Video Game Design: Make Your Own Platformer Games with Atmosphir Game Engine

Who hasn't played Mario, the Legend of Zelda, Raymen, or other video games with platformer and adventure elements, and thought, "I could make this even better!" Well, now you can with the easy-to-use Atmosphir Game Engine, available for free online. Interested? Read on about this fun, new game engine and hear about my experience with this new game model, available for free online.

Atmosphir is built on the Unity Game Engine, winner of multiple awards and developed by Unity Technologies. There are multiple games out on the Unity engine, none incredibly well-known, including Gooball, Cartoon Network's FusionFall, Paradise Paintball, Hyperbowl and Wolfquest (developed by a national zoo). However, I believe the release of Atmosphir, on Unity, will create a lot more attention for this cool 3D engine.

Atmosphir boasts two things: Create your own video games and Play hundreds of different levels, created by others all over the world. So far, I have only jumped into the game playing portion of Atmoshpir and really enjoyed what I have found. Developed by Minor Studies, Atmosphir allows gamers with no coding experience or 3d modeling experience to make their own platformer and adventure games. Alternatively, players can create an account at the Atmosphir website and simply play the loads of different games and levels created through the program. There are some simply stunning ones to try out and Atmosphir really helps bring out the creativity so many gamers have, yet so few get to show off in game design.

Starting out, it is suggest that you first try the tutorial provided by the developers to get the hang of playing the game. Controls for this tutorial are fairly basic: W, A, S, D for forward, left, right, and reverse. Moving the mouse allows the players to change their view, in a full 3D environment. The central game takes places in a great big gaseous world with no solid ground, instead, players jump from buildings and platforms to achieve their goals. The tutorial levels allow you to get the hang of the basic game (grabbing jewels and other items for points, getting used to the jumping and controls, and experiencing the different styles of platforms). From there, you can jump right into playing awesome levels others have made (be sure to check out the Harry Potter: Hogwarts level!) Or, you can create your own levels and mini-games for others to try out. Throw in some multiplayer options or epic boss monsters, and you are set for some amazing PC gaming fun!

I did encounter a few annoying bugs when signing up and registering my character. Several times I got the 'Oops, and error has occurred' popup when making my character. Internet Explorer seemed to be the worst browser to use with Atmoshpir, as I consistently got errors. Instead, Mozilla Firefox worked much better for me.
Currently, Atmosphir is in open beta, so be sure to go sign up and try it out at their website,
www.atmosphir.com today. Atmosphir is supposed to remain free to play, for 90% of the game content, but will include microtransactions for players interested in paying a little real money for some in-game items and greater options. Go make the next Mario!

http://www.atmosphir.com