How a game works
The building blocks of a DreamMist game and how they fit together.
Everything you make in DreamMist is a city. A city is a small game: one outside map, the interiors you can walk into, the people in them, the wild Pokémon, a story, and optional custom tilesets and music.
Maps
| Map | What it is |
|---|---|
| Outside | The main map. Visitors start here, at the spawn point. |
| Interiors | Houses, Pokémon Centers, gyms and rooms, reached through doors. |
| Routes and towns | Outdoor maps joined to the outside map at their edges. See Routes and the region. |
Every map has its own tiles, collisions, people, doors and story gates. The story, the wild Pokémon zones, the tilesets and the music belong to the whole city, so interiors share them.
Layers
Each map is a grid of 16×16 pixel tiles drawn in layers. You pick the layer in the side panel, or with the number keys.
| Layer | Key | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Ground | 1 | Grass, paths, water and floors. Always under everything. |
| Objects | 2 | Buildings, trees, fences and signs. Drawn below the player. |
| Above | 3 | Roofs and tree tops. Drawn over the player, so they can walk behind things. |
| Collision | 4 | Tiles that can't be walked on, and ledges, surf water, ice and push tiles. |
| Encounters | 5 | Where each wild Pokémon zone applies. |
| Story | 6 | The story timeline and the gate tiles it locks. |
| Doors | 7 | Tiles that move the player to another map. |
| People | 8 | Villagers, trainers, nurses, Pokémon and signs. |
| Spawn | 9 | Where visitors arrive. |
| Events | Areas that play a cutscene when the player steps in. |
The first three are what visitors see. The other seven are gameplay: they're shown only in the editor.
People
Everyone on the map is a person with a look, a direction, a name and some dialogue. Their role decides what they do:
- Talks: says their dialogue. Most of the story is built from people who talk.
- Trainer: battles the player with a team of up to six Pokémon. A trainer can be a Gym Leader and award a badge.
- Nurse: heals the party and tops up Poké Balls and Potions.
The People layer also holds Pokémon standing on the map, which make their cry or start a wild battle, and signs, which the player reads by facing them.
Story
The story is a list of steps, like Meet the Professor or Beat the Gym Leader. A step is done when the player talks to, or beats, the person you chose to complete it. Steps change the world:
- Gates: tiles that stay blocked until a step is done, shown as an invisible wall, an object like a tree or boulder, or a person standing in the way.
- People: they can show up after a step, leave after a step, refuse to help until a step is done, and give a reward when they complete one.
The player
Visitors play as their own trainer, which they create the first time they press Play. The trainer keeps their party, PC box, bag, Pokédex, badges and story progress, and brings them along to every city they visit. Story progress and beaten trainers are remembered per city, so each city plays from the start for a new visitor.
Building versus playing
Changing your city never changes a player's progress. If you edit a step after finishing it, press Restart my progress in the Story layer to play it fresh.
Saving and sharing
The city saves on its own while you build: in this browser, or in your account when you're logged in. From there you can send a link, publish it on Explore, or invite friends to build with you live.