Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Play Dreams PS4 with Media Molecule! - First Impressions

Episode Date: February 8, 2020

Media Molecule's Siobhan Reddy and Abbie Heppe join Greg and Blessing to talk about Dreams! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to Kind of Funny First Impressions. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside Blessing Adioia Jr. It's me. What's up? Nothing. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing? I'm good. It's hot in here. I kind of like it hot.

And joining us to play their game, dreams, medium molecule themselves. Chavon, Abby. Hello. Yay! Thank you so much you're coming. You're clapping for one another. You've come a long way for Mary Old England to be a part of this. Yeah. You can't tell by either of our accents, but yes. No, well, I've been there a lot longer.

That's true. I need to, like, get angry to be able to get my Ozzy back. Yeah. So here we are. We're at the end of the rainbow, the end of the journey, the beginning of the journey. How do you think about this? Yeah. Second beginning.

Is that like second breakfast? Yeah, second breakfast. Yeah. How does it feel? Has it set in at all? Because, again, you're here now. You said you've been here almost about a week. You're spending a grand total of a week in America

to then run back to England to then ship the game to celebrate to do 24 hours, all this, there's a million things going on. Has it said in that you're about to finally put out dreams? I mean, it's weird because for us, like, the early access was this really big moment.

And that was sort of the, well, the beta than early access. And we've already moved on to the stuff that we're delivering throughout the year. So we're in this sort of weird place where we live in the future and what we've made is so not a normal game experience that I don't think until we get that new influx of community members will we really experience it and at the moment I think we're just so much enjoying where we are with our current with our

community today like yeah so I don't know it's sunk in for me does it feel any different now than it did during the early access when you're putting that that out um does it be for you I mean a bit. Like, I think it will in a week. I think it'll feel different. It'll feel very real in a week. I think you have all the nerves again.

You know, like we went through that first round with early access where it was bringing in new people. And so, yeah, I feel nervous again. Like we've got new people coming in. We've done loads of new stuff to dreams.

Yeah. We've got out stream in there. And this is going to be probably a different group of people. Oh, yeah. So, like, I, yeah. So I think I have that sort of night before. jitters of like how's it it's like excitement yeah yeah Abby where do you want to go you

you have the controller in front of you yeah yeah again this is a laid-back first impressions we're just talking about dreams doing our things here I have so many questions as you can see here oh yeah look at that you're cute they've already made oh it's my cue yeah so of course it's incredibly navel gazing of Superman returns yeah I mean the kind of funny King's daily set you know what I mean super meta you're like the set I mean like you joke around about it but look like it's my phone it's the it's literally they made my phone with the red case.

I thought that was a poster. You need to make a character. You need to be. Oh, no. If you keep going in the queue or whatever, it's there. There's a whole bunch of different Greg Miller.

There's a bunch of funny best friends are working on a kind of funny dream right now. That's awesome. I know that I owe you VO for. I have the email. I need to go through and do it and stuff. This is what, I mean, if you haven't had the chance to get into

early access, what I love so much about dreams is the diversity in it, the amount of content in it. I think it's so amazing to see, you know, Chavon, I've known you for years. right. Following you guys through Little Big Planet, all the different things you learn moving along that way to now go to In Dreams.Me and the system you've made for a curation, like you go there,

you log in with your PSN, you can add, I could add things right now, you can search for things, you find all manner of creation in there. And again, it's based on the early access, which is so exciting to me as somebody who is a parasite and just wants to live off what other people create because I can't create anything decent. I'm excited to see what happens next week when this gets out to everyone. Yeah. I mean, have you seen, This is Bouncing Duck Simulator. I haven't seen bouncing duck. Because I was, the big question I'm going to have for both of you,

you showed this game, how is the trophy list? Because that was why I've been holding off so much on earlier. I don't want to eat too much. You know, that's my appetizer. I want to come in for the buffet. But I'm sorry, bouncing, bouncing duck simulator. Like, I kind of don't even want to get started with this one because, like, for whatever reason,

when we have played this one on our streams, we end up in this like half an hour later. People are still sitting there going like, wait to see how much people are we trying to do. You're trying to bounce this many times as you can, Yeah, so the whole point is that you have like a cube, I should remember with the control, and you can throw it and you'll notice that like, like, let me throw it at this thing to get a duck, I think.

When do you get the duck? When do you get the duck? I know. No. Is it like a, oh, there we go. There we go. There we go. There we go.

So then now that you have the duck, you have to like bounce the duck as many times as possible. Sure. And so you throw it around, but eventually like you get different kinds of ducks. I feel like I've been on a stream with you, Abby, where we have actually sat here for half an hour. We did, yeah, I know, which is why I don't like to start this. Yeah, okay, fine. You asked me what I wanted to play, and I really... Fine, what do you want to play, this?

I want to toss the controller and her. I like that it's multi-ending, too. They put in that, like, there's multiple ends to bouncing duck simulator. Okay. Of course, there are. But we have gotten to, like, 20,000 bounces. Holy crap. I don't know.

