Can people import textures and character models into Atmosphir's editor?

Not yet, but that's certainly something we'll be working towards for the future. Every 3D object in Atmosphir was brought into the game using an in-house exporter program, so we have the means to do it. It's just not at a user-friendly, professional quality level yet, so things will take a little more care and thought before it's ready. This is the blessing and the curse of Atmosphir - there are so many great, creative ideas we want to incorporate since the game is so open-ended, but as a small team, we have limited time and resources to address them all right away. We'll get there eventually.

You launched the beta late last month. So far have you been surprised at how the game's testers have used it to make new levels?

Absolutely - I live and breathe this game every day, and am still surprised at what's possible. We've seen huge pixel art levels where you jump around 50-story hollowed skulls or giant statues. We've seen worlds inspired by Mario, Prince of Persia, and even Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Some designers started using the speed and jump powerups to create racetrack levels, where you run insanely fast and make seemingly impossible jumps from checkpoint to checkpoint before time runs out...seeing new genres and gameplay styles emerge like that is awesome. I can't wait to see what happens when we add in some of the upcoming themes and blocks in the pipeline.

Will there be any multiplayer support for the game in the future?

Multiplayer is probably our #1 request, for both players and designers alike. It's definitely on the way. We decided to start with the single player experience and build out from there, but everything has been built with multiplayer very much in mind. While I'm sure we'll have Atmosphir versions of the usual favorites like capture the flag and deathmatch, I'm most interested in the new types of competitive online play that designers will come up with.
We seem to be living in the era of easy to make content for games for titles like Spore and LittleBigPlanet. How does Atmosphir fit into this genre?

LBP and Spore are inspiring, incredible games, and I wish I had the horsepower of the PS3 or the budget of EA to work with. As an indie developer working on our first game, we're testing out some new ideas around creative gameplay and seeing what works. As a free, crossplatform game that runs on the average home computer, we're reaching out to a broad potential audience with a small barrier to entry. I think there's plenty of room for all sorts of user-generated games like these to co-exist, since they all offer such different experiences - I enjoy that about our industry.

When can we expect to download the final PC version?

Hopefully by the end of the year. We need to continue optimizing and polishing, squashing the remaining bugs, and adding in a few key features and content pieces. Looking at the current mountain of beta feedback, that might be overly-optimistic, so we'll see how it goes.

Since the game is supposed to be free, do you have plans to release a "premium" version for money?

A premium version may exist one day, but one of our central goals has been keeping Atmosphir free to play. We also want to listen to the community when considering the future of the game. So if they ask for things like a paid premium game, an iPhone version, or a fireball chicken action figure, we will try our best to meet those expectations and include their input during the development process.

You can sign up for the beta test of Atmosphir at the game's official web site.