Dreams is similar to Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet series, which the British studio created in the PlayStation 3 days, in that it’s as much about creating as it is playing. Along with a single-player campaign of stages authored by Media Molecule, Dreams offers a mind-bogglingly expansive suite of level creation tools for budding game designers out there. But where the LittleBigPlanet games were limited to a side-scrolling 2.5D perspective, Dreams on PlayStation 4 lets you build in full 3D, which vastly increases both the possibilities and the complexity of the game.

The game creation engine in Dreams is so robust, in fact, that even the pros use it. If you’re wondering why all the screenshots bear a “Made In Dreams” watermark, the answer is that Media Molecule built all of the story mode levels using the game’s built-in creation mode.

I found this hard to believe when I played a stage that ended with an in-game cutscene. Surely, I thought, Media Molecule had built that non-playable sequence on a computer, the same way most developers make games, using software to animate the characters and move the camera. I figured that the studio had simply created a variety of cutscene templates and included them in the game for players to adapt and build upon.

But no — it’s all right in there for you to handle yourself. Michael Pulst, a producer on Dreams at Sony Interactive Entertainment America, later showed me during a demo of the game’s creation tools that it’s possible for players to manipulate the camera like a filmmaker and direct characters in a scene.

In a simple stage where the goal was to make it across to a floating patch of grass before a bridge crumbled beneath us, Pulst set up a special camera move to mark a successful run: He made it so that when you reach the end of the stage, the camera turns around to face the player character while zooming in on them, as the screen is letterboxed by black bars. In a separate level, Pulst showed off a recording feature for animations — essentially, you can “record” yourself moving around as a character, and use that “clip” in a cutscene.

Perhaps the most complex thing you can create in Dreams is music. I found the tools as overwhelming as they were impressive; there’s a lot to wrap your head around (and I’m speaking as someone with a rudimentary understanding of music, albeit less so on the composition side).

The process allows you to pick a voice or instrument — there are dozens of different ones already, and you’ll be able to upload your own samples through a web app after the game launches — and then record notes. It’s clear that a musician made this tool: You can choose between major and natural, harmonic or melodic minor scales. The face buttons are assigned to different notes depending on the scale; you tilt the controller to change the octave. (Motion controls are everywhere in Dreams.) Those with a less free-form compositional style can opt to lay down notes using an in-game keyboard and move them around on a timeline.

If all this sounds daunting, you’re not alone — I felt the same way. It’s encouraging that Media Molecule is including a raft of detailed tutorials in Dreams, explaining basic tasks like moving and cloning objects as well as nuanced elements such as adjusting lighting. Frankly, though, I may keep busy by playing the game’s Dream Surfing mode, which cues up an endless stream of levels that other people have created and uploaded.

I “Dream Surfed” for a few minutes, making my way through eight or 10 different stages, and was astounded by the variety on offer. In the first one, I took down fighter planes in a Star Wars-esque dogfight set in space. The next was a peaceful side-scrolling platformer in a forest. Later, I tried a level called “Hammer Time,” a one-on-one game in which my opponent and I played as hammers and competed to, uh, hammer things.

To be sure, there was plenty of community creativity on display in the LittleBigPlanet series. But if you didn’t enjoy the notoriously floaty jump mechanics in those games, there may not have been much there for you. Dreams expands that flat canvas to an honest-to-goodness sandbox, and it really seems like it can handle whatever your brain can cook up.

https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/20/17588224/dreams-ps4-preview

Porn.

This game looks very promissing, I can't wait to see what the community will create.

Dreams is actually a full set of development tools all wrapped into one package.

At its core it is a development platform allowing you to create your own Art, Levels, Gameplay, Music, Logic, Animation, and more for any Movie, Game, Music, or Text based project you want to build.

Dreams is going to allow players to build 3D artwork that they can use in a digital project, or print out in 3D as anything for display or real worlduses.

Dreams is going to allow players to build content that can be exported to Unity to reach other platforms.

This is a development tool that I believe Sony and Media Molicule plan to support for a very long time. We will see games from all genres, we will even see individual games that mix genres, and new types of gameplay We will have Movies, Short Films and TV Series.

Just like LBP, expect to see massive support from many gaming properties, movie and tv properties, book properties, and other brands looking to advertise.

Dreams will be amazing if Sony handles it properly. Now we just need a freaking beta and a release date.

I think that besides child pornography the game will let you do basically anything

I'm starting to dig it. But I wonder if this wil end up on PS5, since we don't even have a release date yet.

I think it's still coming for PS4. At least, Media Molecule still treats it as a PS4 game.

Oh, I'm sure Dreams will be capable, but users, sony, and your local authorities will definitly make sure to put an end to it.

I fully expect Dreams to be supported on both PS4 and PS5. Dreams is a development platform that will allow anyone to make games for PlayStation hardware, and even alloe users to export thier projects to Unity for release on other platforms. Sony will very likely be supporting this for a very long time. Dreams should continue to evolve over time. We will see a lot more than just entertainment from Dreams. If it is anything like LBP, expect crazy Calculators, Word Processors, Music Mixing Apps, and all kinds of wacky stuff from people just testing to see what they can do with the tools.

The question was "let you create", when Sony and police will prevent you from doing it and all, it won't let you create it (or at least will take it down)

I know, I was just stating that the toolset will be fully capable of doing anything. When it comes to publishing and promoting it, that is where it will limit what it Lets You Do. I would imagine any direct rip-offs of copyright or trademark IP will be stopped right away as well. If someone remakes Halo or Mario 64, I am pretty sure Nintendo and Microsoft will demand it gets taken down.

The toolset itself should Let You Do anything.