This is my Weekly Design Inspiration, this is a space where I share some design work that has either inspired me or caught my attention for its execution or concept. The things I feature on here can include (but not limited to) branding, web design, app design, illustration, typography, video games or anything that shows creativity in a unique way.
A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be selected to take part in the Creators Beta for the upcoming PlayStation 4 title Dreams, and it seems that everyone that applied for the beta also got invited to take part too. I have been following the development of this game for quite some time now and it was awesome to finally get my hands on it and try out the extensive tools this game offers. For those that don't know, Dreams is a game/toolkit created by Media Molecule (the same people behind LittleBigPlanet) that allows users to create and share games, movies, animations, music, art, sculptures or just about anything you can 'dream' of. It has a similar premise as LittleBigPlanet in that it gives you an extensive toolkit (almost like a game engine) and teaches you the basics then lets you create whatever you want. Having played the LittleBigPlanet games a considerable amount in my teens and now seeing that Dreams basically takes this idea of freedom to create anything and times it by ten, it gets me very excited. Could this even be the start of the next biggest thing in gaming?
If you have played LittleBigPlanet before then you would feel quite at home when stepping into Dreams, it has that same unique British charm and cuteness which gently introduces you to elements of the game. This child-like approach helps off-set the fact that the tools they are giving you are extremely powerful and is essentially equivalent to that of The Unreal Engine or Unity (to a degree). The difference being that this toolkit/engine is wrapped up inside an easy to understand game interface as opposed to complex computer programme.
All the tools you need to create a game are here from the character/world creation to the gameplay features/logic to the music/sounds. All of these elements work together seamlessly and the way you navigate and control tools are consistent whether you're designing a world for your game or creating a sound track for an animation, it all takes place in the same 'scene' and uses the same interface to do so. There's is an option to specifically 'make music' or 'make sculpture', but you can instead head into a blank 'Scene' and have all the tools at your disposal to do whatever you want and there's no leaving the scene to work on different elements. For example, you could be working on designing your hero character model in the same scene as composing the ambient background music. The complexity and possibilities of this blows my mind.
The reason why all of these different elements can work so well together is that the interface you use across all of them remains consistent. The level of design that went into the UI, UX and overall aesthetic of the interface is astounding. At first the controls to move around feel a bit foreign in that you move around as you would expect to by moving the analogue sticks but you point and select things with your 'imp' using motion controls built into the DualShock controller. At first this seems a little fiddly but once you've played through a handful of tutorials it soon becomes second nature. Elements of the interface even reflect real computer programmes in that, for example, you hold L1 as if it was Shift on a keyboard and it changes your inputs. What seems to be apparent is that Media Molecule didn't want the user to ever feel constricted by the tools on offer, you find that one tool or function can be used for many uses, this keeps the player confident in the tools they are using, rather than having to teach them a new tool for every execution. The more you explore the sandbox of tools and gadgets the more confident you become in your ability to use them competently.
Don't get me wrong, there are A LOT of tutorials and things to remember, but with a game this complex it requires it. Thankfully, the way they have presented the tutorials are in easily digestible groups which you can take at your own pace, and as mentioned before, if you've played LittleBigPlanet you will be familiar with many of the functions already. The tutorials themselves are cleverly presented with a small video overlaying the screen while you follow (or not follow) along. This approach allows the player to actually do the things they are being taught as opposed to just being told, which I think makes the player much more proficient. The tutorials also cleverly teach you to set up obstacles which you then have to play through in 'Play Mode' to complete the tutorial, this way Dreams knows that you have at least accomplished some of the tutorial's lessons. You can tell that care has been taken in every portion of the game to allow the players to be as confident as they can in their abilities to create whatever they want.
And with this mentality of creating whatever you want, people have done so. There are already a handful of community levels that have been uploaded and available for Beta users to play through. Now, as this is a Beta with a limited amount of time these creations aren't as fully fleshed out as you'd imagine, but there are definitely glimmers of amazing ideas and concepts. Going through these community made games almost gave me a feeling of nostalgia, reminding me of what it was like surfing though LittleBigPlanet levels, not knowing what you were going to get. But this feeling also came with the memory of the types of levels that were most common in LBP, the levels filled with random junk and H4H (heart for heart) signs. Don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun playing through some of the more crazy and broken games with a group of friends, including such games as Toilet Simulator. From what I've heard Media Molecule have learned a lot from their experiences from LBP and will be curating and helping make sure players get to play the best games created by the community. I have this terrible image in my head of Dreams becoming essentially the new Newgrounds.com, a wild-west of games created by anyone without regulation or standards. This of course could be looked at in a more positive sense in that Dreams gives people the opportunity to create games without the need of years of training and an expensive development system. There could be someone out there with an amazing idea for a game and Dreams is their ticket to bringing it to life. Dreams even has the potential to show portfolio pieces, imagine going into a job interview for a concept artist, or game developer and having a fully fleshed out game to show (obviously the technical skills required for the actual job are vastly different to what you can do in Dreams, but the basis is there).
I am extremely excited for the future of Dreams and can't wait to see the potential of it realised. From my experiences with LBP and the community involved I noticed that if you give a creative bunch of people a tool they can do anything with they will push it to the absolute limit and create things even the people at Media Molecule wouldn't have imagined. Media Molecule have actually hired people from the LBP community based on the things they could create using the tools they provided. As for me, I have a few ideas rattling around that I will definitely be trying out when the game is released. I'm thinking some Rouge-likes or RPG Platformers maybe, we'll see.
What Have I Been Listening To This Week?
Grandson - Apologize
Grandson is an interesting artist that creates music with a fresh and unique sound. He mixes rock and electronic sounds and profound lyrics to make something quite original. I can see big things coming from Grandson in future.
Honorable Mentions
As part of my Weekly Design Inspiration I also like to share some bits and pieces that I have seen which have inspired me in the last week. I have captioned each image with some info and relevant links so you can find out more.
Bristol based design agency Halo have been working hard at a rebrand and new website and have posted a stream of teasers that lead up to the release of what seems to be a landing page for their new site with an idea of the kind of style we can expect from them. It looks quite interesting and I'm intrigued to find out more.
Mike Henry (Zatransis) is an amazing illustrator that has a really captivating style. He is a master of lighting and really setting the scene for his characters.
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