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[HeisenbergFX4]

https://blog.playstation.com/2021/1...ent-dangers-a-bats-tale-and-dreamshaping-2-0/

Hold onto your buttresses – the dungeon-crawling, monster-slaying, castle-crashing Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale is out now!

Exclusively available to play in Dreams, Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale is a third-person dungeon crawler made by Media Molecule and designed to test the skills of only the bravest adventurers. Whether you’re after frantic combat against strange and silly foes, puzzles to tickle your brain cells, or a showdown against a dragon with huge teeth (and an even bigger ego), Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale has you covered.


A screenshot from Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale, featuring orc twins Scoria and Gabbro running up the stairs in a dungeon towards a group of ravenous plant enemies.

Fight solo as heroic orc Scoria in single-player mode – or bring along a friend to play as Scoria’s twin, Gabbro, in local co-op mode (local co-op play still requires an internet connection). Challenge yourself to top the scoreboards by clashing with enemies and activating your Berserk chain to maximize those sweet, sweet points.


A screenshot from Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale, featuring orc twins Scoria and Gabbro raising their swords to the sky to enter Berserk mode. Lightning is shooting out of the swords.

Will Scoria and Gabbro find the herb they need to cure their grandmother’s terrible snoring? Can their wise-cracking bat pal find his way home? And is there a reasonable explanation as to how a dragon learned the noble art of floristry? All these questions and more possibly answered within.


A screenshot from Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale, featuring orc twins Scoria and Gabbro looking towards the camera with puzzled expressions.

To celebrate the launch of Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale, we’re treating you to five glorious new imps, based on some of the most memorable characters from Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale. Get a load of these.

But that’s not all. This latest update also brings a significant overhaul to DreamShaping.

Dreamshaping​

Screenshots of some of the new DreamShaping templates in action.

For the uninitiated: DreamShaping is the name of the Dreams create mode. Since launching Dreams, we’ve found that DreamShaping can be overwhelming for new players. With our new template system, and a reworking of the DreamShaping UI, we hope this huge update will help make getting started making games in Dreams quicker, easier and more fun than ever before.

The new version of DreamShaping includes handy game templates and brand-new elements for making a 2D platformer, a dungeon crawler, a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up, mini golf and more besides – including a dedicated template for Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale, which features a huge kit for your creative delectation.

Objectives and pointers throughout templates guide you through and explain the process, helping development feel more like a game in itself! And if you find yourself feeling stuck at any point, then indreams.me is here to help – just head over to our Templates section to find any extra info or support you may need.

We’ve also made some changes to the DreamShaping UI to help you find exactly what you’re looking for – and faster.


A screenshot of the new Start Creating scene.

On the new Start Creating screen, you’ll be able to access the overview page for each template. We’ve indicated the difficulty of each template (and in some cases the parts within each template) for varying experience levels. Beginner templates are all about letting you get comfy with creating by letting you simply stamp in elements, medium-difficulty templates introduce the idea of wiring things together, and more advanced templates cover techniques such as how to optimise your game.

You’ll also find new sections to promote quality elements to use in your creations, high-level and award-winning Dreams creators to follow, and community events – plus a raft of new help pages that link to online support via QR codes.


A screenshot of the new help pages linking to online support via QR codes.

What’s more, the type of content you’ll see on your DreamShaping page in-game will now be tailored to you, based on the time you’ve spent creating in Dreams! If you’re a new player, you’ll see stuff that’ll help you get acquainted with the basics. If you’re a little more experienced, you’ll be served our curated recommendations for some of the best building blocks the community has to offer.

That’s not to mention the many other things this overhaul brings – you can find much more detail in our update notes here.

Phew! Just a small update, then. Only joking, it’s enormous. Enjoy! We can’t wait to see you on the Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale leaderboards, and dreamers old and new rediscover the joys of creating in Dreams.

 

[CrimsonSquall]

Bring Dreams to Ps Plus for one month Sony. Dont let this amazing feat from MM die out with no fanfare

 

[lh032]

Im wondering how long until Sony shut MM down....

 

[GymWolf]

That dungeon crawler thing looks like it was made with dreams.

 

[Basil King]

Im wondering how long until Sony shut MM down....

Basically this, who is even buying dreams to take part in these things. Dreams should have been free to play and just monetized with tools.

or released day and date on pc.

