Elite Black Dragon's

Contrary to the title I am not having an existential crisis.  I am just letting you all know that I am planning to come back to the great art of blogging about Atmosphir.  Of course, since there is like 4 people who read this blog...including myself twice...this is probably not some kind of great revelation.  Nonetheless, there it is.

My next level is somewhere around 60 percent complete.  The basis of the level is all around the "Bomb" item and uses the ever popular lowest jump value of 50.  It will include the apparently most controversial bomb jumping that has been a recent topic on the forums here.  To this point I have not seen an entire level using this as a purposeful method throughout, so, I hope it will be received well.  It also has a few other things that I have not seen to date either, but nothing mind shattering here.  I hope people will enjoy it. 

I am excited to finally be back to designing levels.  It seems like it's been months...oh wait...it has.  Talk to you all soon.

Bigdrip681's level thread!

Starting from the newest levels to the oldest...

Temple of the Spider Queen(Blockart09)

Explore the haunted forest of Arachnia and find a way to infiltrate and kill the Spider Queen, who has been ravaging the area for far too long trapping and eating everything in her path. But beware, the Spider Queen's lair is not to be underestimated, for she is devious and tricky and many who have crossed her path have become horribly lost and doomed for all time.

Super Mario Land 3d

This is my most abitious level  and took me about 3 weeks solid from the day update 8 came out(when they addeed colored blocks) Remind me never to try making anything this big ever again!

Mario has been frozen in time by Bowser. You have to find 10,000 points worth of crystals and then head inside Marios brain and activate the switch to save the poor bastard... good luck!

Sticko's Giant Fish

I was surprised to find this made LOTD(My second one) as it only took me about an hour to make it. Still, I won't complain and its a fun level if you want to practice your jumping skills and run around collecting treasure.

I would like to say a hearty welcome to a new contributor to the site, you all know him as bigdrip681.  I am really excited that he has agreed to participate in making this a vibrant fan site full of opinions, rants, tips, tricks, and lots of fun stuff.  I am sure you will see a post here from him soon. 

To find out more about bigdrip681 and all the cool levels he has created you can visit his profile here, and look at his level thread here .  He was recently featured as Level of the Day on March 9, 2009 for his impressive exploration level called Super Mario Land 3D. 

In fact, he was the first person to receive the TRIPLE THREAT title for having 3 levels receive the LOTD.  Read about them all at www.atmosphir.com/news. 

Welcome sir!  Thanks in advance for all the cool stuff you will add to this fansite!

Jumpstart 3.06.09

The latest jumpstart video was released this past friday.  In it, Dave talks about Update 10, the first of what Martin has promised to be weekly updates.  This update focuses mostly on bug fixes, but also has added a few new items to the store, an atmosphir t-shirt for your character, sunglasses, and (he didn't mention it) new pulse sword colors as well. 

I hope you completed your Tutorial09 design challenge map, because Dave also suggested you get in the forums and vote for your favorite in the Tutorial09 challenge, you have until Tuesday, March 10 to get your vote counted.   As a side note, my entry for the challenge got a brief look in the video which is always nice.  And, there was a nice long shot of the new map from bigdrip681, Super Mario Land 3D (which is great, go play it if you haven't, I think it is worth a LOTD nod).

We now have our marching orders for the next design challenge BlockArt09.  The first block art challenges was one of the most popular and now that the color pack is in effect I think Dave wants to see what we can do with it.  The deadline is Tuesday, March 24, so get to work!

And last was the latest hilarious addition to Kaiserg's Random Atmosphir Videos with his final goodbye to Cameron.  If you haven't seen these videos you need to check out his work on YouTube here.

So here is just some thoughts for today for the Atmosphir community...

We all love it when people play our levels and give us feedback and say cool stuff like "that is AWESOME" or "THIS LEVEL ROCKS."  And, for some, that level represents hours and hours of work pouring a little piece of ourselves into it.  For others, maybe they haven't given it that kind of emotional attachment or time.  Either way, we all like to be appreciated for our work, and seeing those cool little stars by our levels is great, but what really gets our heart pumping is those comments.  So, here's the tip...

Become HUGE fans of other peoples levels!

If you would like community members to play your levels and give you great feedback, then you have got to be a huge fan of their levels too!  Be specific in your feeback.  Give them feedback on how their levels are designed, colors, shapes, hazards, the overall look, playability, fun, etc.  Tell them what about that level you really like, or really challenges you, or truly looks amazing or could use a little work.  If there is something you don't like about it, then tell them graciously.  If there is something you REALLY don't like about it, then you should probably keep it to yourself.   This tip alone will go along way in helping make other people your biggest fan!

There is plenty more to say on this topic, but that is the tip for today!

Hey there everyone...I just noticed that my fansite was placed in www.atmosphir.com/news.  I am very flattered to be included in the list, especially since there's not a whole lot going on here quite yet.  I am not sure what direction this will be taking, but I am committed to updating it often.

My initial thoughts are...

1. I don't want to have a forum as I feel that the best place for the Atmosphir community to talk to each other is HERE.
   
2. I would like to use this as a place for collaborating with fellow developers on some exciting levels outside of the forum( at least until we release our levels anyway!)
3. I definitely intend for this to be where I can talk about what is going on in the Atmosphir community (news, updates, live events, etc) and give my skewed take on it (hopefully with a healthy splash of grace and humor)
4. I am also considering using this to create kind of a journal of designs, ideas, how they come to me, how they turn out based on what I expected.
5. I also intend on talking about some of my favorite levels and why I like them.  This is my way of commenting on the continued evolution of designs in the community.
6. Last, and probably most importantly, if you like what you see here or would like an opportunity to add your thoughts and experiences to the ever growing Atmosphir community, then I would LOVE to have you participate by commenting, writing articles, and ultimately add some great content to this place.
   

