Dreams | Live Support Ending

[Metallix]

I caved and got this like a week ago. I couldn't pass up the half price and let me tell you there are a lot of people making clones already! Tons of Mario, Crash, and Sonic clones of varying quality. I actually played a Mario 64 knockoff that wasn't too bad and with a bit more time could become really good.

Other than that I've also played quite a few good original levels too and just in a week I've seen many numerous updates to the levels that are already there so playing them again makes it almost completely different. I'm betting it launches this fall at some point. It will have lots of content by then surely.

One of the most impressive ones I've seen was a remake of the Chao garden from Sonic Adventure 2!

[Moonface]

The clones don't shock me, since LBP had them too. Although at least for that game the attempts at remaking 3D games in a 2D one had the potential to be impressive because of how they had to be translated over. Copying it into Dreams will really only be impressive for how close to the original they can get and show how good the toolset can be.

Fall seems like a good time for it. Sony doesn't really have many games for the Fall season yet, and this would be a good candidate to fill out the spot.

[Metallix]

Here’s a game being created in Dreams that I uploaded. It’s called Skyroe the Griffin. A knock off of Spyro. This game gets the physics down to a tee but also adds a twist to your power up so it’s not just a ripoff. 

[Moonface]

That was pretty cool! How long did it take you to put that together?

[Metallix]

Sorry I meant I uploaded the video of me playing the level. I didn’t make it but it’s been around since May so whoever made it did that in around a month tops. The core gameplay is solid but they have been refining it since I first played it.

There’s another good Spyro knockoff where you play as a bear named moneybags. Even has the fairy and good physics and you open boxes by swinging your bag of gems.

My guess is they probably want to get working enemies before they start on more levels but idk.

And of course there are much lower quality clones as well. Lol

[Moonface]

Oh, I thought you had made it. That might explain why it seemed familiar to me too.

The other knockoff you mentioned sounds more like a spin-off attempt, given Moneybags is an actual Spyro character. Does Moneybags have the ability to fly in that knockoff? If not, then it sounds like they tried doing a spin-off rather than an outright copy of Spyro with different assets and models.

[Metallix]

Yes but it’s a different character with the same name, I’ll try to get some footage later. It’s really good at its core but still unfinished. 

Here’s a really good one I stumbled across recently. Very much like War of the Monsters on PS2. 

[Metallix]

Okay two more I had to show because of how good they are! First we have a Crash game with five full levels and the physics just nail it. I also love the tone of the game which really captures that Crash vibe. 


Next one is footage of me playing a Sonic Adventure style level. Physics and UI are great! He’s currently working on enemy logic and homing logic so enemies are unfinished and you can’t home attack them but everything else is coming along well. Love the art style. 

[Moonface]

The Crash video seems to be very Twinsanity inspired, except they've made the environments too open. Twinsanity Beach felt far too empty just because there was nothing dividing up the areas, so instead it just looks like a huge playground.

Watching all three of these so far, I have one criticism of Dreams that I want to see overcome. Everything looks far too similar in terms of artistic direction. Yes, the Crash level is different to the Monster level which is different to the Spyro knock-off level, but the assets themselves share this very similar sculpted model clay appearance which makes none of them stand apart from each other properly. It's almost like watching different people using an Unreal Engine demo to make a hyper realistic looking version of a game. It doesn't matter how many unique assets they put in, everything matches, which wouldn't be a problem if Dreams wasn't marketing itself as essentially a game creation tool. I'd like to see things in it that don't have this "made in Dreams" look and instead could pass as being a stand alone game that used the Dreams tools to exist, but wasn't visually identified as being from it right away.

I also wonder if there's going to be changes made to what the limits of creation are too when PS5 comes out within the next year or so. PS5 would be able to do more than a PS4 can, but given that Dreams would need to be backwards compatible, would the PS5's power just be used to better load times or would there be an option down the line to make levels that can only run on a PS5? I don't think it would be very good to have this game come out officially so close to the PS5 and then not really let creators utilise that new power because of PS4 players, but at the same time it makes sense to not alienate the PS4 player base, so it's a really tough one to crack I think.

[Metallix]

A lot of games do use that style but there are many showcases that demonstrate a more realistic design. I assume it takes much more time and skill to do this though.

I’ve seen a recreation of Dead Space(small slice of a level) that looked exactly like the original.

[Moonface]

Seeing you mention realism made me remember that I saw a video of a recreation of Final Fantasy 7 Remake in Dreams, and it looked absolutely amazing in regards to both visuals and gameplay!

[ShiraNoMai]

Oh yeah, that was actually super neat! It's amazing what they were able to do just by watching the E3 demo unfold. I love how they got all those mechanics to work just as well as the original.

[Moonface]

So this isn't really a level, but someone made a concept piece for a Rayman game in Dreams that I thought looked really cool!
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/dx...yman_game/

Obviously it can use work to not have Rayman look like a hyper crackhead, but it isn't a bad attempt considering it has to be from scratch and by hand.

[Mr EliteL]

@Moonface : Looks really neat that Rayman piece. Do agree the Rayman in the picture needs some tweeking. Gone a bit too far, a notch over the Origins/Legends style. Maybe Globox too, but probably hard to get a good shape on him. Don't want nitpick too much though, because I can easily imagine myself taking control of Rayman and running up that hill.  =3

[Moonface]

Dreams Officially Releases February 14
During this mornings PlayStation State of Play, an official release date was finally announced for Dreams – February 14, 2020.