A small world full of little creatures, inside a virtual art museum in Dreams.
Media molecule
Over the course of a few hours on a lazy Wednesday, I watch the jellyfish floating in space. I move cubes through a 3D maze. I look at the strange robotic art in a virtual museum. I move a weird guy around an apartment and look in his bathrooms. I turn giant plates of breakfast meats under a spotlight.
I can’t say that I understand everything that lives inside Dreams, the creative PlayStation 4 app that just added virtual reality support, but developer Media Molecule’s showcase of homemade virtual reality creative experiences is unlike anything else.
Virtual reality is everywhere, if you want to escape. But above all, they are games and experiences that others have created. Virtual reality as a creative tool is still limited. Although there are many PC tools for virtual reality creators, such as Tilt brush, Oculus Feather and more, there is relatively little PlayStation VR Owners can do.
Dreams VR resembles the creative app the PSVR needed four years ago. The game (if you can call it that) was released earlier this year on PS4, but without VR support. It’s a way of doing things (games, art, or just random moments), and also exploring what others have uploaded – it’s like what LittleBigPlanet and Super mario maker enable, but unleashed with a palette that feels almost limitless. Dreams was always meant to be a killer PlayStation VR app, but VR updates ended up lagging behind in favor of basic PS4 features first. They are here now and based on what I have seen so far, I am impressed and also curious to see how much more will follow.
“The plan was a plan from day one to conquer the world and do everything,” Media Molecule technical director for Dreams virtual reality update David Smith told me via video chat. “It turns out that with a small team, you can’t do everything at once.”
The new VR-ready update took a while to optimize frame rates and uncover presentation of perspectives, among other things. While, he says, “there is nothing fundamentally different,” about Dreams in VR vs. play on a ps4 on a television there it is a difference in how you experience things.
In many small games I have been inclined to see something from a third person perspective, and then jump to a first person view while standing. Sometimes that’s jarring, but there are also plenty of customizable settings in Dreams to control movement and interaction.
User-created dreams in Dreams should be tagged as VR optimized for VR playback, otherwise they are rendered in 2D on a VR headset, such as watching a TV. VR-optimized experiences are a rough mix, just as you’d expect for user-created things. Some are great. Some are janky. Some dropped out and returned to 2D modes when the frame rate was not good enough. I’d say the virtual reality browsing experience in Dreams is for those who are open to tougher work in progress – newcomers to virtual reality can find everything disorienting, though Media Molecule does include a ton of great reality navigation tutorials. virtual. There’s also an art and game gallery experience designed by Media Molecule that feels like something that came out of Valve’s virtual reality space, in a good way.
You can make virtual hands by yourself in Dreams; This puzzle world has a Portal atmosphere.
Media molecule
A creative universe where virtual reality is one tool among many
What I like the most is that the Dreams design is optional in virtual reality: you can insert and remove your headphones, creating with or without them. While that might make virtual reality sound like an unnecessary plug-in, I do love fusion. Virtual reality should be an optional set of immersive tools, like a pair of headphones for your eyes. Independent VR like Oculus Quest you don’t have a set of non-virtual reality apps to fall back on. Windows PCs can use VR As an interchangeable tool, but you should also invest in hardware and headphones. The PSVR proposal is much cheaper, since it runs from your existing PS4.
Dreams generally uses the normal Dualshock 4 as a virtual reality controller, which is mostly perfect, except when you may want to reach out and use your hands as in most typical virtual reality applications (PS Move controllers they can also work). Smith prefers Dualshocks as a virtual reality input, primarily: “Everyone has them, and they’re actually better at a lot of things.” Dualshock is also seen by Smith as an easier tool to switch between VR and TV creation. “People tend to … go to different ways of working. When they are working on a 3D sculpture or putting things in a very analog 3D way, then they will go to virtual reality because it is a natural way of doing it, that makes it more Easy. Conversely, when you switch to 2D, it’s pretty good when I can get rid of that information overload. If you don’t want to sense 3D, it’s good to get rid of it. “
There are shooting games, but they are not multiplayer.
Media molecule
Collaboration and social play are not happening yet.
Dreams VR has a social community for sharing and voting on creations, but there are no collaboration tools for co-creation. I asked Smith if that could happen. “It is difficult for me to give answers without showing too much about the future things that we are still considering or working on. I don’t want to promise things we don’t do or promise things on time scales.” he says. “But yeah, I think this kind of collaborative creation notion … we’re listening to our community, I must say, and trying to find ways to support what they want to do. I can’t say more than that.” “
I also mention the possibilities of sharing immersive experiences together in virtual reality, as well as in applications like The Under Presents who are mixing games and theater in a new art form. “I think all of these thoughts are very wise and … I have no comment,” says Smith.
(If you’re curious about how Dreams continues to evolve, there’s a roadmap on some of the planned updates.)
A springboard to future worlds
I played Dreams on an original PS4, and it will look better on a PS4 Pro, but of course I’m curious to know how a creative tool like Dreams could run on a PS5. The PS5 will be compatible with PSVR, but no real information has been shared about which games or even what hardware will be available for that next generation console.
Dreams I guess would look pretty murderous to him PS5 Processing Power. “I am under strict instructions not to discuss anything related to PlayStation 5,” replies Smith.
Well, at least I tried.
