A video game that lets you make video games

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dreams-the-video-game-that-lets-you-make-video-games

by Reedx • 6 years ago

218 79 6 years ago

bigtunacan2• 6 years ago

This New Yorker article makes it sound like this is something revolutionary. How long ago was Roblox created? That's nothing but a giant game creation sandbox and it lets the creators charge for their content. It's simple and intuitive enough to use that my 10 year old had been creating her own minigames for more than a year now.

CivBase• 6 years ago

Wikipedia says 2006, the same year that Garry's Mod was released, another "video game that lets you make video games". There are plenty of other examples too. I'm not sure why this author treats it like a new, revolutionary concept.

The problem with these games is they just end up being a weird middle ground between development tools and games. The "gameplay" is driven purely by the player's creative drive, which results in a somewhat niche audience. The toolset also usually ends up being more accessable than normal development tools, but also much more limiting.

The article doesn't make it clear what is actually special about this game. It just reads like a fluff piece.

city41• 6 years ago

The limited nature can also make them appealing. A lot of the charm in Mario Maker 2 is the clever things people come up with within the restrictions.

The really enthusiastic creators _really_ learn how the editor and game engine works, for example this document goes into detail about how to take advantage of a quirk of the engine to pull off elaborate constructs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RlBSyS8WcW4S9NIHG0lGjWkN...

wlesieutre2• 6 years ago

StarCraft's map editor was another big one in the late 90's

bigtunacan2• 6 years ago

Roblox was pretty interesting in that it has this built in game editor that is very accessible, but is also highly extensible through Lua so the players/builders can ramp up their skills over time.

Add to that it's marketplace. Many users will never using the building tools and just play games made by other players. Not entirely unique, I was doing Unreal mods decades ago, but the way it is all presented and the varying levels of accessibility are still compelling.

paavohtl• 6 years ago

Garry's Mod (as a game development "platform") essentially boils down to a Lua interpreter bolted to the Source Engine, with access to assets from Valve's games. If you want to make a new game(mode) in Garry's Mod, you still have to write code, design levels and possibly create models, textures and sounds in separate somewhat hard to use programs.

That's very different from Dreams, where you can create everything within the same program with a unified set of pretty accessible tools and a very fast iteration cycle.

simion3143• 6 years ago

so this game contains an impressive audio/music tools , nice sculpting tools, logic widgets. like I helped my 13 years old son rotate an object in space by connecting some velocity vectors, sin wave widgets (there is no way to input polynomials or trigonometric functions that we found, so you have a sign wave and you change it's shape to look like what you need ). widgets to record data(aka variables) event like things. Then it has sharing. My son played the other games from this team Little Big Planet, he is not into programming (I tried to teach him basic stuff but code syntax is too abstract and error prone) where this kind of games encourage experimenting ... it is not something for developers to create games so is not a Unity/Unreal competitor

stygiansonic• 6 years ago

There was also Adventure Construction Set, released back in 1984 for the C64: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Construction_Set

lubujackson• 6 years ago

Yup and ZZT was another one. There is quite a history of "games for making games". I think this breathless "everything is different now!" narrative is overblown, but I do think these sorts of games/toolkits give voice to people who might not have otherwise had an easy path for expression.

Specifically, I think of this personal account: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1940535026/

setr2• 6 years ago

The game industry in general has a memory of about 10 years, perhaps 15 years tops. They'll praise innovation and radical differentiation despite the core features being the core features in major games just two decades earlier.

