Happy Holidays to all you guys out there from Atmosphiric and Minor Studios! I know this is a little late, but I hope it get’s the point across. As the holiday season began, Dave posted a few more eye-appealing Stratosphir screenshots in the Atmosphir section of the forums. You can read his thread here. And now, enjoy the screenshots he posted with a little bit more description…

You can see above the new stance of the character and behind him, the amazing Shading effects that will be coming with the new engine. The only other new feature you can spot is a cage rotated and placed into the ground so that the bars are facing up–the cage is to the bottom right of the character.

The main focus, I believe, of this screenshot is to show the new jump animation (which I must say is pretty awesome) and the fog effects on the enormous castle in the background. Behind the fog, though, you can see a new skybox too. It also showcases the very improved textures that will be coming along with Stratosphir.

You can see some more of the shaders and the new item effects.

Even more of the shading effects, the new jump animation, and also the new info sticker block. The info sticker is a circular, very thin white and blue block with an “i” in its center. When you get close enough to it, a custom dialogue box appears. The only other new thing you can see is a giant, resized palm tree behind the character.

First of all, you can see the epic, yes, I’m using the word epic new combat pose in mid-air. Behind the character, you can see a rotated rock laying on the ground, and I bridge tilted and resized. You can also see what looks like the resized corner of a Muka block, and a rotated, and again, resized Little Treehouse.

Standing on an enormously resized Skull Door, which is rotated so that it’s laying down. The textures are new and improved, which look amazing if I do say so myself! I think my favorite part of the screenshot, though, is the new space skybox in the background.

Yet another new skybox, and also the new aiming system for the bomb cannon. You can see throughout the rest of the picture many random blocks and an abundance of bombs.

You can see the new and improved rulebook, with many additional features. In the first “Rulebook” window, you can see that there are options to set the rules for the the whole level (Global) or set rules for multiplayer. There is also a thumbnail view of the music and skyboxes. In the second window, entitled “Ambient Item Properties,” you can edit the skybox to be a blank color, and edit the fog too. Fog is going to be very improved with Stratosphir, because you will be able to edit its color and density, but in addition, you will be able to change where the fog appears in the level–in other words, picking the area in which the fog will be present. There is not much else in the screenshot, just the design sidebar which contains a few new bombable blocks.

I’m sorry that that was such a long article, but I hope it gave a good description of each and every screenshot. Happy Holidays and best wishes in the new year!

Enjoy another. This one contains crab.

Just another little screenshot for you all to enjoy.

Dave just released a 10 New Features You Might Not Know About video in the News section of Atmosphir.com. I certainly found some of these facts very interesting… Here’s a summary of the video:

The ten new features are as follows:

1) Flags wave in the wind, and the direction they point is the direction the character faces when spawning.

2) You can select stuff by clicking on it, no matter what floor you’re on (and double-clicking brings up properties).

3) Info stickers allow you to create mini dialogue boxes to give hints or tell a story.

4) 3D copy and paste lets you create large levels in a matter of minutes.

5) Lasers are a new rapid-fire ranged weapon for players to use (as long as you include ammo in your level).

6) If you don’t have a weapon equipped, you can still fight.

7) New ragdoll physics lead to some pretty cool deaths.

8) Bombable blocks now have health and respawn values.

9) Spawn lists allow you to have multiple enemies pop out of a single spot.

10) More fine-tuned block placement lets you create some pretty crazy stuff.

So those are just 10 of the many new features coming with Stratosphir. As I said yesterday, they will be coming January 12, 2010.

Dave just announced the release date for Stratosphir: January 12, 2010. Here is word-for-word what he has posted here:

“Our internal deadline for having the game ready for the general public is January 12, 2010. The current plan is to send out beta emails to the 20k current users on that day. We were originally shooting for December 15, but a number of issues have prevented us from meeting that deadline, the biggest one being integration of item purchases. Right now everything dealing with atmos, the player’s club, and marketplace is still a work in progress – the process has taken longer than we originally estimated. While other things are more or less working decently enough for people to access, there are dozens of issues that we’re still working on. Some examples:

* The multiplayer play browser is not showing up as “sessions” (active games where people are playing), but the full level list. This makes it really difficult to find and join co-op and competitive games.
* Wins/losses/abandons are not yet being properly tracked.
* The website is still missing a few pieces, like new forums and search.
* You can’t delete comments, and language filtering is still a work in progress.
* Not all users and level data have been migrated over to the new game yet.

I’m sorry you’re going to have to wait a little while longer…this should give us the additional time we need to make all the final pieces come together. I will update you if we foresee any trouble with meeting the January 12 goal, but we are all working around the clock to meet that deadline.

