Dreams allows creative PS4 gamers chance to realise fantasies

Media Molecule’s Dreams can best be described as a curious hybrid of a game, content-creation program and social network.

Dreams is a new game for the PlayStation 4 that offers a virtual space for gamers to be creative.

Most games tend to fall into a distinct genre — action, adventure, puzzle, role-playing game, strategy, that sort of thing.

Sometimes, however, I get a game that doesn’t really fit any of those categories. In this case, it is Dreams, developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony for the PlayStation 4,

You could best describe it as a curious hybrid of a game, content creation program and social network.

Dreams lets creators (or “Dreamers” as it calls them) explore an online world full of games and videos made by both Media Molecule and other creators, as well as create their own videos and games too.

This involves using the PlayStation controller and an on-screen cursor known as an imp to move and manipulate various objects in a building space to put together pretty much anything you can imagine — no matter how outlandish or basic.

Dreams Fantasy: Dreams is a new game for the PS4 which offers a virtual space for gamers to be creative themselves.

There are a huge range of objects and resources available — everything from rocks and grass to walls, household objects, characters and more.

You can create some amazing things, and I was truly impressed with some of the works other creators had dreamt up.

One of the big attractions, especially if you are not inclined to make things yourself, is the ability to play or watch other people’s content.

The main story in the game — Art’s Dream — is an interesting mix of styles: primarily noir adventure, fantasy adventure and platformer. Parts of it seemed a bit dark and I’m not a platformer fan, so it didn’t really grab me from a game-play or story perspective — although from a “this is what the program can do” perspective, it was very impressive.

I’m always a bit wary of anything that relies too heavily on “other people” to create content, and I fear Dreams may fall into this tiger trap in the future.

Dreams Story: Dreams is a new game for the PS4 which offers a virtual space for gamers to be creative themselves.

Some content I’ve encountered so far has been essentially fan-fiction videos or content involving characters and settings from popular culture franchises. Some of it looks like a copyright take-down notice waiting to happen — even if the content is good.

There are some gems in there from the community. I rather liked a game called Art Therapy in which you play a disgruntled artist wreaking havoc in a fancy museum with a baseball bat, along with another title called Ruckus that involved you playing a Godzilla-esque monster destroying a small city.

Ultimately, Dreams didn’t grab me. There is nothing wrong with it as a PlayStation-based content creation toolkit/content platform, but it is not what I want to use my PlayStation for.

Using a DualShock controller to control the imp on screen isn’t as intuitive and easy as using a mouse and keyboard on a PC, and I can access limitless quantities of interesting video content on YouTube for free if I want to watch creative people making things.

Dreams Robot: Dreams is a new game for the PS4 which offers a virtual space for gamers to be creative themselves.

That is not to diminish the work that people are creating — some of it is genuinely imaginative and interesting, but it just isn’t something I enjoyed trying to do myself on the console, and I have a large backlog of professionally made games to get through before I start exploring some of the offerings in the ‘‘Dreamiverse’’.

I may not really love Dreams, but that’s largely because it’s not my sort of thing. However, it does what it does well, and I am glad the game exists and gives the creatively minded an outlet to let their imaginations run wild.

It will appeal to lots of people, and there’s certainly nothing else like it out there — so if you are a PlayStation owner with a creative bent and a desire to share and explore, Dreams could be for you.

Dreams Creation: Dreams is a new game for the PS4 which offers a virtual space for gamers to be creative themselves.