therefore only slightly different from the same process in the Unity engine or at Unreal. You have to determine limbs, define their animation phases and create transitions. Where little base helpers help you. For example, you don't need to put on a bone rig – it exists from the start, so you only have to assign the right limbs.
Endless design options
Sounds pretty complex for a console editor, doesn't it? It is. Dreams is a real game workshop with countless design options. The very idea of making such a complex undertaking palatable to bloody beginners through a playful approach deserves great praise. And the people at Media Molecule really know how to make your mouth water.
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When the game starts, you inevitably stumble across the "Art’s Dream" project, which was only created by Media Molecule using the normal Dreams tools. It is a graphic adventure with small action inserts. In its three hours of playing time, it gives an impressive overview of the capacity of the editor and the possible styles, be it in graphic or playful terms.
Seamless change between jump-and-run, racing and shooting games? No problem! Musical cutscenes, puzzle structures, logical sequences, multiple choice conversations? Also feasible if there is a properly structured concept. Simply designing it is much more difficult due to the complexity of the editor than with comparable programs such as Super Mario Maker.
No wonder: Mario Maker focuses on jump-and-run mechanics, apart from small digressions, which are only for variety. Dreams can provide supports that have similar genre boundaries, but they can always be bent and broken. If you do not know what you are up to, you will quickly be faced with an unusable pile of broken glass. This is not a negative criticism. On the contrary, the courage that Media Molecule demonstrates is second to none, even if, in my opinion, the end result could still be improved.
The dark side
One factor that complicates all of this is the operation on the console. Professional game engines on the PC may slay creators with their options, but you can rarely be accused of using a confusing structure or shortcuts that are difficult to understand. Dreams, on the other hand, suffers from all the weaknesses that can be imagined in this regard: endlessly many nested menus for tools and resources, unrelated button combinations on the joypad that can be easily confused, constant fumbling with objects that are inaccurately aligned in the room because everything is without exception depends on the current camera perspective … the list of operating weaknesses is endless.
This is not least due to the control method. Attempting to use the editor in a similar way to using a computer mouse is commendable, but unfortunately a bit too playful, because the alignment of the cursor (in the form of a cute elf) via the motion sensor of the dual shock controller has proven itself in the long run as tiring. Alternatively, you can fall back on two Move controllers, which make things a lot smoother, but make the switch to play testing more cumbersome, since they have no analog sticks – so you have to use the Joypad.
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At some point I shot into the classic operation on the analog sticks of the DualShock controller, which is slow but ultimately reacts more precisely than the other two variants. In short: what a blessing would be a mouse and keyboard support. And even with that, many design processes would be tiring, because everything has to be clickable to keep console charms. A grinning cursor, colored areas of color, excessive language introductions for tutorials, cute avatars that convey functions. Auweia, you can also overdo it by pandering to the audience.
In any case, I personally cannot find much of the editor's style. That doesn't change the ingenuity behind the editor concept, but I think some design decisions are unnecessary. See for example the arrangement of the working windows. If you want to create a game logic or compose music, you can use some cleverly designed tools that are similar to professional applications and are surprisingly complex. But why did they absolutely have to be embedded in the 3D graphics of the editor, i.e. in windows whose view shifts with the camera? I find that extremely annoying.
This is a shame, because it makes it difficult to handle processes that have been implemented in an exemplary manner, but are already complicated enough without fumbling in 3D windows. I love that Media Molecule solves complex game logic such as switches, counters, sensors and the like with a node system, as I am used to from the Unreal Engine (only with less eloquent technical terms). At the same time, I swear like a pipe sparrow because I have to access an inaccurate cursor system to operate the system, which moves in an unnecessary 3D interface. This means that each step takes twice, if not three times as long as the same process on the PC.
If I have a melody in my head, I can record it with Reason within a few minutes. A few simple mouse clicks are enough. Dreams gives me tools that work similarly, and yet it takes what feels like hours to hold a simple chord. For me, the big question in this test is not whether Dreams is good. Dreams is without a doubt fantastic when it comes to functions and mediation. I'm just not so sure if the PS4 is a viable platform for this kind of creative process.
Is the PS4 suitable as a design platform?
Regardless of the cumbersome controls, the possibility of publication also plays a major role in this question: How many users can you reach if everyone has to own the game, regardless of whether they create games themselves or only enjoy the works of others? Wouldn't a pure user client, which you could buy for less money, make much more sense because it is more attractive for casual users? How many creatives can Dreams retain in the long run? Little Big Planet already had a small percentage of creators. Dreams is much more complex and therefore carries the risk of flooding the servers with tons of junk.
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I have no doubt that Dreams will produce excellent projects. Great mini-games, magical, full-length programs that were put together with passion. Including a lot of copyright violations. A Super Stardust clone is less of a problem in this regard than the almost faithful replicas of Super Mario 64 that can be downloaded right now.
Dreams is actually a dream come true. A design tool with almost endless application possibilities. And yet I've been pondering for days how useful it can be to put so much effort into a PS4 project whose half-life is limited. Be it because Dreams has had its day (even with regard to the promised backward compatibility of the PS5) or because of the limitation to a database within a lay editor, which eventually bursts at the seams for all the content. The associated website, including the search and sort option, cannot permanently prevent excellent programs from being lost in the crowd.
The Super Mario 64 remakes mentioned are a good starting point for my thoughts. It takes a lot of precision and patience to put something like this together. And yet Dreams cannot help convey the same feeling as a real Mario game. Thanks to all sorts of editor options, Fake-Mario has mastered all control tricks such as the original, i.e. triple jump, wall jump, trouser bottom rammer and so on, but due to too coarse variables in physics and the lack of secondary tools, it will never feel like a real Mario game , And even if it did, the work would dissolve into nothing if Dreams was no longer supported at some point.
Felix actually wanted to be creative himself this time. That worked rather suboptimally. For this he shows you new works by other users from the early access version of the game.
I'm torn. On the one hand, I think that if you put so much work into designing a game, you might as well go the last mile. The leap to the free, yet more powerful Unity Engine on the PC is not far, but in addition to better handling, it also offers the opportunity to publish finished works at your own discretion and to make them available until the day of Santa Claus.
On the flip side are the simple operation, the understandable, practice-oriented tutorials and the all-in-one package that only Dreams offers. It's milking to the mouse! Why didn't this program appear on the PC where it would have developed its full potential?
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