Preview : A trip under the sign of creativity with Dreams on PS4 !

If someone had told me that one day it would be possible to create a game without any programming knowledge, I would never have believed it! And yet, this totally fanciful eventuality is now becoming a reality. The latest release of Média Molécule, named Dreams for the occasion and currently available on PS4, takes the gamble of breaking free from the consensual codes of video games in order to invite the player to become not only a spectator, but also an actor in a universe built around creativity. This new way of interacting is a bit off-putting and could however confuse many people. For, presumably, this is not a game as such, but rather a subtle and complex toolkit, allowing the imagination of the person behind the controller to run free.

The result of a long and expensive development, Dreams remained for a long time a dark dream emanating from several presentations made at various trade shows, such as E3 or Gamescom. Ambitious but also pharaonic project, Dreams gave us a glimpse of the possibility to offer us a conceptual experience, through the provision of an "all in one" engine, managing both the graphic and physical part, as well as the sound aspect of the latter. After many postponements, the beta-test phase has just ended and we are finally in the grips with this all-technological package. And what can I say if it is not that the objective is perfectly achieved, and that at the time I write these few lines, it is not less than hundreds, even thousands of initiatives that have been born with the help of this formidable tool.

A community video game Youtube !

Taking the form of a social network, centered around the community of players but also of creators, the title offers us as a preamble, a dreamlike journey among the myriad of dreams realized by simple users. It goes without saying that the quality of the works as well as their interests differ according to the sensitivities of each and everyone, but it must be said that the possibilities offered by this creative device allows for some artistic prowess. In addition to the fact that there are various tributes to certain games that have left their mark (Mario, Sonic in the line of sight and even near-perfect reproductions of P.T. and WipeOut), it is not uncommon to see a good number of short films made using the assets of this title as well as static works, flattering our retina.

At first glance, the inherent possibilities of Dreams seem limitless. However, I have a good idea that the fact of not putting our hands in the sludge and using a turnkey engine, probably does not allow us to go beyond what we are allowed to do. Nevertheless, Dreams has a strong creative and artistic capital that may certainly surprise us in the future. For the moment, I would not give any definitive opinion on how to conceive works using this title, since I have not yet had the opportunity to linger on this subject. However, I can only recommend that you allow yourself to be transported through this unique experience. I will certainly come back to the notion of creation in a future article.