Dreamview Weekly Roundup #21

It is a spicy Friday here in the UK. So hot. Keyboard melting. Thirst unbearable. Puddle of keyboard looking... unusually drinkable? A little sip won’t hurt. Just the letter Q? No. NO. We refuse. We are better than slurping up our peripherals at the slightest inconvenience.

But what’s that shimmering on the horizon, the blazing sun sparkling across its surface? Oh, thank heavens: it’s the Dreamview Weekly Roundup, a cool, crisp oasis of content inviting us all to dive in. Why not stay here in the shade with us for the weekend, as we check out five fantastic Dreams creations and try very hard not to think about what RGB tastes like?

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Soul Slave: Beta Test#

by SmileBasic

Want to feel the wind in your hair without the use of a fan? This lightning-fast, movement-based FPS will be right up your street. Soul Slave is the cursed fusion of Doom, Titanfall and Bejeweled you never knew you’d be interested in. This early iteration shows promise, casting you as an agile super-soldier who can air-dash, wall-jump, bunny-hop and shotgun-blast their way around chequered levels to collect colourful gems and explode enemies. The movement system is easily one of the most responsive and versatile in Dreams - the sense of speed helped by neat touches such as cartoony motion lines around the screen - helping you take on golden skulls and fleshy villains in a dimension that feels like a lost fragment of the early Internet.

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The Time Looper#

by IansaneArtist

One of Dreams’ most skilled artists takes on the ‘Imagine A Future’ jam theme, and the result is spectacular. It’s IansaneArtist’s penchant for hyperrealism that really makes this concept hit as hard as it does: by entering pebble portals, you’ll leap millions of years through time, watching as Seattle is built up and then slowly broken down, meeting the last remnants of our AI in a crumbling castle, and witnessing Washington State be fully reclaimed by nature. It ends on a hopeful note, as the hero time-loops back round to the camping spot they started at with an entirely new perspective on our treatment of the Earth. What a choice of soundtrack, too - we’ve written about Zypher755’s ‘Life Is Beautiful’ before, and the depth of feeling it conveys is the perfect crescendo for this bittersweet tone piece.

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Bits & Pieces - One Ton Radio

by JayYoder, AyeWilder, MaJiCkAL0ne and Son0vaGlitch

Speaking of pieces - a flawless segue, don’t pretend it wasn’t - there are plenty of them in One Ton Radio’s latest album launch. A few bits, as well, if you really root around. Seasoned dreamers may know One Ton Radio from their excellent debut album; for newcomers, this is a four-piece band that met in Dreams itself and have been producing hit after hit ever since. Bits & Pieces is a mildly chaotic experiment with form that feels unmistakably Dreams, allowing you to select one of its many catchy tracks (and even loop them), before acting out your very own bizarre homebrew music video-slash-disco by twanging decorations and possessing puppets at will.

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Cafe and Bakery Asset Pack#

by yami_no_neko_

Asset pack creators are often the unsung heroes of the Dreamiverse, taking great pains to create beautiful, useful and well-optimised sculpts for other creators to use in their own work. Over the past year, yami_no_neko_ has been quietly working away at this collection, including all manner of delectable-looking pastries, a gleaming coffee machine, display cases and counters, detailed bottled drinks, tray racks, glossy custard slices and much more. You can see them in action in yami_no_neko_’s bakery - but this is a wonderfully welcoming place to start if you’d like to try your hand at quickly and easily assembling a cosy scene of your very own.

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Going Up!#

by Entropy-Tamed

Permit us, if you will, another Entropy-Tamed entry in a Roundup: this creator’s sense for what makes a compelling, Twitch-friendly arcade game is truly remarkable. They’ve done it again with Going Up! - the premise and controls are simple, but the strategic, even mental challenge is typically complex. Using only the raw strength of your little puppet’s legs and a trajectory indicator, you must jump your way up the course one leap at a time (the theatrical camerawork, sound design and superhero landings that accompany each one are both funny and strangely motivating), judging the angle and power of your jumps so as to avoid plunging back down from when you came. Manage to spring high enough, and you might even end up exploring space for longer than Jeff Bezos did.

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Want an easy way to view all of these creations in one convenient collection? Check out the playable edition of Dreamview Weekly Roundup right here in Dreams!