 

[ACESHIGH]

This game is as good as dead without a PC release.

 

[Captain Toad]

Bring Dreams to Ps Plus for one month Sony. Dont let this amazing feat from MM die out with no fanfare

I'm usually against any for of free-to-play or GaaS, but if any game should be, it's Dreams.

 

[Markio128]

All jokes aside, I did find the original level design aspect of Dreams overwhelming, so I’m really pleased to see that they are simplifying things for us dummies, with game style templates. I’m looking forward to giving it another try.

 

[eyesabitdull]

Bring Dreams to Ps Plus for one month Sony. Dont let this amazing feat from MM die out with no fanfare

This. Seriously this.

Ya know what, just let it be free for 3 months.

They would gain the much needed new blood into having interest into the game, and those 3 months would likely pay off itself if you attract the right creative minds to join your community of creators.

JFC, Sony. Will you please listen to us for once?!

 

[CitizenZ]

The dungeon crawler, because of the tile set, made me think of game I played last year called Immortal Darkness: Curse of the Pale King.

Also, again, this is the game that needs to be on PC.

 

[W11d]

It will always be dead without online multiplayer. PS plus and pc port can add more players in the short time but they will all drop the game fast.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Im wondering how long until Sony shut MM down....

Media Molecule is hiring a lot and they just moved to s bigger office recently.
Chances of that happening are almost 0 at least for now.

This should be on PC. I honestly don't get what Sony is thinking...but I'm hardly surprised this year. I feel they've been quiet all year long in general.

 

[lh032]

Media Molecule is hiring a lot and they just moved to s bigger office recently.
Chances of that happening are almost 0 at least for now.

This should be on PC. I honestly don't get what Sony is thinking...but I'm hardly surprised this year. I feel they've been quiet all year long in general.

they better be hiring for a new IP, and not this.

and yes Dreams should be available on PC and PS Plus.

 

[The_Mike]

A game like this would truly fit a PC given it won't drown I'm BC issues down the line.

 

[McCheese]

Im wondering how long until Sony shut MM down....

Writing has been on the wall for some time... look at the background, and lack of MM or even Sackboy

 

[Mikey Jr.]

Writing has been on the wall for some time... look at the background, and lack of MM or even Sackboy

That is dreams at the far right.

 

[ripeavocado]

Cool but have they updated the game for PS5?

 

[Editaur]

The Sony game that would benefit so much more being on PC.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

This game is as good as dead without a PC release.

This.

 

[RPS37]

I just wanted to come in here and say that it’s nice that this thread exists at least.
Game needs to go up on plus and have a PS5 update.

 

[Shifty1897]

My mom walked in on me DreamShaping once. I'm still embarrassed about it to this day.

Jokes aside, this looks like a great update. It's a shame Dreams is so dead on console. A PC port really could do wonders. Mouse and keyboard support would also make creation so much easier.

 

[Notabueno]

Dreams should have come free with the PS5 and monetized through mtx...

 

[Enjay]

The marketing for this game makes me happy to see it fail.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Very happy they are still improving user experience and adding to the creation mode. The only thing I want is 2 handed grabbing in VR.

I used to think it was just a misunderstanding, but I think all the PC port beggars insisting the game is dead must be plain envious Don't worry folks, you still have every other decent piece of creation software ever made, let console people have one that’s made just for them without constantly trying to kick over their sand castle, it doesn’t threaten your PC dominance at all.

 

[Dream-Knife]

I tried to create some stuff, but using a controller was miserable. It should at least have M&K support.

Haven't touched it in at least a year.

 

[ANDS]

This. Seriously this.

Ya know what, just let it be free for 3 months.

They would gain the much needed new blood into having interest into the game, and those 3 months would likely pay off itself if you attract the right creative minds to join your community of creators.

JFC, Sony. Will you please listen to us for once?!

Game is ten bucks right now and is regularly ten bucks. Normally it is 20 bucks. If folks REALLY wanted to create, they would have jumped on it; price really isn't a barrier to entry for this game.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

The marketing for this game makes me happy to see it fail.

You're a really mean person, I don't like you.

 

[BennyBlanco]

At the very least they should let you use kb+m on console with this. Kinda sad this flopped because it’s so neat what people do with it.

