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Gameplay Gear

When making gameplay, some things are pretty much inevitable. You want players to be able to collect stuff. You want to give them a score of some kind.

And you want somewhere specific for them to come back to life again when they die. So you'll need prize bubbles, scores and checkpoints respectively.

You can find all of those in here, along with some other gadgets you'll find handy when making games.

Checkpoint

Detects when your player runs into its zone and works with the controller sensor to set up places your player will respawn (come back to life) when they die.

When a possessed puppet runs into the zone the checkpoint is activated. When the character dies, they are respawned at the active checkpoint.

This behaviour is largely automatic - when a signal is fired to the die input of the controller sensor, the is dead output fires, which by default is wired into respawn.

All you have to do is place the checkpoints and produce the signal that the character is dead, using the health gadgets. The game takes care of the rest.

Only one checkpoint can be active at one time, but you can activate a checkpoint manually if you want to using the activate me input.

Without building an entire game, let's just get an idea of the checkpoint with a simple example. Place a checkpoint and a light. Point the light down at the checkpoint.

Connect currently active on the checkpoint to the power port on the light. Stamp a blank puppet and enter test mode. Possess the puppet.

Walk up to the checkpoint. The light is activated because the checkpoint "knows" it's looking for characters (or possessed controller sensors, to be precise).

Prize Bubble

For giving exclusive stuff to your player that they can only get from your scene. If you've made something you're really proud of, stick it in a prize bubble in your scene.

Maybe you'll see it in someone else's creation one of these days. Let's play with it. Stamp a prize bubble and find something to put into the item slot.

Disable use built-in collection sound so we can hook up our own sound effect for collecting it. Find yourself a sound effect you like.

Connect just collected on the prize bubble to the power port of the sound effect. Make sure it's set to play once. Stamp a puppet in there, enter test mode and possess it.

Go pick up that prize bubble. Easy peasy.

Doorway

If you want to join two or more scenes together into a dream, you'll need to add some of these in the places you want players to enter or leave each scene.

Plonk it where you want it and tweak it to be an exit, an entrance or two-way. Add the scene to a dream and you'll see the doorways and can link them to other scenes.

You can use the doorway activated output to trigger whatever you want your player to experience when they enter your scene - a cool camera pan, say. Or a monster attack.

Of course you can set up what happens when a player enters your scene in all sorts of ways - it doesn't have to use a doorway. They're just handy for that.

In particular you can use the built-in wiper to transition from one scene to another. See the second page of the tweak menu - it's pretty much the same as the wiper itself.

Note that if you don't set up a doorway and/or some kind of entrance behaviour, a player will start at the grid origin when they play it.

Let's see it working. Stamp a doorway, a trigger zone and a puppet. Connect the detected output port from the trigger zone to the power port on the doorway.

The doorway is set to exit by default, so the scene will end when the doorway is triggered. Go to the options menu and enter play mode.

Possess the puppet and run into the trigger zone. The scene will end (you'll be prompted to save first, don't worry). Why not have a play with the wipe effects?

Auto Guide

If you want your player to stamp your lovingly created elements, consider using one of these. It means they'll be able to do it neatly as per your design.

If, say, you give them bits to make a bridge, you'd presumably rather they didn't plonk them in upside-down, or the wrong size or what-have-you.

Put this on your element and you'll be able to define a min/max scale, switch on the grid, and set things to stay upright, and use surface snap.

As this gadget is specifically meant for others using your elements, seeing it in action is a little involved. First of all, you'll need to choose an element to make.

A sculpture for example. So if you've not chosen an element, nip out to the dreamiverse and do so. Then stamp in a shape and snap an auto guide onto it.

Tweak the gadget and enable grid snap. Now do a quick save from the options menu. Exit to the dreamiverse and start fresh on a whole new scene.

Go to guides, turn on obey auto guides, and use search to select your saved element. Notice that it's snapping to the grid, even though you don't have grid snap turned on.

Global Settings

Put this in your scene to define the values you want for global settings like gravity. You can wire it up to other gadgets to make the settings happen when you want.

Let's play with gravity. Stamp in a shape, putting it way above the floor. Tweak it and make it moveable. Hit start time and pay attention to how it falls.

Rewind and stamp in a global settings gadget. Enable adjust gravity and make it 0%. Start time again and note that the shape is suspended in the air.

Rewind again and make gravity strength 1% this time. Hit start time and notice how slowly it falls. Try again with 600% gravity strength and watch it crash to the floor.