There's something ridiculous bounce-wise we've gotten to. This is one of my favorite. In Emman picks, I love this one. Oh, yeah, a digital thing does great creation. I mean, when I'd put load up dreams, I usually check out the community jam to see what's been going on there. Whoa. Oh, wow. This is very like Yoshi.

Very cute. The production values, right? Yeah. Oh, wow. And that's the thing about, like, even just toying around with early access and looking around, like, not that it was ever bad in a little big planet, but the way the creators have grown up and the way they've learned presentation. and the way they've learned to go in and make these feel like the real games they are. Yeah. It cracks me up when I see gamma correction in people's games. Yeah.

I really love that. Yeah, it's really fun. You do see a lot of games industry things reflected back through dreams. Yeah. This looks amazing. Yeah, a digital thing just does really beautiful art style and, you know, great at creating just like gorgeous the world. I love it. What's it been like being able to be able to be able to do?

to follow specific creators that are doing things, like creating multiple dreams and, like, having that progress. Because for me, I've been jumping into dreams in and out ever since you guys launched Early Access. It's been a thing where I jump in, play quite a few. And I'm like, the first week I got played, I was like, okay, there's quite a few things in here. And then I come back about a month later, I'm like,

oh, wow, people made progress. And then a month later, I'm like, oh, wow, people are actually, like, really making progress. And it's cool to see kind of people go from creating work-in-progress type things to then seeing their development through and actually getting very creative of what they do. It is actually. I've never gone into digital things, my creations before.

So that level we just looked at, they've gone to their profile page. Now, if we just sort of scoot through some of the things that they've made, they've made such a diverse set of content that have appeared in many of the jam, these ones, in the Halloween. But if we go right back to the beginning,

what you'll probably see is that people start, like, their first, creations are like, you know, so their first creation is the windmill. And that was basically the first thing they've published. Who knows where they began? But what I love is that the thing that we've just played is obviously more than a windmill. But it's that kind of thing where like there is a journey, you know, and you start and it might be that some people start and they then get really into music. And then it's through trying out something that it opens doorways into other areas. So that, that is one of the things that I love. I love like just being able to look

at the creators that I enjoy and then sort of going, what else have you been up to? Like, that is really cool. What is this beautiful kaleidoscope? How much was this, the plan, I guess, to get it out early and then launch with a war chest full of things? Because, Shivan, I think it's been GDCs and PSXs of me asking you, when is this game coming out?

You know what I mean? And then when you did early access, it was like, okay, cool, you know, what a great way to get people in, get them a taste, see what we see all the time, right? Yeah. But then to have it now where it's like, you know, of course, Friday the 14th,

the official release date of week from today. Brilliant move, I think, that if you have early access on top of having already played and still be able to play to this day, you get the full version of the game on Tuesday before everybody else. Was getting it into early access earlier or last year, the idea because hey, we need to get something out, we need to

bring in some kind of revenue, we need to do something, or was it that, hey, we want to make sure people? It came a little bit when we were talking about doing the beta, I think, because we knew at some point that we had to put it in creator's hands because there were certain things that we can't learn from it because we don't use it in the same way

when we make content in the studio. Of course. Using the social features, using, you know, the way that people collaborate in game is not the same as we do when we're, you know, on email and Slack in the office. Yeah, yeah.

So we knew we had to do that. And then I think, you know, doing beta really gave us the confidence to say, you know what? Actually, the tools are where we're happy with them and we know that we still have work to do, but there's really nothing to keep us from putting it in the hands

of the people who want to use it. And we needed to hone all of the things like the dream of us. We needed a community, you know, to understand how to surface content, to be able to, like, figure out where our tutorials really working. Because we had run a creator alpha, and we had done lots of user testing. And, like, you know, our first community was really the first party QA team in Liverpool and the UK. And seeing, so we were sort of confident that people could use the tools to make stuff.

But it was like, okay, if you see this as a whole package and you're nothing to, to do with us and you're literally not being paid by someone at Sony to you know that how does it like how does it actually go in the wild and how do we hone um and there sort of became this thing of like because we were always um i think i've sort of talked about it in a way of like the create tools were much further ahead than other areas because we'd taken the time to really get them right that if we'd sort of waited for this mythical moment where every single thing was lined up was perfect it was just it was kind of it was a fool's errand in a way so we needed to kickstart the community and get their feedback, figure out where we were, hone the dream of us.

And to be honest, that's still the journey that we're on. Sure. And, you know, I think for us, like, this next step is, you know, we release it and then we just have, like, a whole sway of things that are coming this year. Yeah. So it's, it's so different from, even from LBP, LBP feels like the most traditional thing in the world in the world now in comparison. Totally.

Yeah. And if we waited that, you know, like, where on that checklist do you decide, like, oh, that's enough features? Yeah. We should ship it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, VR is the next thing down the line, and that's going to be amazing. Like, I can't wait to see UGC VR game.

I can't imagine it, right. Exactly. Well, I mean, the first takes we've had of that is in the studio, the jams have been happening. Yeah. So that's good. That's exciting. Yeah. So through this journey of having this game come out in early access, now being, how many months later is it?