 

[eyesabitdull]

Game is ten bucks right now and is regularly ten bucks. Normally it is 20 bucks. If folks REALLY wanted to create, they would have jumped on it; price really isn't a barrier to entry for this game.

It's not about the price of the game my dude, it's the content of the game that's making people think twice about paying a dime.

Making it free for an extended period of time eliminates any barrier completely, and allows the game to have new creators to inject some new user generated content which will hopefully revitalize the community.

10 bucks in wherever you are, could be 40 bucks - 100 bucks in a different region as well; so one must think globally if MM wants to not get shafted by Sony in the long run.

 

[mckmas8808]

Bring Dreams to Ps Plus for one month Sony. Dont let this amazing feat from MM die out with no fanfare

THIS! I'm not sure why drunk Jim Ryan still hasn't done this. It's a NO BRAINER!

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Bring Dreams to Ps Plus for one month Sony. Dont let this amazing feat from MM die out with no fanfare

They really did over-complicated things. LittleBigPlanet was the best mix of easy to learn, hard to master level builder. This is just like working for free! They need to revamp the editing tools and have 2 versions: Basic and advanced.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

Reply to previous poster:

This thread is in fact about them adding easier ways to get started in creation mode?

When I was starting I just went through all the tutorials and learned that way. It takes a while to learn, true, and I’m still learning tricks hundreds of hours in.

It’s an interesting idea having a more limited creation mode for beginners, because all the tools can be overwhelming at first, but honestly the tutorials do a fine job, and it seems like they’re trying to address the creation onboarding problem with this new update.

The tools can’t really be made any simpler in my opinion, they’re not just for 2D platformers you can make almost anything you can imagine. There’s other games that focus on building platformers and cater to that audience, dreams goes far beyond that.

You want an easy mode for building platformers? Get super mario maker or old lbp. You want an easy mode for making anything, get Dreams and take a little time to learn the tools, all the tutorials are right there built in.

 

[Three]

Writing has been on the wall for some time... look at the background, and lack of MM or even Sackboy

The far right is MM (Dreams). You can see their new character "Imp" even though it's tiny.

 

[McCheese]

The far right is MM (Dreams). You can see their new character "Imp" even though it's tiny.

 

[Aenima]

Dreams is such a great tool and platform for gaming. Its a shame it has been miss managed. This thing need to release in more platforms, need to be F2P and need a monetization feauture to reward the game creators. Ad revenue could work.
Most creators do some demo in dreams then move on to a engine they can monetize they creations.

 

[McCheese]

Most creators do some demo in dreams then move on to a engine they can monetize they creations.

But this it the fundamental problem with Dreams, it's a walled-garden. If you made the best fucking dreams game ever, you are still at the whim of Sony and MM; if they shut the service down then all your time and effort is gone with it. Yes the tools are good, but have you seen modern Unreal Engine or Unity? they are honestly on-par if not easier than Dreams thanks to the mouse and keyboard. If you can make something in Dreams, you can make the same thing in Unreal Engine and have 100% ownership of it.

I think MM sort of knew this, as they often demoed Dreams as a way of making small vertical slices of game concepts and ideas, and maybe using those vertical slices as a way of getting an actual deal to make that game outside of Dreams; but they really got the ratio wrong in terms of the number of people with the talent and drive to make something, vs the number of people who just want to consume. They should have allocated more resources to the discovery and sharing side of things, as all the time and effort they put into the creation tools are wasted on 95% of the audience.

Most users seemed to bounce as it was incredibly hard to find anything good, 99% of the stuff I played were just bad meme games, and the times I did see something good it was via a YouTube video rather than via the game itself. Such a waste.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Fucking Sony... how can Jim keep getting away with this shit??...

...huh?

It's not one of those threads? Oh ok. Sorry about that.

 

[modiz]

This game never had a chance and now it's basically

 

[Yoboman]

I said from the start if they can't find a way for people to monetise it, then the creator content will be short lived

They wanted a YouTube for games but with no way for content creators to make money - which is a bit short sighted

 

[Tarkus98]

Bringing this game to PS+, PC and doing some sort of mtx are good ideas and just seem to make common sense. It just makes it painfully obvious that Sony/Jimbo doesn't have this 'game' on their radar at all.
Such a shame. Best thing to do at this point is to dedicate a small team to maintain this beauty and the rest of MM move on and make a new game/IP.
Such a talented developer, I don't want to see them shut down.

