Rolling Dream: The Animated Series

Rolling Dream: The Animated Series (Chinese: 滚动的天空: 幻想曲 *Rolling Sky: Fantasia*), also known simply as Rolling Dream, is an upcoming animated adventure-musical series based upon the mobile game Rolling Sky 2. It was developed by Swimminton Studios, Pixar, and Cheetah Technology Cooperation Limited (or CheetahMobile). It will premiere on Disney+ in 2020, with a total of 12 episodes.

## Premise

> "*The animators of the original game bring you an extended version of Rolling Sky 2’s stories! From the story of a puppet who begs for freedom, to a boy journeying with an owl to get back home, to a boy who’s trying to escape a nightmare, & many more!*"
> ― Swimminton Studio’s description of the show on their website
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Every episode begins with the Wizard (named Michi in this show) talking about the story of some levels. The story will be told in full, without any other dialogue. The show ends with Michi reacting to the story, usually in wonder or shock. The credits roll and the episode ends.

## Episodes So Far

### Starry Dream

An orphan boy named Anthony finds a star on the ground while he was walking around town. He takes it with him & calls it Starry. Inspired by a book he read (The Little Prince, of course!), he pretends that he actually came from another planet, which he explains is the reason why he never saw his parents.

That night, Anthony goes to sleep, only to find out that his apparently made-up backstory is actually true! While chasing it, Starry tells him about the wonderful planet, where the stars are alive & have lots of fun. It then plays out like the rest of the level (he inserts Starry into a gigantic star)- until he wakes up to find that Starry is missing. He doesn’t mind, though, because a woman (Bonnie) finds him in the alleyways & wants to adopt him. This sparks a moment in joy in him & answers with a yes! As the duo walk away, Starry & Michi then float high above the town & ends the episode.

### Starry Nightmare

Starry Nightmare (which is based off of the level Puzzle/Nightmare), on the other hand, has a more "creepy" approach. It starts off with one of those "previously, on the previous episode" parts.

Anthony is getting ready for school after getting adopted. His big stepbrother, Henry, encourages him to have a great first day! However, our poor Little Prince gets bullied at school for bringing his lucky “Blue Starry” to class. That night, he goes to bed & falls asleep in tears. Then Blue Starry comes to life, clones his beloved teddy bear, & convinces the Prince to follow him. It looks *exactly* like that dream he had a while back, except that everything feels… off. Then the monsters show up. Fortunately, he escapes from their grasp thanks to Michi helping him along the way.

The Prince slowly wakes up back in his bedroom, only to find him hold an eagle plushie instead of Blue Starry. Henry bursts into the room to yell at him about being late. Anthony rushes away, leaving the plushie behind. Michi then pets it & flies off.

### Pharaohs

After a brief callback to the first 2 episodes, the Little Prince gets sucked into the portal… and he looks like a *Princess*. He, Anthony, is not amused. He sees an eagle flying in the sky- you know, the same one from that level’s game icon? Anyway, he follows it across Egypt, hoping that it would lead him to a way back home. Instead, he learns more about the location he (she?) is in. Anyway, he gets into another portal, which doesn’t lead her back to the present, but instead to the location of…

### Death Book

Cursing the eagle, our protagonist learns about the titular Death Book, which was used to summoned a sandworm that destroyed the area around it. He doesn’t mind- he just wants to be a little boy again! After "fighting" the sandworm (not really; he just parkours over it), he finally found the *real* way home.

Or so he though. (This leads to the upcoming episode King of the Sun.)

### Fate

This episode tells the story of Beethoven the puppet. He was constantly abused by his master and the rest of the puppets. This made Beethoven want to escape and live a happy life.

## Development

Development for the show was planned to start after the game it was based upon won the Red Dot Reward, but it was delayed for unknown reasons. It was finally revived when CM’s stocks reached an all-time low in June 2019. One of the people on the Rolling Sky development team suggested that a series of animated shorts for ads will help boost stocks & save the company.

The reason why Swimminton Studios was chosen is because of the small success of their Rhythm Heaven Megamix mini-series. The original plan was to create 1-minute ads instead of an entire series. However, after the suggestion of 5-minute episodes by Dorkfishie, the devs switched to that idea.

On July 7, 2019, the show was announced on the official Swimminton Studios YouTube channel.

During development of the Wizard Update (version 1.2.0), Swimminton Studios decided to add the Wizard as a character, restarting development of some of the episodes to add them in in a very reasonable way.

It was finally released on November 3rd, 2019, as an apology from Cheetah Mobile about version 1.2.2.

## Trivia

* Most of the models were pre-rendered versions of the game models, albeit with some slight differences. For example, the hair of Walt (Fantasia) & Bonnie (female thief from Theft) are more detailed, & the latter’s flows in the wind. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Prince’s face is less round than the in-game model.
* Some characters from the original Rolling Sky appear in certain episodes:
	+ In Fantasia, Clown's ball is in Walt’s room.
		- The Clown from Dancing Line makes a cameo as well.
	+ An image of Scarab is among the hieroglyphs in Pharaohs.
	+ Anthony's bedroom has cameos from Basketball & Football. Chip the Cheetah, the official mascot of CheetahMobile, appears as well.
		- The text on the Basketball says "HOOP DREAMS" instead of “ROLLING SKY”. This is a reference to one of the levels in RS.
	+ Henry the explorer attempts to play with his owl by tossing a ball, which uses the exact same model as the one you get at the start of RS.
	+ Trick Ball and Pumpkin make quick cameos in Halloween.
* In the English dub, Michi is named after the pronunciation of the Mickey Mouse’s first name directly translated into Simplified Chinese.
* The framing device was originally going to be the dreams of Anthony.