As I posted yesterday, Dave just released an unedited 6-minute Stratosphir video. It was an amazing look at how Stratosphir is coming along that showed a lot of awesome features. Here are some highlights of the video:

• Climbing the individual bars of a Muka Platform flipped on its side
• Combat features, like shock-waves and blocking attacks
• Flipping gravity by touching a sphere with an arrow to show where gravity will go
• Climbing up a 200% resized door
• Customizing your character on the fly
• Pausing the game and orbiting the camera
• Objecting, like spikes, flipped on their sides
• Aiming the bomb cannon and stone bombable blocks

So I hope that summed up the video for all you guys! Stratosphir should be out in about a month, so it’s not that far away!

Minor Studios posted on Twitter about 8 hours ago that a unedited Stratosphir video will be up on Friday! What will be in it? Stay updated with Atmosphiric and find out!

Update 11.4.09 9:52 PM [EST]: Video will be up in about 5 hours!

Dave announced just a small bit ago that the final design challenge before the release of Project Stratosphir will be Arcade09. Good luck to all entrants, and have fun designing! Here’s the post from the Atmosphir News page:

“The November dual Design & Play Challenge is Arcade09. Arcade games are known for certain traits – being fast, fun, and all about getting your initials in the high scores. This month’s challenge seeks to do the same. While almost any Atmosphir level could be considered competitive in the leaderboards, certain levels are more well-suited to allow for a wide variety of scores. An “arcade” level might have some of the following features:

+ A relatively simple gameplay premise or story
+ Fast-paced, race-against-the-clock action and/or survival from ever-increasing difficulty
+ If time is used, a short initial time limit that can be extended through powerups or points
+ High replay value to entice you to try and beat your best score

If you’re still unclear of the concept, some great examples of what I would consider awesome arcade levels are Lunch Break Mayhem by EliteBlackDragon, Muka Carnivale Game by bigdrip681, and Leaderboard Tower by munchy365.

In addition, we’ll be giving out prizes to the best players in this challenge as well. The players with the #1 spot on the top 3 designs will also win atmos. Because no one knows who will win the design challenge until the official results are announced, players should try to top as many leaderboards as you can. Designers are ineligible to win a play prize for their own level, but may compete in other designers’ levels.

The first place level designer and first place leaderboard player will each get 1000 atmos. 2nd is 500 apiece, and 3rd is 250. The deadline for designs is Sunday, November 22nd. Make sure to include [arcade09] as one word in the title of your level to compete, and check the forums on the 23rd to vote. Playing will continue until the contest winners are revealed later in the week.

As mentioned before, this is the last design challenge with the current desktop version of Atmosphir, so make it count! We will be moving into the new browser-based multiplayer version in early December.

Good luck to everyone!”

Today Dave posted a new (audio only) Platforms Podcast with both Dave and Martin (AKA PL|Predator) answering all the questions you guys asked them on their Twitter profile. There were lots of questions answered, and many ideas addressed. Altogether,this new podcast was a greatly informative synopsis of the progress of Project Stratosphir. They hit some major points as to when Project Stratosphir will most likely be released and how people will be admitted.

Project Stratosphir will probably be released around the first week of December this year, meaning only 5 weeks until we get what we’ve all been waiting patiently for for months. At the moment, there are around 20,000 registered users; when Stratosphir comes around, they will be admitted to Beta Test is groups of about 100. Each user will receive a unique Email from Minor Studios with a code to attain Stratosphir. I assume that Moderators and/or Editorial Staff will be receive these Emails the earliest, with the most active forum users following about a week after, etc. But don’t take my word for it, I don’t know everything.

There were a lot of highlights of the hour long audio podcast, but some of the most important included:

• Long-ranged weapons will be implemented in the near future after Stratosphir’s release
• No, there will not be Teletubby costumes. xD
• Dave likes the Dixie Chicks
• All new launch functions are done, but some need a bit of polishing
• NPC’s (Non-Playable Characters) are definitely going to come out at some point
• Video Blocks may be added in 2011
• Both Dave and Martin like pie
• Dave has the Mac version of the Dev version of Atmosphir, and Martin will look for the PC version on his home computer
• Again, Stratosphir will be released approximately by the first week of December
• There will be a video podcast also, which will probably be up tomorrow in in the next few days

So I hope that summed the episode up for all you guys reading out there! I don’t think there is anything else of much importance regarding this Platforms episode at the moment… It was fun to listen to, and I can’t wait for another. According to Dave and Martin, tomorrow or within the next few days yet another podcast is going to be posted, this one being video–I can’t wait to see that too!