 

[aclar00]

They should do a PS5 upgrade as well (if they havent?) and also at least a PSVR 2 create mode that allows for VR content to be made. I think this would definitely increase exposure.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

From everything PlayStation could bring to PC this should be on top of their list.

I know Sony is betting on Media Molecule and they even have a bigger office now and are hiring more people...so i know Sony isn't giving up on them any time soon...but Dreams on PC would give it such a boost. I wonder how much this sold on PS4...couldn't be much.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Step 1: Dreams PS5 upgrade in conjunction with PC release.

Step 2: Add online multiplayer support.

Step 3: Create incentivization program that allows creators to make money based off sales.

Step 4: ?

Step 5: PROFIT

 

[kingpotato]

I agree with the others. This desperately needs:

Current Gen port
PC (and other???) Platform Port
Make it free for subscribers of PS+/Now
Add in some monetization for creators somehow

Turn this game into a platform like Fortnite or Roblox and start printing money

 

[Zeroing]

People forget that MM designed a new engine from the ground up!

That MM was Kaz darling - they even hire MM members to do stuff on one of the Sony events ( not related to PlayStation)

They aren’t going anywhere! That’s the most creative team out there. But I agree Dreams should be on PC.

The fact they are still updating means they still have plans for that game!

Imagine what the indie studios could do with that engine!!!

 

[Fbh]

People forget that MM designed a new engine from the ground up!

That MM was Kaz darling - they even hire MM members to do stuff on one of the Sony events ( not related to PlayStation)

They aren’t going anywhere! That’s the most creative team out there. But I agree Dreams should be on PC.

The fact they are still updating means they still have plans for that game!

Imagine what the indie studios could do with that engine!!!

They still have to make money to stay around and so far it seems like they haven't done that in a long time.
I guess their biggest strength is that they are relatively small (I think only 50 employees) so they probably aren't that expensive to keep around. But their last successful game (LBP2) came out more than 10 years ago, they are probably reaching the limit of how long Sony is willing to keep them around with nothing (financially) to show for it.

As others have said, their best bet is arguably trying to relaunch this with a proper Ps5 upgrade, PC port and online multiplayer.

 

[Zeroing]

They still have to make money to stay around and so far it seems like they haven't done that in a long time.
I guess their biggest strength is that they are relatively small (I think only 50 employees) so they probably aren't that expensive to keep around. But their last successful game (LBP2) came out more than 10 years ago, they are probably reaching the limit of how long Sony is willing to keep them around with nothing (financially) to show for it.

As others have said, their best bet is arguably trying to relaunch this with a proper Ps5 upgrade, PC port and online multiplayer.

They made tearaway for ps vita and a remastered/adaptation to PS4 that was a success and won tons of awards. Yes all that from a small team!
So they aren’t in Sony’s “red” list!

I would be worried for bend studio tho!

 

[Fbh]

They made tearaway for ps vita and a remastered/adaptation to PS4 that was a success and won tons of awards. Yes all that from a small team!
So they aren’t in Sony’s “red” list!

I would be worried for bend studio tho!

But Tearaway didn't sell particularly well on Vita (admittedly because the Vita didn't do very well itself), and the Unfolded remaster straight up bombed

From Wikipedia:

Tearaway Unfolded was considered a commercial failure. While sales figures were not released for the North American market, it failed to make any spot on weekly, monthly, or year-end sales charts. In the United Kingdom, the game debuted at #33 on the weekly sales charts, short of expectations.[18] This stat did not include copies purchased via the PlayStation Store, however.[19]

The game fared even worse in Japan. Tearaway Unfolded did not make any of the major sales tracking charts, meaning it failed to crack the top 50 for its launch month.[20] Digital sales were slightly better, with the game taking the final spot on the PlayStation Store's monthly sales charts

 

[Zeroing]

But Tearaway didn't sell particularly well on Vita (admittedly because the Vita didn't do very well itself), and the Unfolded remaster straight up bombed

From Wikipedia:

It was made with a small team within MM, I think it sell well considering it did not used all of the studio resources and team. Would Sony close a studio who all their games got awards and good reviews? I think not!

 

[Miles708]

They're been hiring like crazy for all kinds of positions. The definitely plan to support Dreams long-term and possibily expand with some money-making strategies.

IP crossovers would be a no-brainer, for example.