The favorite example is star control 2 versus Mass effect, the latter being a clear spiritual successor and yet somehow managed to be worse in nearly every aspect except graphics, and perhaps combat (which, in general, is fairly bland and uneccesary in both titles... but ME does admittedly have more depth to it's combat)

So yes, this is clearly revolutionary technology.

imtringued3• 6 years ago

A few years ago I was looking for space themed games where you control a ship and are allowed to trade. Think of Escape Velocity, Star Sonata 1/2, Space Rangers, Freelancer, X3, etc. For some reason a lot of forum posts were about Mass Effect when it comes to space games. When I actually played Mass Effect 2 I realized that it was just a generic cover shooter like Mafia 2 or Sleeping Dogs. Oh and it was so glitched I fell off the map multiple times and often got stuck on top of random objects like tables. It was an absolutely awful experience.

corysama2• 6 years ago

Sometimes things don't have to be absolutely unprecedented to be revolutionary.

freepor• 6 years ago

A fun iOS one was "Amazing Alex," which was The Incredible Machine with user-uploaded levels.

vuldin• 6 years ago

Some other comments here make the assumption that Dreams is like Roblox or Minecraft. But from what I can see it is way more than those games, and a person should be able to tell that without even playing the game. You can watch videos of the content people are creating within Dreams and see just how varied this is in comparison to other tools.

jere• 6 years ago

Yea, just from reading about Dreams it seems basically like a game engine more than a game, albeit a very accessible one that also highlights user generated content prominently a la Mario Maker.

Game creation tools have never been very accessible and surfacing UGC without the player having to dig for it feels like a relatively new phenomenon.

corysama2• 6 years ago

My career has been making game engines. What I've seen created already by the pre-release users of Dreams is incredible. Just scroll through https://twitter.com/hashtag/MadeInDreams and keep in mind that everything you see was made by random users completely on their PlayStations. No Photoshop. No Maya/Blender. No IDE. Just a joystick.

Thorrez• 6 years ago

Roblox is a game engine too. And a platform for playing games that other users make. You program Roblox games with Lua.

travbrack• 6 years ago

Roblox is a game engine that's quite powerful actually.

seanmcdirmid• 6 years ago

How does Dream innovate over LBP, since they come from the same studio I’d guess it was somewhat of a successor?

nurbl5• 6 years ago

It is very much a spiritual successor. I spent quite a lot of time with the creative mode in LBP too, and Dreams really builds further on that. Much of the functionality was there in LBP in a simpler form. Dreams is much more flexible and general, though. It's also obviously no longer tied to the pseudo-2D platforming genre.

jes5199• 6 years ago

okay, so programmatic behaviors in the game are specified with a graph of virtual wires between “gadgets”. It seems like this is the always the metaphor that gets chosen to replace coding in text - but I don’t think it’s exactly good! How do you refactor? How do you share code?

kdowns• 6 years ago

Refactoring I don't know but you can keep all your logic for some task inside a microchip then create input and output handles to hide the inner workings. Then you can publish that microchip as a element for other people to use in their creations.

justanothersys• 6 years ago

From what I’ve seen it’s similar to the old LOGO Microworlds model which is awesome.

honkycat2• 6 years ago

You can't. But people like to pretend we are all just taking a piss with our text-based languages and full-time jobs.

honkycat2• 6 years ago

I feel that Penny Arcade nailed it when they described the game as:

"Using clumsy tools for days and days to make a worse version of something that already exists inside of someone else's product"

bathtub3653• 6 years ago

I find this attitude odd. No one is going to use node-based programming to build a CRUD-app backend. I think some non-game programmers feel threatened by ways of building behaviour that don’t need a computer science degree. The attitude in the games industry is necessarily the opposite. Programmers aren’t game designers or artists or puzzle designers and part of their role is to let those creative professions express themselves, which leads to a richer experience.

I hope software continues to empower creative expression in new ways like this and the barrier to entry keeps being lowered.

mattkrause• 6 years ago

People do “real work” with dataflow languages.

LabVIEW is pretty popular in some circles, and many DSP/FPGA tools also use a component+wire model. Verilog is text, but uses a similar model; there’s even a wire keyword.

jrootabega2• 6 years ago

I did some collaboration on a pretty simple project (Mosaic Maker) in Dreams a few months ago. Just creating modular components that could integrate with a larger scene was somewhat tough but not terrible. Versioning them and updating them was somewhat harder. I think as groups get better at this, they'll get the hang of it. But the sharing layer built into dreams was pretty bad at the time. If you had a few versions of different dependent components, you could hit bugs preventing you from working on them. If your component used someone else's (which is encouraged as one of the pillars of the game), you might find you're blocked from releasing if the creator restricted that component. Or sometimes the opposite: people didn't get credited for what was clearly theirs.

