Dreams is a quirky PS4 game with a lot of potential for fun, but a select group of educators thinks that it might have some good potential for teaching game design, too.
If you haven't yet played this game, you're missing out on a pretty cool experience. This new game from Media Molecule isn't so much a game as it is game designing software for the PlayStation 4. Players can create all sorts of things and then share them with the world, allowing anyone to play them and have fun.
Players can get pretty creative with what they make, and the versatility of the tools allows for a wide range of experiences to be created. Now, the developers have come out and said that they've been approached by educators with an eye for game design.
How Can Dreams Be Used to Teach Game Design?
Like many sites, metro.co.uk put up their own review of the game. Said review also had an interview with the game's creative director Mark Healey attached at the bottom. That's where we learned that the game has attracted a measure of interest from educators.
"We’ve had a lot of schools and universities already get in touch with us about wanting to use it the curriculum," Mr. Healey told metro.co.uk.
He was subsequently asked whether or not a game like this would actually be used to teach game design and he responded with a pretty comprehensive answer.
"In a game design course or something it’s perfect because you can prototype stuff so quickly," he stated. "That’s the thing, it is genuinely a full-on, comprehensive set of tools to make games or films… and there’s a learning curve to that but I would argue it’s much quicker than trying to learn all the other software you’d have to learn."
"And crucially you’ve got all these different tools in one place," Mark Healey added. "They’re not separate packages that you’ve got to work out how to get them to communicate with each other, it’s all in the same place using the same interface."
Mr. Healey's answer also happens to sum up some of the reasons that Dreams is so great for people looking to experiment with game design. You can play it yourself by grabbing it from the PlayStation Store for $39.99 or your regional equivalent.
Do you think Dreams could actually be used in-game design courses? What's your favorite fan-made creation so far? Let us know in the comments below!