Like, nine? We started in April, so. Ten months later? Has there been things that you've guys felt like you've learned about dreams from the community, actually having their hands on it? Yeah. Well, I think it helped us wrap. are, it's funny because we always get, obviously the first question that people asked us

for years and years is like, what is dreams? And like, you're honest, this whole year helped us really figure that out because we got to experience people's journeys. And in fact, it's like one where you really need to be able to show people and you need them to have their hands on it to really get it. So I think it's helped us have a better understanding of what dreams actually is.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, you know, I think the moment for me when this all clicked was AE3, the behind closed doors demo, right? And I remember dragging Andy and as soon as mine ended to show him, because Andy's, you know, our creative. He did game design, he does all our art, and creates all stuff on his streams. And for me, it was the idea that, you know,

in Little Big Planet, I created levels here and there, right, for the trophies to see what it was like, but I was much more of a player. And when you guys walked through how experience works in dreams, right, where it is that idea that you get experience based on if you just want to make trees, and you put trees out into the world and people take the trees

and put them in their levels and people play those levels. You're getting, it's like this weird collaboration where you're getting residual checks on all the things you've put out. And I was like, oh my God, what a universe you're literally building, this platform that rewards you for being a player,

being a creator, being a vocal talent, being a voiceover talent, being a instrument. You know what I mean? It's insane the way you've done it. Yeah, the genealogy part I really love. You know, when we first started, I made, you know, for somebody else's game, I made this stupid little set of like stone pathway.

And I didn't think about it again until maybe a couple months ago when I checked back in and realized it had been used in all these creations. That's amazing. And I was, you know, I hadn't even really thought about it. Oh, God, of course. Like, because it's such an easy little thing. And, you know, sit there and like, I'm not going to make a stone pathway from scratch. We'll just borrow one.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's weird. Then you go on that journey and you see all these other games that are using this one little thing that you made. You just feel a little bit apart of that. And that's what makes me so excited. for next week when it's out there. Because obviously, again, if you're part of the dreams community,

I know I popped up in the awards so much. The impis the other day, that thank you for all the creations you're doing. And legitimately, everybody who does stuff is phenomenal, amazing. You're so talented. But I'm so stoked to see what happens when people get it and start wrapping their heads around it

and really do. You know what? I like making instrumental guitar riff stuff or removing this. Or, you know, I do want to make a library of VO. That is simple stuff of like, yes, no. Get off my lawn. You know what I mean?

You put all that in there. And like, just to see where it populates. Of course. I mean, I spent a lot of time when I was, you know, a kid and, you know, when I was younger making things and, you know, didn't think twice about making an art project, starting to think, you know, and I don't really do that as much anymore. But like, I will now sit for, you know, on the weekend on a Saturday and just build something in dreams for hours. It's really satisfying. You know, I don't publish a ton, but it's really, like, it's actually amazing to have an outlet for that again. Yeah. And that's the thing is like even, you know, blessed playing this and even the Superman Return stuff. That all I think works in such an, I get that. Okay, that's what I'm going to do.

And like when a couple weeks ago, the breakfast portraits really started going around. And everybody was looking at the full English. And then somebody's like, let me show you my breakfast. Yeah. And like that's where it gets so nuts of people coming in there and just paint it, right? And just using this as a suite that I never would have thought to do it that way. Right. I would have thought, oh, you're making a video game.

Oh, you're making a movie. You're doing something in there that way. Not that you would have done it this way. It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's always been the challenge of, like, what I love when we point to early access is that it can be anything from that breakfast, which ended up being this kind of very cultural moment where you saw what, like, Dutch people have for breakfast and French people have for breakfast and Aussies have for breakfast. Yeah.

It's like, you know, everyone's sharing their sprinkle toast? No, that was Dutch, I think, that was Dutch, but, yeah. But, yeah. And I love. Like toast or sprinkled on it. Yeah. Like confetti, like, sprinkles? Yeah.

Like, hundreds and thousands, but just the ones. Yeah. But I love now that early access has basically allowed us to. sort of just say it is all of those things. You know, for a while we were nervous about not describing it as a game because, like, we're in the world of games. But now it's like it can be all of those things and they coexist. And it can be everything from this.

And this story of the creator of this is really cool. Like, because he has actually, before making this, hadn't actually made a game before. And, well, he'd made things within dreams. But got asked in early access, you know, sorry, on Twitter, like, why he hadn't made it in unity. And he was like, let's go off. That's slide up.

Oh, sorry, one, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, same kind of like racing game. And it's like, because, you know, we have people who didn't know they could do that before they started doing it here. And I think that's the slide-up. Slide-up. Slide-out.

Sorry, yeah, I've got that one wrong. I'll look it up. Yeah, check it out. It's amazing. And, I mean, like, it's crazy that medium molecule and, you know. The one of, yeah, 39, yeah. You know, the play, create share mantra has been around so long that you see people who have actually started in the industry off that way, right?