Overall I'd say that collaboration patterns could work if you had a group that knew how they work and supported them.

ngcc_hk2• 6 years ago

Not this. But if you use the block languages and JavaScript side by side, sometimes the graphic one ok but most of the time the text JavaScript mode is so much faster. Our visual nerve has 50% of our brain. But text is much more dense.

Zenst• 6 years ago

I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh3-7F0SrAQ a review of this `game` and wow, some amazing stuff can do - kinda feels like the vibe adobe flash had in the days.

mister_hn• 6 years ago

I recall it was possible also in Second Life to do the same..so, nothing new

Animats2• 6 years ago

Yes, but the building interface is far worse. SL never cracked their UI problems.

Sinespace, which uses the Archimatrix parametric CSG system, is the closest I've seen to this. Stretch a couch, get more cushions but not wider arms. Stretch a wall, get more windows but not wider ones. That lets you create parametric objects with constraints.

formalsystem2• 6 years ago

Is anyone aware any similar product that also pays back game developers and modders for how many people download their games or how many times people used an asset they created?

Modding on PC isn't the best experience since it requires a lot of work on the developer side to create an API for you AND you need to go ahead and learn how this API works by staring at a small number of samples.

If the game doesn't have an API you need to disassemble the game and figure out how to actually integrate your changes but you can't distribute it since you're violating the developer's intellectual property.

However, modding is amazing, it's the best part about PC gaming. Team Fortress, Counter Strike, Dota, all mods. Modding increases the potential play time of a game in an unbounded way. Why isn't it commonplace for me to be able to command alt click and then just add a new character to the game with 3 basic abilities and then share that to my friends. You can't mod a movie, there is no underlying code you can change freely to add whatever dialog you want or change the position of a camera.

Is there no way to align the economic incentives of players and creators when it comes to modding? How would you split up the pie between modders, original creators and consumers especially considering that modders can increase the size of the pie. What creator wouldn't want to increase the longevity and relevance of their game?

I'm optimistic that more games will be more moddable more easily. Giving modders and creators the tools to distribute their work AND make money off of it, will create a platform that will dethrone Steam and produce memes for ages to come.

If anybody wants to talk more about this, please feel free to email me.

smaddock• 6 years ago

Roblox supports modding and has a "Developer Exchange" program [0] in which, from what I understand, there's an exchange rate for each microtransaction related to modders' content.

Steam Workshop [1] is a platform for distributing mods for games which support it on Steam. A few years back it introduced support for paid content [2], but was soon after removed due to community backlash [3].

[0] https://www.roblox.com/developer-exchange/help

[1] https://steamcommunity.com/workshop

[2] https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

[3] https://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements...

mamurphy• 6 years ago

Fortnite has the support-a-creator program, where players can enter a creator's code in the in-game item shop to choose to divert a percentage (5%, but they have upped it to 20% once for a special event) of all in-game purchasers to a creator of their choice. The creator can be a map-maker, streamer, blogger, etc.

The program incentivizes continued content creation by creators, and dis-incentivizes moving on to another game, as the creator's SAC revenue would dry up over time.

[0]https://www.epicgames.com/affiliate/en-US/overview

jpindar2• 6 years ago

For those who haven't tried it - in Fortnite Creative you can create a lot more than fps levels. I've seen puzzle games, mazes, obstacle courses, scavenger hunts etc., and there's a wide variety of differently themed assets available.

intenscia• 6 years ago

We’re working on this actually at mod.io (we are also the creators of ModDB which you may be familiar with). Still early days but momentum is building and we are seeing plenty of experimentation going on. Feel free to AMA as we’ve done and continue to do a ton of research in the space

formalsystem2• 6 years ago

Amazing, I have used ModDB in the past so I'm glad to see you building something even more ambitious.

