Over the moon about the Brand New Planet Jam!
The stars truly came out for our livestream on Friday 12th November. We were joined by two of the people behind the new BBC Earth series, Universe: executive producer Gideon Bradshaw, and world-renowned physicist Professor Brian Cox!
Clockwise from top-left: Professor Brian Cox and Gideon Bradshaw, the logo for BBC earth series Universe, Jen Simpkins and Tom Dent.
Why? Well, to celebrate the new series - which features the good professor narrating the moments that changed the universe forever, and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer(opens in new tab) now - we decided to launch a special coMmunity jam. The theme was ‘Brand New Planet’, and challenged players to create an original alien world in Dreams for Professor Cox to marvel at - and even scientifically evaluate whether it could support life. We also released a special ‘Brand New Planet’ asset kit for anyone to use in their creations!
A video of highlights from our collaboration with Professor Brian Cox, BBC Earth and the Dreams coMmunity.
Professor Brian Cox talks about portrayals of space in science-fiction films while watching a playthrough of Cosmonaut, by Wothcloth.
As usual, you rose to the occasion in spectacular fashion. Jam entries included procedurally-generated explorable solar systems, bioluminescent flora, stranded cosmonauts, doomed robots, floating doughnuts - even a cameo or two from the professor himself. And, while joining us live on Twitch to dazzle us with fascinating space facts (and show off his super-rare PS3), Brian Cox saw many of your creations, too. Yes, even this one.
Professor Brian Cox and Gideon Bradshaw grinning at the Cox-faced denizens of Coxworld, by cutaia_net. Text reads: 'It may seem strange but this adaptation has led to a completely peaceful world'.
Needless to say, it was a joy to introduce Brian and Gideon to the many weird and wonderful facets of Dreams, and to our talented and friendly coMmunity - heartfelt thanks to them both for bringing the knowledge AND a great sense of humour to the stream. There was also some chatter about Brian and Gideon potentially returning for another stream in future… So watch this, erm, space! (Sorry - couldn’t resist.)
Couldn’t make the livestream? Don’t panic - you can catch up with all the intergalactic goodness via the on-demand video recording(opens in new tab) on our Twitch channel. Meanwhile, if you’d like to check out for yourself the collection of Brand New Planet Jam entries we showed to Professor Cox, you can find it right here in Dreams.
We hope you had a blast, rocketeers!
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.