Oh, yeah. Like, when Dino came through and was shown us snake pass forever ago, right? I was like, oh, no, well, that was the, we, when we started working on Little Big Planet 3 after being inspired by Little Planet 1 or 2, we met, and then brought him in, and now he's a real, he's a game designer, right? Like, that's the thing. Like, you actually see those stories. You hired our first member of the community this year, yeah.

Congratulations. Cool. Yeah, I saw him, he was getting a lot of love on the impies. Yeah, the chat was blown up for him, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's really, and watching people. This looks incredible. Yeah, it's insane. I'm watching people's journey.

through it and learn like I know right like this looks I mean look at this like if I if you show this without the dreams log on it yeah I'd like hey here's some unreleased footage of the new wipeout people be like oh my god white that's back they put in all these references for other people in dream oh yes oh god almighty sir usually it's R2 to go all right you see this is old school wow this is awesome yeah and there but there's all these other references to community members You know, crouted and it's just so cool. I mean, because that's the whole thing about your community is that is legitimately a community.

Yeah. And I don't use that as hyperbole. And I don't mean to make it. I'm sure everybody has a bunch of different communities they love. But like, your community is your community. It's the community. I remember when what year was it, how many years ago was it? Where there was a GDC media molecule party at that bar.

And I went and I met the one guy from that community whose name is now escaped me. But I still talk to him on Twitter. Oh, Danny. Danny. Yeah. Yeah. And he still is into drinking. as ever.

Yeah. As ever. Yeah. We just saw him. He just came to the studio of, we had a community meetup at the studio over the holiday. Yeah. And came in and John Beach, who made that amazing breakfast, like showed everybody how the breakfast was made.

Yeah. Phrase. I found a lot, I say a lot of really weird stuff when talking about dreams. Yeah. We do. Yeah. And then this morning, like, our, overnight, our community started a thing. It's hashtag what dreams means to be.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I woke up in the morning. And that was. the first thing that I saw and all these people had made videos talking about their experience with dreams and what was so personal about it. Had a real good cry from about 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. And there's so many responses to it already, right?

You were showing some of them, I didn't even realize. Some of them are in game. I favored the media molecule quote tweet and I didn't realize it was a thread and then there's stuff in the game from it already. Yeah, it's really people just blow us away. It's cool. The idea of like the surprisingness of

people that people are surprised by an internet community that's kind. Yeah, and helpful and collaborative and like actually doing everything together. It's sad that we should find that surprising, but it's also, it's really lovely to be a part of one that is. And, you know, I think especially it's not, I don't find it very weird. I grew up in a, you know, on message boards and, and meeting people in online communities and making friends online. And, and I'd kind of actually forgotten until dreams how much I really enjoyed that experience. And like how many good friends to this day, I met really through the internet. And it's really exciting to actually watch that happen for a group of people. And again right now, I see a lot of people in our chat. Of course, hey,

if you're watching YouTube, congratulations, but asking, oh, what was that game? What was that game? I just sent you the link to it from indreams. Me. You log in, you add it to your cue when you get dreams, you'll be able to go play it because that's how well done this system is, that everything is that tied in together. Now, Shavon, we're talking about the community you have and how great they are. And then a while ago, you were talking about, like, in the beginning, you wanted to make sure people understood it was a game, so you're calling it that. Here we are on the of release, right? You're right there at the moment. How do you market it or at least get the message out to other people about it? Like, you know what I mean? I always talk about it on the

shows of Dreams is awesome and amazing and so cool and I worry about it because it is so diverse and it is so different. And I don't know if that you can get that in a 30 second spot during an NBA game to explain what's happening. No, I mean, actually I think that's that you're right. Like it's, it's what we've, you know, things like our community being able to sort of get out. out there and talk about it's been really great. I think dreams for us is, oh, this is amazing. I love this one. Yeah, bowling with, I mean, of course,

going to guns. But yeah, you know, I think for us it's been about becoming comfortable talking about it as a platform and as a set of tools and sort of really being able to sort of share that experience. I wouldn't say that it is the, like it is so new for us. It's new for PlayStation. And I think it's, you know, I'm so excited to get new people in

and for them to be sharing it. out. But you know, I think it's going to take sort of all of the, all of, you know, our efforts and Sony's efforts to really get it out to people. What would you? And to be able to, like, you can't just, it's like, I think actually finding ways like this is a great opportunity to show people. But actually getting people to see it, be able to get eyeballs on it. Sure. It's an important thing. What would you say is the goal for this release of dreams versus what the early access was meant for? Yeah. I'm, we were just talking about this earlier. It's sort of, um, like, we had to be. We had to get to a point where we were really happy with the launch game being something that people could go in. A lot of our early access community knew they were in.

You know, like they want to create things, they want to make things, they were very much like either had been fans of the studio for a long time or, you know, waiting for dreams. And, you know, we needed to make sure that those tools were something you could put in anybody's hands and had the proper amount of user testing. All the things Shahn was talking about, about the Dreamiverse features and community features that have come along during early access, the changes to the UI, all the addition of like doing art kits and templates to help people get started and making sure that initial onboarding and teacher teaching experience was really good.