Score

Initialises and defines any scores you want to keep track of in your dreams. Use it with the score modifier to tally, adjust and output your players' scores.

Let's make a little game. This will be the most complicated little example we've tackled so far, so let's use a microchip. Stamp one into your scene.

Add a score gadget and a score modifier. Give the score a name, and put the same name into the name field on the score modifier. Set operation type to add.

Make the operation value 1. Now add a controller sensor, set it to remote controllable, and connect the output of to the power port of the score modifier.

So far what we've done will make the score increment by 1 each time we press . Now let's give players a timer. Add one to the 'chip and give it a target time of 10s.

Set it to count down, just for excitement. Connect timer finished (pulse) to post score on the score gadget, to add the score to the scoreboard when the timer runs out.

Now we want another timer. Connect the first one's timer finished (pulse) to start timer on the new one. Make the target time on the new one 0.5s. Then add a doorway.

Connect timer finished (pulse) on the new timer to the power port on the doorway. What we're doing here is ending the game when the timer runs out.

We need the second timer to add a tiny delay, to give us time to post the score before the doorway activates and ends the scene. Let's display the timer and score.

Add a couple of number displayers. On the score gadget, connect current score to the number/range input of one of them. Move the number to the middle of the screen.

On the original timer, connect current time to the number/range input of the other number displayer. Set its display format to time and enable show milliseconds.

That's all the wiring done! Now we need to save a version, so if you haven't already done a quick save, do it now. Then select save version and save it online as private.

Exit to the dreamiverse and select start fresh and then dream. Use search to add your game to the dream, and again save a version online as private.

Now just play your game (the dream not the scene) and set a high score! You'll notice you get a scoreboard button on the cover page after you've done that. Take a peek!

Score Modifier

Makes changes to any scores you've set up. Typically you'll have more score modifiers than scores, as you'd have multiple things that could affect your score.

Let's make a little game. This will be the most complicated little example we've tackled so far, so let's use a microchip. Stamp one into your scene.

Add a score gadget and a score modifier. Give the score a name, and put the same name into the name field on the score modifier. Set operation type to add.

Make the operation value 1. Now add a controller sensor, set it to remote controllable, and connect the output of to the power port of the score modifier.

So far what we've done will make the score increment by 1 each time we press . Now let's give players a timer. Add one to the 'chip and give it a target time of 10s.

Set it to count down, just for excitement. Connect timer finished (pulse) to post score on the score gadget, to add the score to the scoreboard when the timer runs out.

Now we want another timer. Connect the first one's timer finished (pulse) to start timer on the new one. Make the target time on the new one 0.5s. Then add a doorway.

Connect timer finished (pulse) on the new timer to the power port on the doorway. What we're doing here is ending the game when the timer runs out.

We need the second timer to add a tiny delay, to give us time to post the score before the doorway activates and ends the scene. Let's display the timer and score.

Add a couple of number displayers. On the score gadget, connect current score to the number/range input of one of them. Move the number to the middle of the screen.

On the original timer, connect current time to the number/range input of the other number displayer. Set its display format to time and enable show milliseconds.

That's all the wiring done! Now we need to save a version, so if you haven't already done a quick save, do it now. Then select save version and save it online as private.

Exit to the dreamiverse and select start fresh and then dream. Use search to add your game to the dream, and again save a version online as private.

Now just play your game (the dream not the scene) and set a high score! You'll notice you get a scoreboard button on the cover page after you've done that. Take a peek!

Blank Puppet (Deluxe)

The best option for beginners. Fully animated and ready to use, with a bunch of common behaviours you may want for a character already built in.

Stamp it into your scene and try it out. Go to test mode, hover over the puppet, and press to possess it. Use to walk/run, to move the camera, and to jump.

Tweak the puppet and you'll find myriad ways to fine-tune it - jump height, walk speed, what to follow or look at and so on. A lot of the tweaks can be previewed.

Start time and hover over a tweak, and you'll see the puppet move. Tweak something and you'll see the effect live. Try single tweaks to start to avoid confusion.

You can make a pretty individual and reactive character without having to go any deeper than this - just smart tweaking and use of the inputs and outputs.

If you want to delve deeper, select the puppet with , and hit the scope in button on the context menu. Then tweak the microchip to reveal the inner workings.

For one thing, you can access its controller sensor here, and twiddle with button assignments, camera behaviour, possession properties and death inputs and outputs.

