Kingdoms 1-1 by redidas (Left) Stronghold 1-1 by AppEvilMunchy (Right)
As the 2009 year comes to a close and the launch of Stratosphir fast approaches, we take a look back at the very eventful year that we are about to leave to the history books. 2009 was a year filled with adventure, especially in the development and growth of Atmosphir.
January 5th - The first ever moderator applications for the forums are posted, with the deadline set to be January 10th. Before this, the only moderators on the forums were Minor Studios staff. In addition to moderator appications, the announcement of “Atmosphir Pro Designers” popped up on both the forums and the News page.
January 8th - The first Jumpstart of the new year was up, containing the Mountain09 design challenge results and the announcement of Update 7. Update 7 was an update to really help Atmosphir’s performance–adding a more info section and comments section to each level description in the play browser. It also improved some textures and fixed a lot of bugs. Released on the 13th of January, it was the last Update to ever contain our long-lost friend Cameron.
January 23rd - Dave and Martin show up in a virtual Jumpstart reminding you all that the current design challenge, Boss09, will be over soon. Dave announces the addition of Atmosphir Teams on the forums and shows us a small video of character animations coming with Update 8.
January 30th - The whole new Atmosphir.com website is up, as well as the Boss09 design challenge results. Along with the Boss09 results came the announcement of the first ever Team design challenge, with the somewhat obvious name of Team09. Martin also shows us how Character Customization is coming along over in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
February 10th - Dave stars in the first ever Platforms Live podcast, chatting about Pro Designers, Levels of the Day, and showing us a dev build of the Color Pack and Character Customization. He answers our questions for about an hour.
LOTD: Kingdoms 1-1: The Beginning by redidas
February 14th - Yet another Jumpstart is up announcing that the long-awaited Update 8 is set to launch on February 24th. Dave wishes us a happy Valentine’s Day and shows us some of the “Why I Love Atmosphir” videos that have been popping up on YouTube.
LOTD: Seashore Stronghold – The Crabs Last Stand 1/2 by frodo
February 24th - The anticipated Update 8 arrives, bringing the end of Cameron and the start of customizable characters. Update 8 contains not only new characters, but the addition of the Color Theme Pack and solid color backgrounds to design mode, weapon combat, the bomb cannon, and a new “AtmoStore” section of the website. It includes those features as well as level locking, game creation (which has since been removed), online and offline designing, longer level descriptions, and a few bug fixes. Update 8 is the biggest update to date in Atmosphir history, with so many features it’s hard to explain them all; you can read the official announcement and forum post here.
LOTD: Tutorial Island by Chillinguy
March 2nd - Additional Moderator Applications are up for users to fill out on the forums. The deadline was set to be Friday, March 13th.
LOTD: Sticko’s Giant Fish by bigdrip681
March 6th - A new episode of Jumpstart is up, as well as the release of Update 9. There wasn’t much to Update 9, mostly bug fixes, but a few new character customization items were added to the marketplace, and play browser pages we implemented too. Dave ends the Jumpstart with a hilarious Random Atmosphir Moment, courtesy of kaiserg.
LOTD: The Black Shadowlands by frodo
March 13th - The deadline for moderator applications arrives, and Dave tells us all that Update 10 should be coming out late Monday, March 16th, with new features such as an Auto-Update feature, bug fixes, and new character customization items. He pops up yet again in a new Jumpstart with the Tutorial09 design challenge results and reminds us of the current challenge, BlockArt09. To end the video, he shows us a short Atmosphir skit by the name of “Leap & Dr. Firebomb.”
LOTD: Coloured Rooms of Confusion by Gadoidao
March 27th - Martin and Maximo join Dave in San Francisco and talk to us about GDC09 and the Muka Tribe. They tell us to look for a new update soon with the new enemies and end the video with some hilarious bloopers.
LOTD: The Cloud Castle by Bboys99
April 4th - Update 11/Beta 1.6 is up. The auto-update didn’t work for eveyone, but if you were anxious to get your hands on the Muka Tribe, an entire new game download was available at the beta site. Not only did the new update include the Muka Tribe, but it also came along with a few new game modes, namely Survival Mode, Defeat Enemies Mode, and Defeat Bosses Mode. A Jumpstart also appeared that day, with Dave announcing the BlockArt09 results and telling all of us about the next dual design challenge, Combat09 and Videogame09.