Yeah. So we wanted to make sure that we were at that point where we felt we were ready to go with that, and that was the place that we were happy with. And so it's like a starting point and yet the sort of... Yeah, and it's like a baseline of... to have got sort of the create tools and everything to that point with QA that we could then just really just build upon it. So we're at that stage where the tech is really solid. So when we go to say, okay, we are doing VR and it's coming next, we kind of have a very clear pathway to that.

And I think that's part of the thing. Like part of the thing for us is like we are, we are, unlike LBP, like we will be actually releasing a lot more sort of, regular releases. We started doing this during early access of actually updating the Dreamiverse, and we only release one kit. But I feel like part of our getting it out to people is by just continuing to build it, to respond to people, to kind of amplify people. And, you know, so, you know, over the next few months, there's more deliverable, more things coming. I think VR is going to be a really interesting moment for Dreams, and it will get it into another audience. And part of our sort of mission is to, you know, is to show it to as diverse an audience of people as possible.

So we're showing it at like, you know, arts conferences and we are going beyond, you know, to try and bring people to it. And you find that like so many people, if they're an artist or a musician, they have actually a love of games as well. So you sort of are finding people's cross-pollinated talents. Well, it's, again, like, I think when you get there and you explain the message in what you guys are creating, it goes so far beyond, oh, I'm a gamer or I'm not a gamer. Because it does become like, oh, do you make original music? Why not upload it here? Why not try

to get it there? And the credits are built in and you know how it goes. Make a cool visual for it. You can, you know, and you can start to build off of that. I mean, we have people who are, you know, basically are releasing albums and dreams, you know, making music video content. There's just a whole audio visual category. It's really, the kinds of experiences people are creating are so interesting. But I think all appeal to people who are interested in, you know, interactive entertainment. Yeah. And like the big question is like, how do you get across on that thumbnail,

that behind that is like magic? Yeah. You know, like, to me that's like, you just want that thumbnail to be like fizzing with all of the community, you know, somehow because it's, I always just find you always just find you guys really fascinating that you just press a button and then you're in this like complete other place. Yeah. But like that with Dreams is like amplified to the power 10

because it's literally like on the PlayStation there is the internet. If you press a button, you kind of go in there and you're suddenly in this world where it's showing you what games are in a really different context to the rest of the console. And that's kind of what I love. I love that we're allowing people to learn what the console can do.

They're learning how to make all of this kind of content. But it's everything from like these games we're looking at right now which are like beautiful, polished game experiences all the way through to like very strange fringe arts, experiences. And that is like the beauty of dreams to me. And so being able to constantly find ways for us to get that out to people and show them, that's the, you know, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a challenge, like we're still on the journey, you know, but it's great that it sort of feels like it's gaining momentum and, you know, we'll just keep on, you know, working hard, listening to

people and, you know. I realize this is a loaded question, obviously, because you wouldn't say no, probably. But is Sony behind you? Because it is that joke. Even Shue made the joke in the impis, right? I call it a deck of a game. I didn't mean no take a decade. You know what I mean? My concern on the show is always is, I love you guys. Obviously, I'm spoiled. I love the game. I love what you're going for. But I do

worry, right? Of like, what are the, what to Sony, not of this Herman guy? I don't trust him. What is, what is the level of success for that, right? Or is it that everybody understands, this is an art project and we're making something cool and it's going to have to be what it is. Yeah, I mean, the big HH, we're fully in support of him. But yeah.

No, we are. Like, they really, we have a very open, you know, relationship. As a studio, we've always had a very transparent, open relationship. So with, like, at that point, Shue and Michael and now with Herman. And everyone is really excited for the potential of dreams. And we 100% have their support. The thing is, it is new. And so we are, everybody is learning at the same time.

And so I think that, you know, what I know is, is that when I can, I can pick up the phone and I can speak to the people to help us. Yeah. You know, but we are having to educate, you know, people as well about what's actually going on and like, you know, what we can do with it. So it's, you know, we're like, I sort of been trying to think of a way of describing it, but we're kind of like this, you know, we're a team who are doing something really new. everyone around us wants us to succeed and wants us to do well and it's all about just like finding those ways to do it and so we have some like

you know lots of radical ideas which and so far our radical ideas that we know we know will you know the community will love are things that everybody's open to so I feel you know it's it's you know we're probably the weirdos but we enjoy being the weirdos

yes we're fine yeah yeah yeah You're the art school kids at the lunch table. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, here's the breakfast. Yeah. Well, one of the many breakfasts. Yeah, and now, of course, you can play the lighting, the textures, and take everything off of it and see, oh, it's like...

What do you feel about the eggs? Oh, I think they look perfect. If I can get the color back. They're amazing. There we go. Runny eggs are controversial, apparently. Oh, no, really? Dude, oh, I love runny eggs.

Get out of here. You want that runny, you have to be able to dip that bread. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I love the little bubbles in the eggs and... It's so good. Of course, you know, for many of, I'm sure, well, Americans for sure,

the beans on the plate, maybe not knowing that stuff. Yeah, that's not really my thing, but, you know. I don't like beans, period. So I can't deal with them. Yeah, right. That's why I always like that,

beyond you. Yeah. Don't shake your head. We bear it. Beans are good. They are not. They're little bags of sand. They're the fruit that makes it too.