You can also access its puppet interface, so that you can wire up its input ports to tell it what to do, and its output ports to trigger stuff like audio based on what it's doing.

The deluxe model differs from the basic one in the extra microchips. These contain logic, keyframes and audio for the run, jump, follow and possession behaviours.

If you're so inclined, you can open those up and play around with the existing behaviours - replace sounds and keyframes, mess around with the logic, and tweak things.

That said, if you want to go that far you may be better playing with the basic model to start with.

Fully animated and ready to use, with a bunch of common behaviours you may want for a character already built in. Stamp it into your scene and try it out.

Go to test mode, hover over the puppet and press on to possess it. Use on to walk/run, tilting the controller for direction. To move the camera use on .

To jump it's on . Tilt the controller and the puppet will lean. Tweak the puppet and you'll find myriad ways to fine-tune it, from jump height to collision shape.

A lot of the tweaks can be previewed. Use start time, hover over a tweak, and you'll see the puppet move. Tweak something and you'll see the effect live.

You can make a pretty individual and reactive character without having to go any deeper than this - just smart tweaking and use of the inputs and outputs.

If you want to delve deeper, select the puppet with on , and hit scope in on the context menu. Then open the microchip to reveal more of its inner workings.

For one thing, you can access its controller sensor here, and twiddle with button assignments, camera behaviour, possession properties and death inputs and outputs.

You can also access its puppet interface, so that you can wire up its inputs to tell it what to do, and its outputs to trigger stuff like audio based on what its doing.

The advanced puppet differs from the basic one in the extra microchips. These contain logic, keyframes and audio for the run, jump, follow and possession behaviours.

If you're so inclined, you can open those up and play around with the existing behaviours - replace sounds and keyframes, mess around with the logic, and tweak things.

Blank Puppet Collection

Opens up the blank puppet collection, a selection of pristine mannequins to build upon, with abilities and characteristics applicable to a variety of genres.

Puppet Interface

All the inputs you need to make a puppet do what it's supposed to do, and all the outputs you need to get feedback from it to trigger events, in one handy gadget.

This means you can plonk it on a microchip which you or another dreamer has set up with specific sounds and behaviours and wire it up easily.

The first page of the tweak menu is all the inputs, which you'd typically wire up to a controller sensor to make the puppet do stuff when buttons are pressed.

The other pages are all the outputs, which you'd wire up to, say, audio and animation gadgets to make those happen based on what the puppet is up to.

For example, in a platforming game you want a puppet which jumps. Wire up the output (say) from the controller sensor to the jump input on the puppet interface.

You want a puppet which screams as it falls to a horrible death when a jump is misjudged? Wire the predicted landing impact output to some screaming audio.

Have a look at the more info tooltips on the tweaks for further inspiration on cruelty to puppets. And also have a good look at how a blank puppet is wired up.

You can have multiple puppet interfaces, each with different control schemes, on a single puppet. Use logic to change them by simply turning their power on and off.

A character could go from its "moving around" control scheme to a "aiming and shooting" scheme when the player presses your designated "use weapon" button.

Let's use this gadget to set up completely different controls. Right now our puppet has a fairly standard scheme. Walk and turn on , camera on

Let's have walking forwards and backwards by pushing up and down on ; and turning left and right by pushing left and right on . Stamp a blank puppet, the basic one.

Scope in to it and open its microchip. Turn the power off on the existing puppet interface. Stamp in a new one and tweak it, as well as the controller sensor.

Connect the output (page 2) to the input of turn to face. Now get a splitter and stamp that onto the 'chip. Connect the local output (page 3) to splitter input.

This will separate up/down from left/right. Stamp another splitter. Connect the output of up/down to the second splitter input. This will separate up and down.

Connect the output labelled negative to the go forwards input on the puppet interface, and the one labelled positive to the go backwards input.

Finally, tweak the puppet itself and push up the turn speed value. About 190° is good. Now just go to test mode, possess the puppet and try it out. Twin-stick city!

All the inputs you need to make a puppet do what it's supposed to do, and all the outputs you need to get feedback from it to trigger events, in one handy gadget.

This means you can plonk it on a microchip which you or another dreamer has set up with specific sounds and behaviours and wire it up easily.

The first page of the tweak menu is all the input ports, which you'd typically wire up to a controller sensor to make the puppet do stuff when buttons are pressed.

