The first impressions I had for Dreams were that the toolset was impressive but that kind of thing wasn't for me, and the Media Molecule content at the time was fine but severely lacking. Things have changed massively in my three years away and if you're not into creation, I'd recommend looking at the games that MM have created and highlighted as there are some really interesting looking experiences there. One of these was Tren, which launched last week, a delightful little puzzler where you need to make your way across various wooden train-set levels to the goal.

A lot of concepts are crammed in here and while some are occasionally overused of not hugely fun (sorry Cren), the majority are well designed and your movement as the train is simple while feeling natural. You have a free moving camera for 95% of levels which is fine but it can occasionally have a mind of its own, zooming in when you don't want it to, preventing you from seeing up ahead. A minor frustration normally but when you're up against a time limit it can lead to situations where it's hard to adjust and you miss hazards, necessitating a restart or reset to track. That said, it's a rare problem and the overall challenge ramps up quite nicely throughout, with some intricate and almost thrilling levels coming your way towards the very end of the game.

The set dressing is wonderfully cozy and all the paraphernalia strewn across the levels and hub world (three rooms in a house) really hit those nostalgia buttons. I also really liked the music - chill in hubs and more dedicated puzzle levels, but playfully intense where attempting to beat the clock is involved. Alongside a couple more specific MM throwbacks, it really made me miss what that studio can do in their own dedicated games.

And this last point really got me thinking about how the MM (and some user-generated) games that have been made in Dreams should be classified. These creations are made in Dreams and for sure I spent the hours in this software to play them, but they can also be fully fledged experiences (I spent 9 hours with Tren) with Dreams being more akin to an engine at that point. So I feel a bit strange about how to log, rate and review this and other Dreams games that I may try in the future - and there are a few that look really interesting - as while I'm technically playing Dreams, I'm also not. I know a line has to be drawn somewhere but it feels really fuzzy to me here.

Due to the huge toolset and variety of content that can be created which spans a huge range of genres and tone, I think Dreams in its own little world of almost being its own platform - a normal level creator this title is not - and I find it a bit disappointing that there's no way to talk about these games on BL in standalone terms. The record will say that I replayed Dreams with a playtime of 9 hours, but that really doesn't tell the whole story.

Dreams is an incredible, unique game that you should check out for numerous reasons, but I'm going to specifically review Tren here.

Tren, a game built within another game (by the devs of the game themselves), is one of the best games of 2023. I easily sunk something like 10 hours into it and completed the full game, 100%ing too. It's the most impressive creation I've ever encountered in Dreams, and could easily be a standalone release.

It took minutes for the question of "how could a game that forces you to stay on tracks be that fun?" to be answered, and answered again, and again and again. The gameplay is straight up joyous. It brought back memories of playing with the wooden train tracks I had as a kid. I had a constant smile on my face and was stoked to see the little train do any sort of trick, and broke out laughing whenever the physics worked in some unexpected way, flinging pieces across the scenery.

The scenery, by the way, is SO meticulously detailed that you could spend the whole game in free cam mode and still have a great time. It's akin to an "I Spy" book, where little scenes built from models and household objects played out across the landscape. I had to slow down and start playing through the time trial levels without watching the timer because I just wanted to check out everything across the ~100 levels.

Because there are like 100 levels! And new, interesting mechanics showed up again and again. Even by the time you are at the last few levels, Tren has still more wonderful surprises built with so much care, just to be featured in one or two levels. The same goes for the music, there are dozens of tracks and you will be hearing new ones right till the end. The music perfectly suits the fun-loving mood of the game. I've started listening to it outside of playing the game, because it's honestly just that good.

If you have Dreams, I can't recommend you play Tren enough. If you don't have Dreams, Tren is a great reason why you should pick it up. What a blast!

So I (372,383,102,383m) and my (372,383,102,383m) dream (372,383,102,383m) were playing Dreams and came across a hilarious dream that parodies Among Us, where Black is always the impostor. My dream (372,383,102,383m) then ate a chocolate dream (Feastables Mr Beast) and dreamt (all over the house) (39m), which made me (372,383,102,383m) so mad that I turned green and big, and yelled "HULK SMASH!!!!" and killed my dream (-28m). So Reddit, am I the ass hole!??!?!!?!?