How are you thinking of paying people? If I make a really popular mod of a game do I get a % of that games sales or just some fixed per download amount. How do you deal with popular plagiarism, I minimally change a mod and figure out how to be featured prominently in ranker.

Would you say a significant part of your player base consists of game developer?

What does the easy modding workflow look like right now? I'm looking forward to checking out https://github.com/modio/UnityPlugin

simion3143• 6 years ago

Monetizing mods is hard, you will need to police the community to make sure assets are not stolen, handle QA and refunds, compatibility between mods, you also need to keep the community happy - you see with latest paid mods from Bethesda where people are asking questions like "why should I pay 5$ for a few armors and a weapon when a 15$ DLC had new teerain, new NPCs, quests, armors etc.

EamonnMR• 6 years ago

So the way I see it, when modding became a thing because back in the 90s and 00s, the barrier to entry for a new game was really high, but the barrier for entry for making assets and such was really low. The situation is reversed now-anyone can pick up Godot, Unity, Unreal, etc and start making whatever they can imagine but they can't just start making AAA quality content. That's why you see lots of assets for a few titles where the community has really gone in deep, but also plenty of games that nobody even tries to mod-without the developer tools there isn't much hope, and if you just want the basic gameplay of, say, a FPS building it from scratch is no longer insurmountable.

LegitShady• 6 years ago

Is anyone aware any similar product that also pays back game developers and modders for how many people download their games or how many times people used an asset they created?

It's called a video game engine. You make and market a game, then people buy it, and depending on how many people buy it you get paid.

Kiro• 6 years ago

I really don't understand how people can make all these incredible things with just a controller and no programming.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/MadeInDreams

nurbl5• 6 years ago

There's programming involved, but of the graphical connect-the-boxes kind that can be done without text input.

meheleventyone• 6 years ago

It supports the move controllers to give a lot of control over sculpting and animation. There’s also a fully fledged node based scripting language.

dharma1• 6 years ago

This looks really cool for kids. But shame it's PS4 only - looks like the studio was bought by Sony 10 years ago. I'm not sure how much of what you learn here using a PS4 game controller is transferrable when a young person graduates to using "real" desktop tools as they get older.

Roblox (the current 8+ kids favourite) also has some elements of this, but it is quite a trashy addiction fueling virtual currency money making ecosystem - good for the company that owns Roblox but not something that I think is great for kids.

nurbl5• 6 years ago

Hard to say, but the programming parts are fairly general and low level so the ideas should transfer pretty well. E.g. there are numeric values, mathematical operations, logic gates, etc. It can perhaps be compared with LabVIEW.

My main worry with Dreams is that it is a closed ecosystem, which is always a minus in my book. So far it does not feel exploitative at all, and Dreams does have some cool "under the hood" features such as OSC support. I don't think the studio itself is likely go evil, but in the end they are owned by Sony...

jayd16• 6 years ago

If your goal is to be a game designer then learnings around map design and storytelling should be robust ones. How well it teaches general programming I have no idea.

nurbl5• 6 years ago

I've been using Dreams since the beta over a year ago. I'm mostly interested in 3D sculpting and animation, but I've played around with most of the tools. Here's my impression.

It basically attempts to boil down video game behaviors to a fairly small number of simple "gadgets" ("mover", "rotator", various sensors, connectors, cameras, etc, plus the usual logic and programming pieces) that fit together into a pretty general engine. There are also higher level features you can use, such as a flexible human "puppet" with algorithmic movements.

It all runs in a graphics engine that is itself pretty inventive. It does not use polygons, but instead models consist of basic positive or negative 3D shapes blended together, and their surfaces consist of particles that can be configured in various ways.