Designer of the Week: Saunby

There are three tiers of designers in Atmosphir: the noobs, the greats (like boberto, munchy, Bigdrip, etc.), and the people in the middle, who are good designers, but haven’t quite crossed into the Great category. Many designers tend to just place tons of power-ups and hazards on every block in a straight line and tell you to “RUN!!!!!” without caring at all about environment or gameplay. The key to making a great level is to have a great environment, and great gameplay. Saunby does all of these beautifully; his levels are both elegantly designed as well as challenging.
My favorite level of his, which got 2nd place in Halloween09, is Trick or Trick? It has you traverse through challenging rooms full of spikes, moving platforms, and other ways to make you die. He seamlessly combines excellent puzzle ideas, while putting it in an eye-pleasing environment. In addition, he has many other award-winning or award-caliber levels, such as The Ruins of Cydonia (Level of the Day for 11/1/09) and Exertion of Authority, which placed 6th in Small09. I seriously recommend trying out many of his levels, especially the more recent ones. Congratulations Saunby!

NOTE: I’m getting used to writing level reviews and stuff, so please leave feedback!

A frequent user of the Atmosphir forums, dragonbo, requested that I post his video show here on Atmosphiric. His show is called The Monthly Play, enjoy!

The Monthly Play Episode 1

I hope every one of you Atmosphir users had a great Halloween! I’m sorry I’m late with the results, but Atmosphiric only started yesterday.

As with every design challenge, 3rd place will get 250 Atmos, 2nd place will get 500 Atmos, and 1st will get 1000 Atmos. There are ten places in all, and a variety of different designers in the results; some veterans, and some undiscovered. To see Dave’s (AKA okaysamurai) reviews, click here because I’ll be reviewing the top 3 myself in this article… Anyways, here’s what the results were for Halloween09:

10th: Demonic by Daimon

9th: Forbidden Fortress by quigon

8th: Castle of Legends by MarcoK–You’ll be seeing a Designer of the Week segment from Marco regularly.

7th: The Temple of Xar by creator7

6th: Dry Bone Dungeon by maxinima

5th: Inferno Tower by boberto–Yep, that’s me.

4th: Welcome to the House of Fun

3rd: Trinity Castle by JazeGeek

JazeGeek makes his first top 3 appearance with his entry to Halloween09, Trinity Castle. Scenery is great, and gameplay is crisp. There are many hidden secrets, some required to find. Your first goal is to get into the castle, which is barricaded by a double-locked door. Once inside, you face the challenge of finding another key which is even harder to find. Altogether, I think JazeGeek did a great job with his entry.

2nd: Trick or Trick by Saunby

Literally the first entry to appear on the play browser, and by far one of the best. Saunby really knows how to design, because Trick or Trick is always living up to its name. Probably the two best puzzles were one where you had to ledge-hang/jump across a wall with pillars. You may have been confused there, but that’s what you do. The other superb puzzle was one where you had to jump off a box into a small hole in a huge pit of spikes to get a key. A very creative and difficult entry, Saunby sure earned his place in the top 3. Great job!

1st: Mining Moria by frodo

It was a year ago when the first Halloween design challenge was announced; Halloween08. Frodo was one of the best–and still is–designers and decided to enter. His first entry, Mines of Moria won the design challenge, and so did his similarly named, Mining Moria this design challenge. Mining Moria was a very well designed leaderboard challenge with many interesting ideas, such as floating staircases made of falling spike traps and stationary owl traps to jump around. The level took place in the Mines of Moria, where much treasure lays hidden. Good luck to everyone who tries to get a high score on the leaderboards, and amazing work frodo! Congratulations, you deserved it!

Dave announced with these results that there would be only one more design challenge before Project Statosphir comes out. What will it be? Join us at Atmosphiric to find out! Good job to all the winners of Halloween09, and even if you didn’t win, don’t be discouraged, there were tons of great entries.