Media Molecule Technical Director Alex Evans held a lecture at Siggraph 2015, showing the journey of the engine used to make its upcoming PS4 exclusive Dreams, including all the failures that led to the successful final result.
The lecture has been repeated recently at Umbra Ignite in Helsinki, and the great thing is that this time it has been filmed, and you can see it all in motion.
A dream it shall remain
Dreams had potential but it really needed to get off of the PS4. It released so late in the gen when everyone was already wanting to move on to next gen systems. It should have come to PC, and a native PS5 version should have definitely released.
I bought it Day 1 but the 'campaign' was pretentious and just didn't work for me. I had no intention of making content so was left to fumble through the user created content. Some good stuff, with the pig detective being the most memorable. However, just moved on to other stuff, and despite owning VR, never once played in VR either.
Media Molecule always seem to be too ahead of the curve to have a big hit. Hopefully whatever they are working on now finds a big audience.
For whatever reason/s they somehow dropped the ball hard with Dreams, our loss
Dreams was fantastic, especially when VR was added. The things people managed to build was incredible. Some of the best VR experiences are still from Dreams experiences. The huge crux for it was being on consoles however and it was missing one thing that they didn't have back then and that we have now..... A.I.. With the advent of AI today, if they could have had Dreams running on PC and somehow got AI to work where we just typed in a prompt and it did things, it would have been a massive game changer, it could have just made the AI "Dream" and create its own things. It could have solved their problem of somehow getting one dream to just change into another one seamlessly. I really think Dreams deserves a second chance.
It was an awesome idea but even with tools that were supposed to make it easier to make a game, it was still so hard and convoluted. It tried to do to much at once. It would have been better to separate everything into easier parts, build the world, then the character's, then the music, etc. Not everything all at once. Some people understood it but most were overwelmed or confused.
P.T. may never be coming back in any official capacity, but fans of PlayStation game Dreams might be in luck this spooky season.
I have to emphasize that this is an extremly well made remake, it's the full game with all the content and features plus more. Visuals and sound is very close to the original, this version was recently published. I know there's a lot of predjudice against Dreams, which is a shame and not really deserved, the tool is much more capable than many think.
Just a reminder that Dreams is free on PS+ Premium... if you have it, go download it, and thank us later. It's a truly fantastic game.
Media Molecule director said the studio's next title is more a game & less a creation tool. He also regrets not having a PC version of Dreams.
If there was one PC version that should have existed it’s Dreams
I’m super glad they will be going back to something more traditional gaming wise.
I’m sure they’ll find something creative to implement like Tearaway on vita. What a gem 💎 that thing was!!!
My dream was DreamsVR and creating landscapes, characters, and sculptures using that amazing toolbox in vr, that would have been something imo.
Dreams PC was the dream. Woulda given the game a much needed boost. Here’s hoping they follow it up well.
They probably ran into the same problem they did with the potential of last of us factions....the support needed was just too much to consider expanding to more platforms for a smallish studio.
I use to say this when the game was first releasing, many kept saying it would not be possible, something about the toolsets.
I said this was one game that needed to be on as many platforms as possible, including PC and Xbox just like how Minecraft is everywhere.
Creation tools just don't work on console very well. It's definitely more suited for PC, and it's very odd Sony decided not to port it over. Good MM is working on an actual game instead.
Nice this game is beautiful.
I hope we get something at Paris Games Week! I am really curious what the Campaign (tutorial) is going to be like.
I'm really curious to see how the game will work. Hopefully it's a simple way to create content. Damn are these developers smart as hell!!!!
Gonna make a short film if possible :P
Wanting for this one is torturous.