I feel like that about raisins. Okay, fair. I like a raisin, but I'm not going to stop here. It took me a long time to come around. Oh, no. No, no. No, no.

they pop up in sandwiches they pop up in cakes scones oh raisins they just pop up in places and it's completely unacceptable don't want that I don't want that

so I made a reference to at the top of the show now we're going to come back to it tell me about the trophy list what does it look like I had seen somebody in the chat had shouted out how many hours for platinum oh do you have it yet but if you want to do here exclusively

Brian Kelton are no longer I do not know because I might cost us I know because oddly enough as developers we don't usually tend to aim for all the trophies. Oh, I know. Oh, I've noticed when I read trophy lists.

We, I mean, it's a great list. Okay. Like everything in dreams, it's great, and we can't wait for you to try it on Tuesday slash Friday. Yes, yeah, no, we, um, some are tied to, like, your level and your inquest and, you know, some things that you would expect. And for people who are in early access, they will unlock for. Oh, really? They're going to read, they're going to go backwards? You kind of have to hit the next thing that would trigger it in order,

and then it all pop for the one that you would have popped. All right, all right, all right. And I think one of the challenges was sort of coming up with something that, you know, so we're based on the impasse, more work's being done on the inquest since early access began. And the inquest are really there to kind of encourage people to try out lots of aspects of dreams. So that was sort of part of the design of the trophy list was to,

because it's an ecosystem and people, you don't know really yourself until you try a bunch of things, which bet you're going to love. Sure. So yeah, that's the, and then there's like ArtSream trophies in their. Tutorial trophies. Sure, okay. Trophies for learning, yeah.

So far, this has much fairer spawns than shipment actually does. Oh, yeah. That's good. Yeah, it's very much a work on. I was about to ask, I was like, is this shipment from Caldew? That's awesome. Right, out of bolts? You got to reload sometimes, boys, come on.

I thought I did. You have a shotgun, and there's only two bullets in there. Okay, well, that's a good point. That's a very good point. I didn't think about that. All right, so hold on. Do you have to check out the gems? Should we check them out?

Well, we have two requests. Okay. Because this is going to all happen so fast. First off, if you go up to my dream queue, or not somebody, email who's one of our kind of funny best friends and one of yours, you go down one, put in the work in progress, kind of funny dreams project. Amazing. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And then I'm going to fact check this one game that. Oh, that is very cute. Oh, that's our music.

Oh, man. That's our music. That's Kevin's desk, as you can see, right? Oh, that's great. That's me with a gun. How did you've got? That's my animation. This is surprisingly accurate.

That's scary. The office. You all live in fear all the time. That's terrifying. Yeah, there you go. There's the studio. Oh, it's cute. We haven't had a good time.

All right, it's very much a work in the progress, as we said. What I really love about some of the characters is just the attention to detail on socks. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have a pair of socks like that? Yeah, I do.

I do, yes. I do have a pair of socks like that. Why do you have a gun? You know what? You're not going to judge just yet. Spoiless. Spoiless. You know, we're very low stage.

This is awesome. Yeah, I know. It's doing great. Yeah, yeah. I'm very excited for this. And it's crazy because I always thought when email writes in and says, hey, we're working on the thing and we need this stuff. I thought that the other studio thing we had was from that.

And it's not. And there's a bunch of different Greg Miller's models out there that are not this either. There's a lot of stuff going on. I was like, if you asked for some weird stuff, you're going to get it. Oh yeah, that's what I want, too. That's what I want. When you want to pop out, the chat was then asking, or not just the chat.

It was, Nerder Music was looking for somebody to play Babatundi. Oh, okay, cool. Oh, Babatundi. That's Nigerian. It's a Nigerian name. I've added it to the Dreamiverse. Also, it's scary how accurate it is until you come through this hallway, and you're like, oh, this room is not that big.

You guys are just in that room. It's not that big. Nice. In San Francisco. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, someone made our office as well, and that was fun. It was also full of,

Deepop pipe who are she's, can you put clothes on all of us? Is it the very front? There you go. I see. Babatunde has returned. Oh, this is great. I've, um, this is the, is this a, in an arena?

I think it is. I'm thinking of. Yeah, so I can't wait for everybody to get it, for it to be out there complete, for everybody to, because what I've really appreciated, both in this stream and then whenever we talk about it is the conversation of like, wait, can I get it? And it's like, well, no, it's been in early access, right? Like, it's been out there early.

have to wait for the full release. I mean, a whole like two months that everybody... I know, I know, I know. But hey, it's still good to see that there's that kind of level. I remember watching the Impies. I saw that in the chat. Yeah, the Impes was really fun. Doing a whole award show in Dreams was like...

Incredible. Yeah, and, you know, maybe the first award show done entirely in a game. The green screen at the studio just keeps on getting. Yeah, of course, yeah. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah. I like how much you guys leaned into it.