I can't really compare it with other game engines since I haven't used them, but I think it's much closer to something like Unity than to Minecraft. It's obviously simplified a bit, but fundamentally I think it's all there. You can (in principle) make games in any genre, but really any kind of interactive or non interactive stuff. And then there's the sculpting and animating bit. Oh, and there's a sound and music production environment in there. So it actually contains something like Blender and a DAW too. Plus it's a collaborative platform where people can share, use and remix each others stuff.

I'm very impressed with Dreams. Media Molecule have managed to compress an entire creative suite into a PS4 and made it actually nice to use with a single game controller. All the tools are way deeper than they have any right to be. The presentation is obviously aimed at a younger audience, but if you can stand that it's a lot of fun even to just explore the functionality.

It's not a great programming environment though, at least when you're used to working with normal tooling. You can make reusable components but it's fairly clumsy. The thing I can most compare it to would be LabVIEW.

In the end, to me it's not really about making AAA games or "being productive", but just a general outlet for creativity. I actually hope they won't start letting people charge for their stuff in Dreams.

ijpsud• 6 years ago

Thanks for the explanation!

I actually hope they won't start letting people charge for their stuff in Dreams.

I tend to agree, but I also really like what YouTube has created with the ability to monetise videos: Many thousands of people who are now full-time independent publishers. From the demos that I've seen of this game, it could give aspiring game makers a pathway in the game industry which doesn't require joining a big studio, or learning (relatively speaking) complex tools. But that only works if they're able to sell their creations.

Perhaps if they have strong content moderation (to prevent spammy stuff which tends to occur when money starts getting involved), then they might be able to maintain a great community while creating more independent developers.

After all, Roblox has shown that monetisation in the game-creation space isn't necessarily a disaster.

falcor84• 6 years ago

I'd actually be very happy with something like YouTube Premium (formerly known as Red) whereby you pay a monthly subscription to access all of these Dreams games, and a majority of that revenue would be redistributed amongst the creators, e.g. proportional to play time. This would then be quite similar to the current PS Plus and PS Now subscriptions.

slavik81• 6 years ago

The SIGGRAPH 2015 presentation for Dreams was amazing[1]. They started by experimenting with some very outlandish ideas for modelling and rendering their worlds.

It was a very ambitious project. Hopefully Dreams finds success, because I would love to see more of it.

[1]: (slides) http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2015/AlexEvans_SIGGRA...

leppr• 6 years ago

Fascinating, thanks.

Here's the video for the presentation which includes animations: https://youtu.be/u9KNtnCZDMI

brutal_boi• 6 years ago

If we effectively are living in a simulation:

"A video game that lets you make video games that let's you make video games"

OrgNet• 6 years ago

Any chance that game runs on a PS4 emulator?

Waterluvian• 6 years ago

Their demonstration game, "Art's Dream" is a masterpiece in my opinion. It has such charm. As Vinesauce Vinny said, it will either inspire people to go out and make their own wonderful creations or discourage people who will think they can't ever come close to it.

I absolutely love the asset sharing and reuse works. I love making little games for fun but my problem has always been that I'm no visual or audio artist.

neovive• 6 years ago

Microsoft also tried this with Project Spark in 2013 [1], but eventually closed the project at the end of 2016. It was actually pretty fun to build and play games on box XBox and PC.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Spark

hyperpallium• 6 years ago

Very fertile ground for 2-3 years, due to game-scarcity.

It's not that Dreams is revolutionary (it's not, just a step forward), but that you can create with only a console.

---

Game makers are a very cool and exciting product category, but also very old, and never seem to really take off.

Making games is hard, even with teams of experts, the best tools money can buy, and inhouse tooling.

Programming - a subset - is also hard. There was once a fad of programs that generate programs, like The Last One https://wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_(software)

A similar impulse was thinking AI will be easy...

quirkafleeg3• 6 years ago

my problem with dreams is that someones time would be better spend learning a proper game engine like unreal or unity

A video game that lets you make video games

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