Dragons, Dungeons & Templates - v2.35/2.36

Well hello there, coMmunity! What do we have here? An update of two halves is what! In one corner, we have Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale - a brand new, action-packed game, created by the team here at Media Molecule! In the other corner? An overhaul of the DreamShaping experience. In our biggest update yet to the Create area of Dreams, DreamShaping Reshaped, we’re introducing a ton of new features and content to DreamShaping and it’s all very exciting.

Read on to find out the what’s what, the where’s where and the… everything else that makes up this HUMONGOUS patch. What a word.

What’s New?#

Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale

Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale is a brand-new game from the team at Media Molecule. A challenging, dungeon-diving, combat-driven adventure that can be played solo or with a friend via local co-op.

You’ll play as Scoria, accompanied by Gabbro, as they set off on a journey to retrieve the fabled snozzleaf, to put a stop to Granny Orc’s snores! Along the way you’re accompanied by Herb the Bat, and tasked with taking on a gang of nefarious dragons!

Outside of inviting you to set high-scores, slay nasty dragons and collect treasure, Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale includes:

• The full game, split across three chapters.
• 5 new imps to add to your collection.
• 3 new PlayStation Trophies to unlock.
• New fonts to be used in your creations.
• New boot image upon loading up Dreams.

Want to read and learn more about the world of Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale and what to expect on your adventure with Gabbro and Scoria? Head to our dedicated Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale hub here on indreams!

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DreamShaping… Reshaped!

Our latest, and greatest yet, update to DreamShaping brings with it a whole host of new content, UI improvements, curation updates and much more.

The aim of this update is to make DreamShaping more accessible for players of all skill levels, providing newer creators with the resources they need to get started while offering more knowledgeable creators new ways to get involved in various events and coMmunity activities.

Templates

Our new template format provides creators with a collection of scenes that are designed to provide a starting point from which to create their own games. Based around popular genres, or content we've released, all templates come complete with their own kit, and the scenes within them guide creators through the steps needed to start creating:

• Playground: A short playable scene in which you can get to try out all of the elements and gameplay to get familiar with them.
• Play & Edit: Scenes where you switch between playing and editing, completing objectives along the way to help you get familiar with creating. These can range from basic stamping skills to complex game optimisation techniques.
• Foundation: Our version of a blank slate - except it's not quite blank! Featuring some handy elements and a pinned kit for you to really get started with your own creation.
• Kit: Any collection of elements linked to a specific theme, game or template.

This update is launching with 6 full templates, each with their own collections across 21 scenes. These are...

• Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale
• 2D Shoot-’em-up
• 2D Platformer
• Dungeon Crawler
• Mini-Golf
• Dreamiverse Dash

For a more in-depth look at these templates, including plenty of helpful walkthroughs, head to our indreams page all about them!

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DreamShaping Menu and UI Changes

Alongside the introduction of templates with this update, we’re reworking the entire DreamShaping front page! Providing new areas for the Dreams coMmunity to interact with content, via changes to in-situ search as well as other improvements. Let’s take a look!

• Onboarding for new creators: We’ve tweaked the onboarding process for new creators, to better reflect the changes made in this update.
• Updated in-situ search: When using search during creation, creators will now have the ability to search multiple playlists, as well as be presented with curated content relevant to their needs.

• New Start Creating screen: Featuring options for beginner and advanced creators, this new screen allows for quick access to the new templates.

• Browsing by category: A curated area full of quality elements for creators to use in their creations.
• CoMmunity events area: New areas of DreamShaping that showcase ongoing collaboration events, from both coMmunity members and Media Molecule.
• CoMmunity promotion: We’ve added an area to showcase high-level and Impy-award-winning dreamers.

• Tailored creator view: Based on a dreamer’s time spent in create mode, DreamShaping will prioritise types of content relevant to their experience.
• Help pages: Completely updated help page section, now with handy links via QR codes.

• Updated thermo info: The Thermometer Details page in Create mode will now display a QR code that links to videos about optimising gameplay and graphics thermo.
• Thermo limits message: A pop-up message will now appear when a creator exceeds the thermometer limits in a level for the first time.

Other Improvements#

This is a MIGHTY update, as you can see! But we’re not done just yet! We’ve got a few extra little bits to add. Read on to find out more!

• Scoreboards update: Scoreboards for a dream will now be displayed alphabetically.
• Collection audio preview: Curators, or anyone else creating a collection, will now be able to set an audio preview for that collection. A ‘Set Audio Preview’ button will be available on the Customise screen.

Finally, we’re also introducing a new scope tweak on several gadgets in Create mode. This additional tweak allows certain gadgets to be more targeted in which other gadgets they “pair” with.

Here’s how it works...

• Follower, Look At Rotator, Teleporter, Laser Scope: the tweak will allow you to choose what Tags they detect.
• Health Modifier: the tweak will allow you to choose what Health Managers they affect.
• Wireless Transmitter: the tweak will allow you to choose what Wireless Receivers will pick up its signal.
• Variable Modifier: the tweak will allow you to choose what Variables they affect.
• Exclusive Gate: the tweak will let you choose what other Exclusive Gates are part of the same group, in which only one of them can be active at any given time.

For most of these, there are 3 settings to choose...

• Everywhere: this is the default, and it means "just find any other gadget of the relevant type". This is what gadgets currently do without the option.
• Here:this means the gadget will only find/affect gadgets which are in the same scope.
• Not Here: this means the gadget will only find/affect gadgets which are in a different scope.
• What do we mean by scope? You are in another gadget's scope if:
• The gadget is in the world, and you are either in the same group as that gadget, or in a group/microchip that is nested within that gadget's group.
• The gadget is in a microchip, and you are in the same set of microchips, or in the microchip's group.

Specifically:

• Follower, Look At Rotator, Teleporter, Laser Scope: "here" will only detect Tags in the scope of the gadget.
• Health Modifier: "here" will mean modifications from this modifier only affect a Health Manager if this modifier is within the manager's scope.
• Wireless Transmitter: "here" will mean signals from this transmitter are only picked up by a Wireless Receiver if this transmitter is within the scope of the receiver.
• Variable Modifier: "here" will mean that modifications from this modifier only affect a Variable if the modifier is within the variable's scope.
• Exclusive Gate: "here" will mean that any Exclusive Gates which are in the same group, and which all have "here" as their chosen setting, form their own exclusive group, in which only one Exclusive Gate can be active at once.

Bug Fixes#

• Fixed - players would occasionally receive a “Too many wires” error message when attempting to delete or update elements.
• Fixed - a rare bug where players would encounter an “Out of memory” error message when trying to load certain creations.
• Fixed - values stored in powered-on variables are stored in preference to powered-off variables when a level's progress is saved.