The other pages are all the output ports, which you'd wire up to, say, audio and animation gadgets to make those happen based on what the puppet is up to.

For example, in a platforming game you want a puppet which jumps. Wire up the output (say) from the controller sensor to the jump input on the puppet interface.

You want a puppet which screams as it falls to a horrible death when a jump is misjudged? Wire the predicted landing impact output to some screaming audio.

Have a look at the more info tooltips on the ports for further inspiration on cruelty to puppets. And also have a good look at how the blank puppet is wired up.

You can have multiple puppet interfaces, each with different control schemes, on a single puppet. Use logic to change them by simply turning their power on and off.

A character could go from its "moving around" control scheme to a "aiming and shooting" scheme when the player presses your designated "use weapon" button.

Let's use this gadget to set up completely different controls. Right now our puppet has a fairly standard scheme. Walk and turn on , camera on

Let's have walking forwards and backwards by pushing up and down on ; and turning left and right by pushing left and right on . Stamp a blank puppet, the basic one.

Scope in to it and open its microchip. Turn the power off on the existing puppet interface. Stamp in a new one and tweak it, as well as the controller sensor.

Connect the output (page 2) to the input of turn to face. Now get a splitter and stamp that onto the 'chip. Connect the local output (page 3) to splitter input.

This will separate up/down from left/right. Stamp another splitter. Connect the output of up/down to the second splitter input. This will separate up and down.

Connect the output labelled negative to the go forwards input on the puppet interface, and the one labelled positive to the go backwards input.

Finally, tweak the puppet itself and push up the turn speed value. About 190° is good. Now just go to test mode, possess the puppet and try it out. Twin-stick city!

Head/Camera Tracker

Where's your head at? Use this to find out. In VR, it detects where the player's head is and where they're looking. When not in VR, it's the camera rather than the head.

It's equally useful in both. Essentially it's a special group which you can scope in to and place things - gadgets, sculptures, paintings and so on.

The gizmo itself is designed to show where the head or camera is looking and give an idea of the average size of a player's head.

The detection properties make it easier to make things like shooters, while placing things inside its group means those things will follow the player's head/camera around.

You could make a health bar, a mini-map, a horizon indicator - any sort of HUD - out of animated strokes, sculptures, gadgets, whatever you fancy.

Let's make a health bar. Grab a head/camera tracker and stamp it in. Switch to paint mode and use rule flecks to make a straight stroke in a nice bright colour.

Go back to assembly mode, grab the stroke, hover over the head/camera tracker and press + to add the stroke to the group. Position it so it looks like a health bar.

You can use the look through head button on the context menu to help with that. Tweak the stroke and find the end point slider on the stroke properties page.

Turn down the slider to 1%. Leave the tweak menu open, but then scope out of the group. Now stamp in a blank puppet and scope in to it.

Open the puppet logic microchip, and then the controller logic one. Tweak the health manager. Connect the current health output to the end point input on the stroke.

Now we need to change the wire blend, so hover over the end point input, press and hold and then press to cycle through wire blend types. Choose modulate.

Close all those tweak menus and 'chips and scope out of the puppet. Now you'll need a health modifier, so stamp one in. Tweak it and set the modification amount to -25.

Set the modifier mode to continuous, and the modifier type to zone. Make the zone any shape you like. You might find it helpful to place something to mark where it is.

You won't see it in play mode otherwise. Now switch to play mode, possess the puppet and run in and out of the health modifier zone. Voila! Your health bar decreases!

Where's your head at? Use this to find out. In VR, it detects where the player's head is and where they're looking. When not in VR, it's the camera rather than the head.

It's equally useful in both. Essentially it's a special group which you can scope in to and place things - gadgets, sculptures, paintings and so on.

The gizmo itself is designed to show where the head or camera is looking and give an idea of the average size of a player's head.

The detection properties make it easier to make things like shooters, while placing things inside its group means those things will follow the player's head/camera around.

You could make a health bar, a mini-map, a horizon indicator - any sort of HUD - out of animated strokes, sculptures, gadgets, whatever you fancy.

Let's make a health bar. Grab a head/camera tracker and stamp it in. Switch to paint mode and use rule flecks to make a straight stroke in a nice bright colour.

Go back to assembly mode, grab the stroke, hover over the head/camera tracker and press and to add the stroke to the group. Position it to look like a health bar.

You can use the look through head button on the context menu to help with that. Tweak the stroke and find the end point slider on the stroke properties page.

