First, how did Minor Studios come to be formed?

I was lucky. Our parent company, Minor Ventures, called up while I was working as a graphic designer in New York. They literally stumbled upon my portfolio website (using StumbleUpon), and asked if I was interested in helping start up an interactive company called Minor Studios. It seemed like a great personal fit with huge potential and creative freedom, so I moved out to San Francisco in early 2007. Now we also have an office in Buenos Aires, which my friend and partner Martin Repetto is heading up.

How did the idea for Atmosphir come about?

Atmosphir started as a series of notebook sketches during a flight out to San Francisco, and revolved around a "Mario meets Lego" concept - the idea of an accessible 3D platforming editor. Like most kids, I loved playing Lego growing up. So I thought - what if you could build these huge video game environments with simple blocks, and then add gameplay elements on the top like life, death, time limits, score, enemies, and more? And since platforming is such a universal pick-up-and-play genre, and running and jumping is a foundational layer in so many games, it made sense to start there. The idea has evolved tremendously since those initial airplane tray table sketches, but the core concept is still there.

Which is more important for Atmosphir: the game or the editor?

We expect the typical 80/20 equation to apply to us as well; 20% will most likely be designers, 80% will be players. So I see the editor as the heart of Atmosphir, and the game as this living, ever-changing organism fueled by that heart. They depend on each other to survive. If we just made a typical 100-level game, it wouldn't have the creativity and replay value of user-generated levels. And if we just made an editor without any way to play your creations, it would be a glorified virtual world. Ultimately, Atmosphir has to be fun, regardless of what mode you're playing in, so we want to treat our designers and players with equal amounts of respect and focus.
How hard was it to make the editor easy to use?

It's been a long process. The editor has gone through more design iterations and heated internal discussions than any other aspect of the game. User testing has played a huge part in driving our design decisions, and we're constantly trying to implement that feedback and refine everything into a better user experience. We want the editor to be simple enough for you to create whatever is brewing in your imagination, but also deep enough for more advanced users to get their hands dirty with tweaking specific parameters. We've also tried to supplement everything with tutorial videos and walkthroughs, as well as the ability to break apart any existing level and see how other designers make things.

The game itself is a platformer. How much variety can be made in the game's editor to make different kinds of experiences?

When you look at so many modern games, platforming (running and jumping) is at the core of the gameplay. So it's not too difficult to imagine adding in new blocks like vehicles, weapons, sports equipment, bosses, puzzle elements, or whatever into the mix. Mixing gameplay styles is something we're really interested in and excited about. I don't know if anyone has made an underwater zombie go-kart RPG/FPS hybrid, but my hope is future iterations of Atmosphir will allow just that. Our current focus is getting the platforming part down, since that's really our grounding layer. As Atmosphir evolves over time, the sky's the limit.