In between trailers, Sony’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) event featured little animated scenes with adorable creatures playing musical instruments. These were all created by Media Molecule’s Dreams, which is more than just a game — it can be work as a game engine, too.
Dreams has an impressive create mode, which enables players to make their own games, movies, or other interactive content. They can directly compose music, sculpt and animate characters, and scale objects up and down. Without ever coding, they can also add moving platforms and alter the environment. After they’ve finished their creation, they can immediately go in and interact with the scene to see what the gameplay would be like.
“Even if you don’t think that you’re a game creator, even if you’ve never thought about game designing, if you’ve played games, you can do this,” said Media Molecule cofounder Alex Evans.
“Sometimes people get a bit scared by the idea of the blank canvas, but actually, what I love about Dreams is it’s just this idea of choice,” said Media Molecule cofounder Siobhan Reddy. “Every day people make choices, you put your clothes on, you might choose where to put a poster in your bedroom, and Dreams is very like that.”
Dreams’s potential as a content creation tool is fascinating, especially since it’s so easy to use. At a pre-E3 event, I tried it out and, with the help of someone from the development team, I was making platforms and creating sound effects in short order. Dreams will be out later this year, and it will be interesting to see what people come up with.
