MOD Spotlight: AtmOsphir - The Portal Mod, Atlympics Bracket Released, Various Blog Notes

Portal, the 3D Puzzle game brought to us by Valve Corporation, has been around for awhile (Since October 9^th, 2007). References to the game have been used all over the internet, the most of which is “The Cake Is a Lie” as well as the ending theme, Still Alive (Performed by GLaDOS/Jonathan Coulton). Portal is a First-Person puzzle game focusing on the creation of portals; one orange, one blue. When you enter one portal, you reappear through the other. Using this technology, the player must solve various puzzles under the direction of GLaDOS (Genetic Life-form and Disc Operating System), a mysterious voice that seems to control the facility, Aperture Science. I would recommend picking up a copy of the game, as it is an incredible experience.

There have been some levels created in Atmosphir attempting to imitate Portal using various methods. The lack of teleportation in Atmosphir makes this rather difficult, however. There have been a few clever attempts at replicating the concept, but none of them give the feeling of a true Portal.

While looking through the Creative Spotlight Forum, I discovered AtmOsphir: The Portal Mod, created by Drfuzzyness, Kaiserg, Adz, and Bramblepath. For those of you who do not know, a Mod is basically a set of textures that replace the default textures in your game directory. In the game, the effect is a new game experience. The original textures you received with the game have been replaced with the ones that you just downloaded. You can restore the default textures simply by replacing the modified textures with the originals.

AtmOsphir modifies textures to resemble the environment from Portal. For example, the movable box now looks like the infamous Companion Cube, and tree limbs now appear to be metal piping. Various other blocks and such appear to be the walls and floors from Portal. Some levels have been made to be used with the AtmOsphir mod, and are usually labeled with this image on the Forums:

This image means that the level will look fairly natural with the AtmOsphir Mod.

This image means that the level will require the AtmOsphir Mod to look normal.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of mods. They really serve no purpose but to alter the experience of Atmosphir. But when I stumbled upon this mod, I had to take a look. What really drew me in was the refined product. Not only were you given the textures, but you also received a PDF (Adobe Reader) explaining the setup of the mod (for both Mac and PC users), as well as various information about it. I don’t know a whole lot about mods, but from what I have seen, there are few with this much time and effort put into it. Thank you to the team who made this possible!

The thread for AtmOsphir can be found here: http://www.atmosphir.com/forum/index.php?topic=6281.0

In other news, the bracket for the Atlympics has been released. It can be found here: http://8-bitstudios.co.cc/Bracket.pdf - You will need Adobe Reader to view this. Don’t know what the Atlympics are? It’s too late to register, but the information can be found here: http://www.atmosphir.com/forum/index.php?topic=6138.0

In blog-related news, I’m having some issues with getting the blog noticed. I’ve yet to hear a negative response regarding it (If you’re holding one back, please don’t! I need honest opinions if I want this to work). Therefore, I feel that The Atmosphiran has a decent shot at becoming something more than just a hobby that nobody cares about. Right now, however, nobody has commented on the forum page, and it’s rapidly sinking. Odds are that if it falls off page one at this stage, it will never come back. Therefore, please leave a comment there telling me what you think, whether it’s good or bad. I can only do so much when it comes to this.

The official Atmosphiran Thread can be found here: http://www.atmosphir.com/forum/index.php?topic=6561.0

Thanks for reading, and please stay with me!