LOTD: 6 Ball by Vindiablo
April 17th - Update 12 went live, containing 6 new Muka Blocks for design mode–things like Muka Boxes and tents–as well as bomb respawn time, new character animations, powerup properties, and a ton of bug fixes. More bugs were fixed with Update 13 on April 20th, too.
LOTD: Perilous Pathways: World One by frodo
April 28th - Chris Sprinkle (bigdrip681) is interviewed by Dave at Dave’s office in San Francisco. They discuss Chris’s love for designing and his many impressive Atmosphir creations. Probably one of the most memorable moments in the interview was when they thought of the [fake] Atmosphir slogan, “It’s like LEGOs, for real, but fake!”
LOTD: Pole Position! [Videogame09] by Alexger
April 30th - Minor Studios releases a shader test video, showing our old friend Cameron with a whole new shading effect added to him and to Atmosphir. The torches burn and give off light, as the other blocks look like they’re covered in plastic wrap. Many people missed it, but there was an entirely new skybox in the background as well.
LOTD: 50 Mile Warehouse by Atmosphere
May 4th - Our games prompt us to update as the clothing-filled Update 14 arrives. Player’s Club members were in for a treat when they received their new character customization items. For all the normal users and Club members alike, there were a few small new features, and some bug fixes, of course.
LOTD: The Chronosseum by Amethyst
May 5th - Update 15 16 came out, mostly some bug fixes, but it gave designers a few new Muka Blocks to work with.
LOTD: (Videogame09) Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess – Arbiter’s Ground by supercrazy
May 8th - A new Jumpstart was up, with Dave announcing the winners of Combat09 and Videogame09 and informing everyone that the next design challenge would be Jump09. He told us about Atmosphir’s future, stating that Minor Studios would be taking most of the month of May, and early June, to focus on a lot of player-focussed initiatives. We were intrigued by the screenshots and videos of leaderboards and player profiles. In addition, Dave gave us a sneak peek at water, waterfalls, and piranhas.
LOTD: Along the Seas by Levion
May 22nd - After a lot of avatar and signature workshops began to pop up in the Off-Topic section, we said hello to the Creative Spotlight section of the forums (now known as the Creative section).
LOTD: Basin Island 1 by maximumdragon
June 5th - The long-awaited Update 17 made it’s arrival with a whole new play experience. Leaderboards, user miniprofiles (with medals and win/loss records), an entirely new Freeplay interface, a friends system, star and difficulty rankings for levels, new character customization items, and water props all came with the update.
LOTD: Roots Mountain by Nvision
June 10th - The Competition section of the forums was made to honor the leaderboards that had been implemented with Update 17.
LOTD: The Aerial Sand Chasms (Jump09) by Mephiston
June 12th - You know how the deal goes–design challenge results, then the next design challenge announcement, and maybe a few other things thrown in the Jumpstart too–but on the 12th day of June, Atmosphir wasn’t so ordinary anymore. As usual, Dave gave us the Jump09 design challenge results, after a lot of debate about votes… As well as the Team design challenge, Platform2009, results. He told us about the next challenge, Expert09, and then moved on to some important announcement; announcements that would change the history of Atmosphir forever. Dave tells us that about the fact that Minor Studios has been using their own, custom engine for the past two years. He says it’s been great, but he compares it to painting a picture, but making the canvas, the brushes, and the paint. Minor Studios will be translating Atmosphir, he says, to a third-party engine. He told us that we would have to wait for quite a while without any updates–something we’re not used to. But eventually, when they are done with the translation, updates will be coming out at a much more rapid pace, as Minor Studios won’t need to focus on anything but new features; the technology would be better and the overall performance of Atmosphir would be ridiculously improved.
LOTD: Upon The Twighlight Hills (Jump09) by BlazingPlatinum
June 15th - More Moderator Applications were up in the Atmosphir section of the forums, and the community was in ‘Moderator Application Mode’ as always.
