Hey there, CoMmunity and happy August! We've got a massive couple of weeks coming, with some of our Molecules heading out to PAX and Devcom AND we're hosting not one but two streams! If only there was a Newsletter that rounded this all up nice and neatly! Read on to recap with happened last month, what's to come and even a little bit of brain training... Enjoy!

This Month at Mm HQ

PAX West Here We Come!

A bunch of our Molecules are journeying over to Seattle to be a part of PAX West 2018 later this month! John, Ed, Abbie, Tom and Alex will be hosting the Dreams Panel Jam as John and Ed create a level in Dreams, guided by our live audience! If you're at PAX, we'll see you there! If you're not, you'll be able to watch live on Twitch!

Kareem's Dreams Livestream

The Maestro of Move Controllers, Kareem Ettouney, will be making his return to the Mm sofa for our mid-August livestream to demonstrate his skills with the sculpting tools in Dreams and talk through his creative processes. If you've never caught a Kareem Stream before...you are in for a treat. Tune in on our Twitch channel Friday, 17th August at 5PM BST.

Siobhan @ Devcom

Siobhan, our Studio Director, will be taking to the stage at this year's Devcom conference to give her Glitter and Doom Part II talk. The talk focuses on the ''soul tax'' of creating in the video game industry, studio and industry culture and much more! If you're at Devcom this year, don't miss it!

Plastic Free July

Every July, millions of people across the world take part in Plastic Free July - an exercise in living a life without plastic waste, therefore helping out this place we call home! Our wonderful Catering team, Kath and Eoin, maintained the Mm kitchen throughout last month and Kath has written up a blog on how we went about it! You can read it here, and maybe grab some inspiration!

Last Month in Dreams

Gothic Novel Game Jam Stream

Last month's Gothic Novel stream quickly became our most watched and most talked about stream EVER - thank you! If you did miss out though, have no fear! You can head over to our YouTube or Twitch right now, and see John, Ed and Kevin create their own Gothic scene in less than hour.

BAME In Games

It was our absolute honour to host the July meetup for BAME in Games at Media Molecule HQ. The team at BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) work to encourage more diverse talent to get involved the world of games development as well as the wider entertainment industry! At the meet, Kareem gave a talk introducing our Dreams character Laila as well as the creative process here at Mm!

Inside Mm HQ

Meet a Molecule

Kevin is one of our QA Molecules. After he and his knights made their stream debut last month on our Gothic Novel stream, we thought it was about time we introduced Kev to the CoMmunity properly!

What do you do on Dreams?

I work in the QA department as a Tools Technician. Whether we are working on a game that has user-facing tools (Dreams) or an in-house editor (Tearaway), I work alongside coders and designers to develop and test tools.

That involves testing all the aspects of the editor and helping to develop its features by writing feedback. Finding and logging bugs (ideally before the team hit them so their work flow is maintained!) and investigating and logging bugs that they do find is a huge part of my job.

What're you looking forward to the CoMmunity doing in Dreams?
I’m really excited for the first really big dreams to come out, ones made collaboratively by multiple people and are close to fully fledged games. I’m also excited for the first VR user experiences, especially ones that break new ground or find something new and fun to do with the medium.

What do you like to do in Dreams? Do you have a favourite creation?

I love making characters. From a testing point of view characters are great because they're a perfect storm of every feature in the game. It's super fun to take a character through all the stages of development. My favourite character is usually the last one I worked on...currently a Minotaur.

Favourite food, movie and song, in that order. GO!

All my favourite things are transient but here are the current ones:

Spider rolls (sushi), Fight Club, Smoke by Tender (or anything from Tender’s album ‘Modern Addiction’)

Finally, what’s your favourite game?

Ah! I’ve played so many. The last great game I played was God of War and before that it was Arkham Knight. What will it be next I wonder? Maybe something made in Dreams!

CoMmunity Happenings

Test Your Knowledge!

@QWDreaming has a challenge for the CoMmunity, well, a couple, actually! Test your knowledge on all things Media Molecule with a dastardly crossword puzzle, or stretch those math-muscles with a Picross! If you've got a challenge for the CoMmunity, we'd love to see it! If the Molecules can solve it, it could find it's way into our newsletter!

Jamal's Work Experience

Jamal, who some of you may know as @GlitchFish on Twitter, came into Mm this month to do some on-site learning. We loved having Jamal as part of the Mm family and he was kind enough to write a few words about his stay. You can read those on the blog.

Fan Art Board

Our first piece of fan-art this month comes from @Amitorii on Instagram, featuring our main man Art! Next up is the lovely image of our wonderful Francis who's accompanied by the Imp - thanks, @aragota_pro! And finally, just in time for his stream - a colourful Kareem from @zachmccurdles!

Next Month at Mm!

September will be here before you know it! As well as our PAX panel, we've got a ton of cool stuff lined up! As always, you'll be able to keep on top of all things Mm with our handy calendar!

Dreams will be joining our PlayStation family at FAN EXPO CANADA at the end of August too! Although you won't find any Molecules at the show, let us know if you see Dreams on show!

Remember to tune in Friday 17th August at 5PM BST for our next Dreams stream and see Kareem work his sculpting magic on Twitch!