The creative tools, given to the right people, allow unimaginable things to be brought to light; that's why I think the so-called "creative games" are an underrated genre. RPG Maker already allowed you to give shape to fantastic turn-based RPGs worthy of the best Final Fantasy, and the title of Media Molecule, Little Big Planet, had moved the pointer to platformers (making that platform capable of producing some fantastic genius). Precisely for this reason I was betting everything on Media Molecule, and for this reason I immediately jumped for joy when I learned about the production of Dreams, a title that wanted to expand the "playing field" towards infinite shores. With a bit of doubt, I followed the evolution of the title well and now, finally, we have arrived at the exit, the litmus test.
If we have learned anything in recent years, it is that until a video game is released on the market, you cannot claim victory over its features. Fortunately, some software houses still manage to keep their word, and Media Molecule is one of these: let's start to discover Dreams, the keys to the door that contains all your (videogame) dreams.
The engine behind dreams
First of all, Dreams is a powerful creation platform: with simple commands to learn (although to use them to the maximum you will have to get carried away with them) the game aims to let you create your best dreams. Whether it's a first-person shooter, a space game or even just a simple platformer, you can create every single detail and implement it in the best way. We tried to create using the DualShock, but PlayStation Moves are much better, especially for the creation of polygons of various kinds, from the simplest characters to the most complex ones. The creation obviously is not limited only to 3D models, but even reaches the music, the textures and every possible detail useful in a video game. Clearly, these creations can be shared with the world, giving free access to each of them and exponentially expanding the possibilities.
Particularity to be highlighted is the Open Source idea: in fact, if you can share everything with everyone, you can even work on various projects in a team, perhaps assigning each one the right role and sharing the experience with the signatures of each of them. The tutorials will help you in this complex journey, useful for understanding the basics but then not too detailed to understand the infinite possibilities of the title (find our guides here).
To conclude the package, of course, there is the feature that the game does not give you but which will be necessary to advance: the imagination. We know in fact that only creativity will give you the right ideas to be able to produce small pearls in this gigantic world that is Dreams, maybe aided by some inspiration along the way. One of the possible inspirations can be the Dream of Art: an experience created by Media Molecule, it goes along with other “demos” made by the development studio to show the power of this engine. Of all, however, Il Sogno di Art is the most in-depth, which will take you on a surreal journey, interesting and full of useful ideas for your creations.
The world that comes out of it
Of course, you don't have to be creative to benefit and enjoy Dreams: the real heart of the game remains the community. Dreams makes you immediately look out over a plethora of various activities, from simple short films to single player games, passing through experiments of various genres and even multiplayer titles. Each of them hides sweat and creativity, and is accessible quickly. However, the real magic remains, of course, the community. We waited for the review to come out just to understand this discourse: we constantly see a multitude of games that, on paper, seem brilliant, but then due to a lack of care on the part of the community, fall down the drain. Dreams immediately showed how to warm the hearts of its players, and for this reason it is now populated by an infinity of varied, beautiful experiences that show how fantasy is limitless.
We have tested about a hundred different dreams, each capable of entertaining us in a different way, with its characteristics, its strengths and, why not, also its problems. So many reinterpretations of the same project are born, ideas that are populated only after having seen others and, as happens in the video game industry, advance to the sound of patches, updates and additions. The only demerit that the title unfortunately carries with it is the architectural barrier given by the general difficulty of creation: in fact, it does not require a lot of experience, but a lot of time. Unfortunately, this time is not always well spent if in the end we think we are creating an experience in a game without end if not having fun. For this reason, the only improvement that the work would require are activities capable of satisfying the user after the birth of his dream (other than the simple number of likes).