LOTD: The Great Plummet Mystery Course [Jump09] by Traceguy
June 19th - The final update that any of us have seen, Update 18–a small patch–came out, with really only one new feature, the river grass platform. In addition to the update, the community competition to find one of Atmosphir’s best designers began; it went by the name the ‘Atlympics.’ There were to be rounds, each consisting of designers facing up against eachother until the last two designers faced off in the final round. The first two week long round had started.
LOTD: Sonic Jumpland (Jump09) by trumanbenedict
July 8th - The Expert09 results show up in a new Jumpstart, also with the announcement of the new design challenge, Mini09. Dave reveals the codename for Update 19, a name that will be stuck in every Atmosphir player’s mind for years to come–Project Stratosphir. Martin also talks to us and shows us some of the first footage of Stratosphir.
LOTD: Perilous Pathways: World Five [Expert09] by frodo
July 17th - After a lot of requests, Dave makes the first ever ‘Atmosphir Journal’ video, taped in his own kitchen! He talks about what he wants to see added to the Atmosphir experience and what he’s been working on recently, including things like new art assets and multiplayer.
LOTD: Daydream Dilemma by frodo
July 23rd - Similar to the ‘Atmosphir Journal,’ Dave makes another video with the name ‘Mailbox,’ in which he answered a lot of community questions. Yet again, the video contains additional Stratosphir footage.
LOTD: Salvation by Shming
July 31st - The second Mailbox comes out, answering even more of our questions. He ends the video with the classic paper-throw.
LOTD: TheValorChamber by TeamValor
August 5th - Martin has about a 25 minute Q&A session in the first episode of the Atmosphir DevCast. Not only does he answer questions, but he gives us sneak peeks at the progression of Project Stratosphir.
LOTD: Evolution of Speed – Zone One [mini09] by frodo
August 12th - As always, Dave announces the current design challenge results—this time he announced the Mini09 results. He wishes us good luck with our Space09 entries, shows us some more Stratosphir video footage and ends the show with a very funny ‘Catmosphir’ video.
LOTD: Ando Prime [mini09 edition] by munchy365
August 14th - A new thread caught our eye in the Atmosphir section, it’s title labeled “Atmosphir Level Editorial Staff Application.” Clicking the thread title, a new page opened to reveal an announcement about and “Atmosphir Level Editorial Staff.” Dave wanted the best players and writers he could get–six of them–to take his place in distributing Levels of the Day and writing reviews. The deadline is set for August 21st. Each application asked for our own review of a level, as well as little more additional information. We wished eachother good luck, and hoped for the best.
LOTD: Vertigo by drfuzzyness
August 21st - The third Mailbox is up on the News page and home page of the Atmosphir website; Dave answers our questions once again, and shows us more Stratosphir footage. In addition, the deadline for Editorial Staff applications arrives, as everyone hurries up to get their applications in.
LOTD: Alone by boberto
August 26th - DevCast, episode 2 is released, containing Martin with the dev build of Stratosphir, showing us new features such as scaling objects, shading, and 3D copy and paste. He also answers our questions from Twitter.
LOTD: Temple of the Forgotten by eyeofsauron
September 2nd - We all laughed as we watched Dave, in the new Jumpstart, try to pronounce “AHHWARGHAHEGAH” during the announcement of the Space09 design challenge results. Also, Dave explained Big09 and Small09, the next dual design challenge, and answered questions in the fourth Mailbox video segment. He showed us Stratosphir yet again: mulitplayer and spawning points. The classic paper throw was the climax of the video, but this time, Dave actually hit the frame!
LOTD: Escape From The Moon [space09] by robcozzens
September 17th - A ‘Quick Look’ video shows us Stratosphir’s gravity, Capture the Flag, water, moving platform, scaling, ledgehanging, and rotation features.
LOTD: Journey To The Star Realm [space09] by Wowfunhappy
September 20th - The Editorial Staff team decided that they should honor the classic levels uploaded back in Cameron’s time. They started off a week of “Atmosphir Classics.”
LOTD: The Mines Of Moria by frodo