Oh, and I can officially say today that the game is based in and runs on the powerful Unity engine.

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding.”

Stay updated for all the latest Stratosphir news.

The forums are back up and running like they always have again, but now there is a BBC (Bulletin Board Code) toolbar above you when you are posting. It’s much faster typing code now, but I have noticed a lot of you guys abusing this privilege. I would appreciate, on behalf of Atmosphiric, that some of you please stop spamming code in your posts.

Anyways, enjoy the forums as normal now, and stay updated to see all the latest Atmosphir news.

Starting rather recently, the forums have been acting up. No one is really sure of the cause, but we hope it will be fixed as soon as possible. We all unable to access out PMs and our profile pages, as well as any topics. It saddens me because I spend a lot of time on the forums, talking to all you Atmosphir players out there.

I have a theory, that is probably wrong, but here it is: I believe they are transferring the forums to the new Stratosphir site for the launch which should be here in hopefully a few days. Stay updated here at Atmosphiric to know exactly when the forums go back to normal, or if Stratosphir unexpectedly comes out…

Today the newest moderators were announced, five community members were chosen for the spots. There were two open spots in Off-Topic, one in Competition, one in Levels, and one in Support. The open positions were filled by the following:

Off-Topic: Lemon and Bramblepath111

Competition: Jjjohn0404

Levels: BlazingPlatinum

Support: EdacOnag

Congratulations to every one of the new Moderators! It was a hard decision to make–there were so many great applications–but these are the ones we chose. If you were not chosen, don’t be discouraged, there’s always next time.

Lately, quite a few new Stratosphir screenshots have surfaced. First of all, ironically, we were talking in Colinnn’s “Atmosphirian Open Forum” about an XP system. There were many different perspectives and views on the idea, mine being that I would only support it if it was a system that did not give anyone an unfair advantage, a system that was more just bragging rights. Soon after this discussion began, user marcod starts this thread, showing that our suspicions and ideas for an XP system are most likely true. Below is the screenshot he posted of a portion of a Jumpstart that shows “Tokens” and “XP.”

Dave also posted in marcod’s stating that I would be happy with the new system, because it is only bragging rights. Dave was right, I am happy. I hope everyone else is too, because this is a pretty cool addition in my opinion. It makes me even more anxious for Stratosphir!

Aside from the XP system, Adz has posted even more screenshots, this time they are comparisons of levels in the current Atmosphir, and the same level in Stratosphir. I personally think the new screenshots look great, the graphics are amazing! Below are two sets of screenshots to compare and contrast.

See the difference? The first screenshot is current Atmosphir and the second (under it) is Stratosphir. Enjoy these suplementary screenshots too.

This screenshot shows gravity flipped on its side in design mode. The circular block on the ground with an “i” is the info block. Once touching it, a custom dialog box will pop up. On the design sidebar to the left, the two circles (one pink, one blue) are laser ammo, and the first two items in the first column are new music. In addition, the sphere around the character is invincibility; instead of your character blinking, this translucent sphere appears.

Above shows the character blasting a pink laser out of the newly implemented laser gun.

Starting at the sidebar, the “Secret Room” and “Sunrise” are both new music, and the “Skybox =)” and “Skybox =(” are actually not skyboxes…they serve a different purpose. Moving over to the design grid, you can see the character bare-chested. Playing with no shirt will also be a feature with Project Stratosphir. Once again, the two colored circles are laser ammo, and the sphere with an arrow is a gravity switch. The powerup in the background with a globe-like sphere is a skybox switch, and the other powerup with a music note is a music switch.

This basically shows a very creative paintball/airsoft-like multiplayer concept in a small level. On the sidebar, there is more new music at the top, and some new bombable blocks near the center.

I hope that gave you a better insight into all the new Stratosphir screenshots! It should be out soon, so stay updated and active with Atmosphiric!

About one month ago, Dave asked the Atmosphir community to make the best arcade-based levels to their ability. Now we see who the best 10 entries were, and the top 3 will receive 250 Atmos for 3rd, 500 Atmos for 2nd, and 1000 Atmos for 1st. I would like to congratulate all the winners in participants of this last design challenge before Stratosphir, so here are the results:

It’s disappointing that this will be the last design challenge before the release of the biggest update in Atmosphir history, Project Stratosphir, but I think that these were some of the best levels to date. If you’re upset you didn’t make the Top 10, don’t worry, maybe you made the Top 25.

Also, a special thanks to Adz, for making this video compilation of all the Top 25!