Turn down the slider to 1%. Leave the tweak menu open, but then scope out of the group. Now stamp in a blank puppet and scope in to it.

Open the puppet logic microchip, and then the controller logic one. Tweak the health manager. Connect the current health output to the end point input on the stroke.

Now we need to change the wire blend, so hover over the end point input, press and hold on and then press on to cycle through wire blend types. Choose modulate.

Close all those tweak menus and 'chips and scope out of the puppet. Now you'll need a health modifier, so stamp one in. Tweak it and set the modification amount to -25.

Set the modifier mode to continuous, and the modifier type to zone. Make the zone any shape you like. You might find it helpful to place something to mark where it is.

You won't see it in play mode otherwise. Now switch to play mode, possess the puppet and run in and out of the health modifier zone. Voila! Your health bar decreases!

Hand/Imp Tracker

Need a hand? Detects controller movement in real time, just like the imp. Assign it to a controller, find out where it's pointing, whether it's grabbed something and so on.

Like the head/camera tracker, it's a special group which you can scope in to and place things - gadgets, sculptures, paintings... which will then follow the player's controller.

Make a torch, a gun or a hand with animated strokes, sculptures and gadgets, place it in the group, and it'll stick to the imp like glue. Or even replace it, if you enable hide imps.

Let's give it a whirl. Switch to sculpt mode, grab a cylinder, and use edit shape to make it long and thin before stamping it. Switch back to assembly mode.

Place a hand/imp tracker. Grab the cylinder and hover over the gizmo. Press + to add the cylinder to the group. Take a minute to get it positioned.

The gizmo shows where the imp is relative to the object, with the arrow pointing the way the imp, and therefore your cylinder, will point.

Try and get it pointing along the arrow. This just helps you get the relation between the gadget and the object you're adding to it. When you're happy, scope out with +.

Tweak the group and select hide imp. Now switch to play mode or test mode. Ta da! You have a cylinder tracking your movements instead of an imp!

It's worth noting that, if you grab an element from the dreamiverse to add to the hand/imp tracker, you may need to scope in to it and check a few things.

Is it made of multiple objects? How are they grouped? Does it have connectors? Check the moveable and collidable status on everything.

Moveable objects won't follow the gadget (even if they're in a group which is not set to moveable). You won't want that for most things, but you may want it for others.

For example for the clip of a gun, where you'd start the clip not moveable and then have it moveable after 10 shots, so that it falls out of the gun.

You can have connectors in there, but the parent object must not be set to moveable. You can use an object set as collidable, but it can cause some odd behaviour.

Need a hand? Detects controller movement in real time, just like the imp. Assign it to a controller, find out where it's pointing, whether it's grabbed something and so on.

Like the head/camera tracker, it's a special group which you can scope in to and place things - gadgets, sculptures, paintings... which will then follow the player's controller.

Make a torch, a gun or a hand with animated strokes, sculptures and gadgets, place it in the group, and it'll stick to the imp like glue. Or even replace it, if you enable hide imps.

Let's give it a whirl. Switch to sculpt mode, grab a cylinder, and use edit shape to make it long and thin before stamping it. Switch back to assembly mode.

Place a hand/imp tracker. Grab the cylinder and hover over the gizmo. Press and to add the cylinder to the group. Take a minute to get it positioned.

The gizmo shows where the imp is relative to the object, with the arrow pointing the way the imp, and therefore your cylinder, will point.

Try and point it along the arrow to help you get the relation between the gadget and the object you're adding to it. When you're happy, scope out with and .

Tweak the group and select hide imp. Now switch to play mode or test mode. Ta da! You have a cylinder tracking your movements instead of an imp!

It's worth noting that, if you grab an element from the dreamiverse to add to the hand/imp tracker, you may need to scope in to it and check a few things.

Is it made of multiple objects? How are they grouped? Does it have connectors? Check the moveable and collidable status on everything.

Moveable objects won't follow the gadget (even if they're in a group which is not set to moveable). You won't want that for most things, but you may want it for others.

For example for the clip of a gun, where you'd start the clip not moveable and then have it moveable after 10 shots, so that it falls out of the gun.

You can have connectors in there, but the parent object must not be set to moveable. You can use an object set as collidable, but it can cause some odd behaviour.

The Dreams User Guide is a work-in-progress. Keep an eye out for updates as we add more learning resources and articles over time.