So welcome, come back often, and feel free to comment at any time.  I'd love to hear from you what you think would be good for me to include here, and I can even take hearing what you don't like.

Thanks for your time,

EBD

Tuesday, February 24 marks the latest version of Atmosphir.  Version 1.4 is the most ambitious update so far and most definitely the largest since I joined the community in November. This update has certainly sparked the most talk and feedback as well.

The list of what was added in this update is long, you can read all about it here.  The most notable of the changes is the long awaited Character customization.  There is no question that this was a massive amount of work for the Minor Studios team and I, for one, applaud them for the effort.

This update required a fresh download from the beta site, and required a little sleight of hand to move your map files (found in the drafts folder) to the new install folder, but otherwise, was seamless.  I think for ease of users, it would be ideal that all future updates do not have to be fresh installs, but having some experience with coding, I can completely understand the necessity of starting fresh, and the fact is, we are still in a private beta.

At first glance, I was really impressed with the amount of character options that were presented out of the box in this update.  Also, the generous team at MS kindly offered 200 Atmos (the brand new Atmoshpir currency 1 Atmo = .01 cents) for us to be able to pick out some cool weapons and clothes.  This update also marked the beginning of the Atmosphir Store which promises to have lots of items to come in the near future. 

They have opted to use Google Checkout, which worked pretty good.  I actually had problems getting my store code to work, turns out the code worked fine, but I was getting a false negative in game to make me think it wasn't working.  I signed up to be a member of the "Player's Club" which offers 3900 atmos doled out in 75/week incriments over the next 12 months, plus lots of extra stuff to be announced at a later date.  Overall, the purchase experience was easy, but it definitely needs work, but more on that later.

The second most important part of update 8 was the inclusion of the Color Pack, a 16 color set of blocks and platforms.  I absolutely loved this inclusion into the game.  It has already spawned a furious array of new designs and has opened up so many doors for new kinds of design possibilities.  Two of my favorites have been Dreaming in Color by PizzaBoy and ANATOMY by Gadoidao.  The first highlights the infusion of colors in many different rooms with a feeling of being in a dream, very well done indeed.  The second is such a great example of the kind of things that can be done with a block art level with the many new options available, not to mention its fun to run through the insides of a giant lizard.  In short, the color pack is brilliant.  At this point the color pack only has blocks, but they have promised some moving platforms to go along with it soon, and I can't wait to use these soon.

As I mentioned earlier, this update has spawned a fury of responses, some positive and some negative.  On the downside, there has been a noticable slow down of performance, both in frame rates and loading times.  There has also been some hiccups with uploading levels (though it seems the problem has been discovered and can be worked around).  But, and I can't stress this enough, this update was HUGE and since there was more content included in this update than any other update in the past (since I joined anyway), this was to be expected.  It only seems natural that the largest update would potentially cause some larger problems.  But, that being said, I think the update actually went about a smoothly as it could have.  Yes, there are some problems, but in the overall scheme of things, this update was a big success.

Community members would do well to keep that in mind when posting in the forums, and cut the hard working folks at MS a little break.  Oh, it's not all been negative, but I think some perspective is in order.  Actually, I always think people could use a healthy dose of perspective.  So, let me end by saying a big Thanks MS for a great update, with tons of features and more coming soon!

P.S. - Sorry, this is kind of late in the game, but at least I posted it before update 9!

Jumpstart 2.20.09

This was another installment of the jumpstart videos for Atmosphir. In it we get to see the final results of the Team 09 Challenge, the announcement of the new Tutorial 09 Challenge with a deadline of March 6, a look at some of the community videos submitted for inclusion in the upcoming game trailer, and a reminder to tune into the Platforms Live event tomorrow at 10 AM EST, plus some more looks at the highly anticipated update 8 which will require a fresh download.

I am happy to say that the levels I thought were the 3 best made it as the top 3 in the contest.  I even got quoted three times, one for each level I voted for.  Honestly, I thought the levels that won deserved it, not just because they were cool levels, but they truly showed a good TEAM effort.  There were probably some levels that perhaps had higher individual merit, but the combination with their teammate wasn't as well executed.  I really felt like frodo and jjjohn0404 made their levels feel like they were designed by one person and this is no small feat.

And, of course, my silliness made it in to this edition as well as I displayed my singing talents for all, ;).   Well, seeing as how I am writing this for me, I hope I enjoyed it.  HAHA, this is still a test of the capabilities of this cool free site provided by webs.com

It looks like we will be having another installment of Platforms Live via Atmosphir's Ustream channel on Tuesday, February, 24 at 10am pst | 1pm est | 6pm gmt.

This will be the Buenos Aires edition hosted by 3 of the developers, Martin, Maximo and Francisco.   So, this is your opportunity to ask your questions to the guys who are in the thick of developing update packs, bug fixes, and creating new in game features.

My expectations are that this live event will be highlighting update 8 with the promise of Character Customization, weapons, plenty of bug fixes, and the new color pack we've all been waiting for.  The last event turned out to be a great time of fun with Okaysamurai showing us how far they had made it into update 8 and taking lots of questions from a crazy group of people who were flooding the live chat.  So, if you have a chance, you really need to be there for this live event.

If you have questions, but don't think you can make it, you can post them HERE  And if you absolutely can't be there, I am sure they will release the full video afterwards in the News section of the website.

I know I'll be there!  Have a great weekend everyone!