I loved the outfits. I loved everything. I love the stage with you guys both on it. So like we don't do anything by house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great. When did that idea start for you? Oh, I mean, start was sort of, it was a thing that, like, we kicked around, you know, for a while just because it's like, oh, sure, at some point it makes sense.

And Little Big Planet had awards. It started actually taking shape, I think, in August or September of last year. Wow. And a lot of it was just the preparation of, like, how it actually works and getting the legal work to do it done and everything. and I think content creation and like actual show planning and production wise we've probably started in like November, December. Yeah, that was great. It was at the time that we were just starting to...

That's awesome. Isn't this amazing? This is really cool. No, I thought it was such a cool idea and it was so refreshing to see it actually come to fruition. You know what I mean? I feel like most people would think that, you know, okay, they're a worldwide studio, Sony own and operated, right? Like it's going to get in the way of that kind of creativity and something, stick with me, I'm not being a insulting at all. That lo-fi.

Right, where it wasn't like a giant, but you guys, when it started it and it was echoey, I'm like, I know exactly what's wrong. And OBS, I know what's going. You know what I mean? Like, it's such a streamer problem. Yeah, of course. And it's awesome that you're able to go do that and put that out there and be that close to your community. I mean, that's been one of the things that's been amazing. I mean, we've now put on the awards.

But last year at E3 at the Sony press conference, which did live performance, what's here before. Yeah. Yeah. So the idea of actually doing fun things with where it's live performances or shows. Yeah. I feel like, you know, we can just do that kind of thing. And we have, you know, we can make it happen. And I love that, like, the molecule, everybody at the molecule,

such love to them. But they are so brilliant at being flexible and being excited and just kind of just going with it, you know. So I think things like that kind of show, there was a lot of work that people did. Abby, you know, was speaking to the animators about doing the shorts, and then suddenly, like, all these cool things happen. And it comes from the fact that everybody on the team is so,

invested in dreams and loves it so much. We're actually like using it. I mean, we enjoy so many people in the team make things at home. One of our programmers is doing an algorithm tonight where he's doing live algorithm. Probably over at this point. Doing live algorithmic programming in dreams to do live music performance. It's cool.

That's awesome. And yeah, people are just using it for such wild things. And people on our team have kind of expanded into all different areas of creation and are making their own games at home. and it's like we sort of always have game jams going on. It's really exciting. Oh yeah.

Do you want to pop out now and show some game jam stuff? Are you too long? I mean, I'm into it. I can play this at home. You're going to leave that one on the list. Yeah. Yeah, and it's been cool. Oh, yeah, we can get to them here, actually.

I've seen so many people, you know, talking about, on different podcasts talking about like, oh, I love this stream, I love that dream. And then the ability, like I'm saying, to take it from the website, put it in your notes, say, this is where we found it. This is where you can go get it. Yeah, Claire, who's been doing the Twitch integration work, Dude, your Twitch extension.

We were just talking about that again in the Daily the other day. That's so amazing now that when people are watching, they can click on it, right? And be like, oh, yeah, this to my key. I want to go play this. Yeah, and that's kind of, you know, we mean by like continuing to support stuff in dreams and some of the different things, not just in-game stuff that we're doing to build community and give people what they're looking for to, you know, take advantage of it. I think, you know, we definitely see a place where streamers are making games alongside their community

where you can just say like, okay, cool, I need this for my creation. Great, there it is. now it's on, you know, now it's in the game. And I feel like again, like, I hate to keep banging this drum, but, like, I feel like that's really where the power this is going to lie when it's out to more people and they all get that. Yeah. Of the idea that, like, cool, I can't create anything.

But I can direct, right? I can be a game director and then you start talking to people. You look through this. You find people who make art you like. You find people who make trees you like. You bring them in. You work with them. You figure it all out.

And suddenly you assemble these pieces into something that's bigger than, you know, better than some of them. Yeah, definitely. You know, I think there's two. teams who are already working like that, you know, the pig detective team, they do an incredible job of rallying, like, you know, 15 to 20 people in dreams to, you know, contribute stuff to their projects, get everything out in a timely manner.

I mean, they are, they are, like, world-class producers. Alongside. Now, do you think we can get Troy Baker to do a voice in pig detective? 100%. I know that guy. Come on. I got all sorts of dirt on him. I'm, like, not even joking.

We should, like. How much does he need? How many lines is V-O does he need? Actually, it would kind of be funny if he was just, Really, you know, some of the animals, like, Meow, we're a bark or something. Oh, it would be like George Clooney when he was the dog on South Park. Yeah, exactly.

So, no, that would be great. We'd love that. Sure. Sure. I'll text them right. I know the pig detects of people. So if you know Troy, we can make them together. Well, here's what we'll do, right?

Here, now we're thinking smart, everybody. Now we're thinking smart, right? Is that I'll upload it for Troy and take all the credit. I'll say it's Troy, but I get the XP. And then I get the trophies that way. All right, cool. Well, here's what we do. Let's start in reverse.

I need you to figure out from them what line they need. I can do that. Then I'll get that wave file from him and I'll up that. Okay. We're in the money. Okay. But no money, SAG don't come after him. Okay.