Edit (1): Thanks for the (upvotes) (20). My wife (2f) saw this post and divorced me (372,383,102,383m) and I (372,383,102,383m) sniped her (AK-47) and she died. So am I (372,383,102,383m) the ass hole for that!? Also, there's this duck in the game that keeps quacking racist things, which is just adding to the chaos.

Score: 8/10

Eu sonhava em jogar esse game, principalmente na época que queria ser game design e é engraçado como eu não consegui desenvolver um joguinho porque anos atrás percebi que eu não gostava de fazer jogo kkkkk mas ainda assim eu queria muito ver as criações dos outros e é muito legal ver a criatividade da comunidade em fazer algo bom, ambicioso ou só um jogo do Shrek ou Waluigi bem meme, é um game meio difícil de recomendar mas na Plus vale a pena dar uma testada, fico triste que um game tão criativo não teve reconhecimento, sua campanha Sonho de Art é bem dahora, tem outras campanhas da MM bem legais como a Ancient Dangers e várias outras.

I think if I was a kid I just wouldn't need other video games. I love to just boot this up and search something random and see what comes up. One time I played a Call of Duty: Zombies-style horde FPS where all the enemies were Sonic.exe. The very first time I got to the homepage the first thing I saw was a Captain Toad fangame. My only complaint is that even though there's a lot of creativity and effort on display in a lot of the games made in Dreams, I don't think I've played a single one that actually felt good to control.

This game is beautiful,
But lacked multiplayer,
And it's hard to make your own games.




This game had an opportunity to become something unforgettable.

I have a lasting interest in game creation platforms like this, but also in games as smaller scale experiences. I grew up spending a lot of time with Roblox and the Little Big Planet series, but also with flash games. The possibility of making things yourself, and of other people seeing those things is really cool! Playing other people's little projects, flaws and all, has always felt more intimate to me. I would argue that smaller games make a better case for "games as art" than any big budget M rated drama made to mimic prestige television.

The home of those kinds of games has really shifted over time, though. I don't want to get too negative here, but it's really sad to me to see platforms like have Flash died or how the mobile game market has shifted to prioritize games that are engineered to be addictive and profitable.

To me Dreams represents that long gone world from my adolescence. A place to share what you've made, and to be entertained and inspired by what other people have made. It's incredible the things people have made in it! Some of them are really good and stand separate from the Dreams platform, and others are pretty terrible! Both categories have their place here. It isn't perfect as a platform, and it retains some of the social media type elements that also affected the Little Big Planet series. "Remakes" and fandom content tend to be popular and get perpetuated since they inherently have a wider audience. I might be in the minority here but I find it really interesting to see how the structure of a platform like this can affect the sorts of things people make. I like playing all sorts of things here for that reason alone, regardless of quality! It's a little ecosystem and I find that just as engaging as the actual games. I could talk forever about aspects of the community and the game itself that I find interesting, or even just about specific games, but I'm not very good at writing and there's just too much to cover!

If you're interested in video games as a medium and as a vehicle for self expression, I would highly recommend giving Dreams a shot. It's not doing something new, but it's easily the best of its kind.

I imagine Dreams is kind of similar to Mario Maker in a way, but less popular. Dreams however has a lot more variety when it comes to creation. With Mario Maker, you are limited to just level design, but with Dreams, you have a lot more options. You can create entire games from scratch with level design, sound design, custom elements/models. It also isn't just games, you can make animations too and some of it is really impressive. It's still user created content so a sizeable amount of stuff will be kind of trash, but I would say a good chunk is quality content. I played a Kaiju destruction sim, watched a really cool animation about like a bird robot thing, and played a bit of the Dream dev teams fully blown game they made in the editor. Games like this and Mario Maker are the things that end up inspiring young people and others to become creators like level designers, artists, game devs, etc. It's kind of cool actually.