Dreamview Weekly Roundup #52

This Friday marks the 52nd-ever Dreamview Weekly Roundup. Seeing as though there are 52 weeks in a year, this can only mean one thing: we’ve officially published a year’s worth of Weekly Roundups here on The Impsider.

That’s one whole year of weird jokes about salsa-dancing geese, Dark Kevin, clover circles and disappearing Fridays. (Your capacity for nonsense is our second-favourite thing about you. Our first is your eyes.) More importantly, it’s one year of recommendations for things to play, see and do in Dreams - a total of 260 Roundup reviews! Maybe we’ve even written one about something you’ve made. Type your username in that search bar above and see.

We hope the Roundup is helping you discover some hidden gems, and we hope you’ll keep reading as we continue to evolve it. (We’re looking to add short videos soon, to give an even better idea of what a creation looks, sounds or plays like!) In fact, why not leave us a few suggestions over on the Dreams forums? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Anyway - here’s to one year! Roll on the recommendations!

OMEN#

by azzaun

What makes a great shoot-’em-up game? Well, clarity, for one thing. A player should be able to instantly understand what’s happening on-screen at any one moment if you’re expecting them to attack enemies, dodge fire, dash between platforms and whistle a little tune all at the exact same time. (Okay, maybe not the whistling - but that’d be an interesting mechanic, right?!) Fortunately, OMEN’s minimal and beautiful visuals make fighting through its stages feel fair; if we die, it’s very simple to see where we’ve gone wrong - oh yes, a big blue bullet to the face, that’ll do it. The boomerang-style weapon means we can set up some delightful angles of damage on the throw as well as the return, as we battle charmingly-designed geometric enemies. The only thing we don’t find quite as intuitively designed is the dash; we find you need to hang slightly in the air before pressing the dash button to successfully cross gaps. There don’t seem to be any ‘invincibility frames’ on it, so don’t get caught out - as Mm’s own Jacob Heayes so perfectly put it, you are ‘extremely vincible’.

Babuba’s Garden#

by M-molecul and iilmru

This one’s sort of tricky to describe - which is exactly why we love it. It’s an audiovisual journey through an otherworldly garden, populated with towering stone buildings, with neon-bright plants growing in wild arches. Mysterious floating bubbles dance to the rhythm of an upbeat song, all catchy hooks and whizzy sound effects. Camera shots change on-beat, too. At one point, the word ‘Babuba!’ flashes on-screen in pink and green (careful with this one if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing). It’s strange, then, but undeniably uplifting - and there’s even a curious kind of narrative. From what we’ve gathered, the Cocopads - the two creators, perhaps? - are the two gods of this world, and the keepers of this utopian musical vision. Something to ponder, then, as the song finishes and you’re able to flick through ambient scenes at your own pace.

Touch Everything#

by ghostfruit64

Fresh from Impys glory, our newly-crowned Creator Of The Year returns to the Roundup this week. Why? Well, ghostfruit64’s only gone and made another quietly excellent puzzle game. Created for the Isometric jam, Touch Everything casts you as the prod-happy god of a tiny lo-fi bedroom. There are switches to flick and pillows to fluff at your leisure, using your motion-controlled pointer - but an Untitled Goose Game-esque checklist provides you with optional objectives, too. Half the fun is working out what these purposefully vague hints are asking of you - ‘curtain DJ’ is a particularly good one - while the rest of the challenge is in observing small tells in the environment itself. (Fans of ghostfruit and donut_mutt’s DreamsCom booth for their upcoming game The Orion Trail may spot a few references to boot.) Impeccably presented, as ever - and yet another example of its creator excelling at just about any genre they care to turn their hand to. Once you’re done poking things, why not read more about ghostfruit64 in this Creator Profile? You could even have a go at making your own isometric room - check out our new Dream Homes collection in DreamShaping if you’re feeling inspired.

Hyperpop: The Soda Of The Future#

by Cfulljames and KaTMalenjamz

“Everyone’s talking about hyperpop - I assume this is what they mean” reads the description. Press play, and you’ll hear a refreshing jingle not about an electronic music microgenre, but instead their imagined “zero-calorie beverage of the future”. Brilliantly, it’s produced with all the hallmark electronic fuzz and fizz of a hyperpop song, featuring melodic distorted vocals, chippy bleeps and saw waves. For something that started life as a comical misunderstanding, this sparkling effort to mimic the hyperpop sound is spookily spot-on, leaving us wanting more. Just hook it to our veins!

Devils Terrace#

by scarybiscuit

The dreamer affectionately known as Biccy is back, with a first-person horror game that really lives up to their name - well, the ‘scary’ part, at least. It’s dripping with atmosphere: it’s a run-down terraced house, lit carefully so as to make its shabby tangle of rooms feel even more claustrophobic. The place is crawling with secret passages, moving bookcases and levers that clunk staircases into place. Indeed, as you try to make your way to the exit in the basement, it feels as though the haunted house itself is doing everything it can to keep you away from it - a wonderful example of level design making a setting feel like a character in itself - directing you upstairs, downstairs and all around as you recover keys to unlock doors. The puzzles are uncomplicated - although the controls could be clearer on the keypad conundrum, we think - but the emphasis here is clearly meant to be on the story behind this unusual locale, and exactly what is inhabiting it.

_Check out the playable edition of this week's Dreamview Weekly Roundup right here in Dreams!

Which creations caught your eye in the Dreamiverse this week, and why? Tell us about your personal picks over on the official Dreams community forums!(opens in new tab)