Yes. Also that. You know, I don't know if pig detectives budget, but I don't think it can afford Troy Baker. Yeah, well, if it's just, we're fine. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Maybe give us that one freebie, Troy. Yeah.

Yeah, we just did a sci-fi jam, and the entries are fabulous. Yeah, no, I was looking through all the screenshots. or like I was going through all the entries, but you see like the screenshots and they all look really cool. Yeah, really cool. That was a great jam.

Played through that over the weekend. It was just absolutely amazing stuff. Oh, to the unknown one. I think that. Have you seen? I think if that's one I'm thinking of. It looks like portal. It's pretty impressive.

I love the top 25% note. You know what I mean? Just at a glance, you can look at this and be like, okay, I see what it is. If I only have a little bit of time, should I play this side or the other? You see why people are like... I love to have a dig through just the weird stuff.

Oh, sure. This has become my party game. When people come over, it's like the same way that I used to play rock band. You know, now it's sit around and be like, look up this word and let's see what we get. And let's just... Barry and I will occasionally just be like, funny. Let's look up funny things. Comedy, yeah.

Or surreal is a good one. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I found this was a really fun game to stream back when I was streaming. I streamed this thing in like June or July and just going through them. Yeah. And just being like, okay, let's see what this is. And like, I found there's one that was, it was a model of the impossible quiz. I don't know if you guys remember the impossible quiz.

Yes, I do. And I know who made that too. Yeah. So they remade the impossible quiz in this. And I was like, playing through it, I was like, this is one for one. This is amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

They're just, I mean, people make incredible stuff all the time. There's always something new to look at. It's really exciting. Oh my God. Oh, my God. It's so cool. It's a tool as well. I mean, one of those streamers, I really love to watch,

Kel Bion's, he has, like, when he goes up to, like, go to the bathroom, we're going to drink water or something, and he's off stream. He has a series of cinematics that plays. play in dreams who's basically got like, you know, a commercial break. Yeah. And you've seen the uses that people discover for it, you know, to combine into what they already do is really fascinating. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I love that. I love the way people are, I think when it's out there and more people are streaming with it using the extension and then doing what you're talking about. I'm like, oh, man, I really want, who can do this? Or if it's just a player of like, all right, throw them up in chat. You know, subs can use their links right now. Where should I play?

And you go and you look and you do it by way. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And like, I'm serious when we get the new studio in space going. to do like a weekend game jam and try to get our developer and voice over friends and everybody like yeah yeah there's some really great craters that are based here in San Francisco as well yeah so yeah there's some cool people to get involved with oh we're down to our final two minutes of streaming with you and doing

this first impressions Abby what do you want people to know about dreams here on basically the eve of its release other than buy it yeah other than buy it yeah buy and play it and do stuff and collaborate that it's gonna be something different for everyone like everybody has a different cool pathway into dreams. If something's not your thing, something else might be your thing, or you might just discover that you actually do really love creating in dreams. I think it's more of knowing, like, it doesn't have to be one thing to someone.

You can really go and find your own pathway. Okay. Yeah, I think in the same way that, like, with TV and film and YouTube, we've all got really used to there being very different ways to consume TV or film. Like, this is a very different way to consume games. Yeah. And I think it's like as it's, you know, I have, I feel like this year I have so cool. You're like, oh, that's cool.

And then it's like way better than you think of it is. I've played thousands of games this year. I feel like I have seen and I feel enriched as a person. I just, I feel like underneath that thumbnail, there is just, there is a lot of magic happening. And I think that, you know, you can be anyone from just wanting to be, like, I am a commenter and a lover. Like, I am liking and commenting and playing. And I get so much out of just like the energy and creativity people are putting in. So it's like it's nothing but a joyful and surprising and interesting experience every time I go in.

Yeah. And that, I guess when you're asking what we learned from early access like that. You know, I'm like, I am not bored of it at all yet. I work on it all day as ever does. And I go home and I just dive straight in. And it's only going to get more interesting as we add in more stuff. It's going to get. The pool is going to get way deeper.

Yeah. Yeah. Can we just say a big shout out to gentlemen, Tom and Dorian for today's. Thank you so much. Amazing. And a lot to our poor jet lagged souls waking up this morning. Yeah, if you haven't seen all the what dreams mean to me, you can go over to Media Molecals, Twitter. They have them up there, and it's great stuff, yeah.

Well, thank you both for making the time to come here on such a busy week for you. Oh, any time. And like I said, come on back. You know what I mean? We'd love to. We're very, very excited for this. We're back for a gem. That'll be great.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is first impression. Remember, we're streaming all the time and putting them up on podcasts and doing the YouTube's. and you know how it is. This is me and blessing. We do, PS, I Love You, X-O, X-O. You should watch that PlayStation podcast on Tuesdays.

Barrett's back there, shaking his head and disgust that I'm promoting our own things on our own thing. Because they already know if they're here, but whatever, you know. And also, beans suck, Barrett. They suck. Beans are bad. Bye, everybody.