14 DAY TRIAL // Project Spark is a rather ambitious endeavor, designed to be a game creation tool for Microsoft platforms Windows 8.1 and Xbox One.
The application is still in development by Team Dakota, but it has just entered a closed beta testing phase.
The project home page accepts beta sign up, but the Windows 8.1 beta invites will only be sent out to a few people at first, according to the official Project Spark Twitter account.
Microsoft missed the originally disclosed beta starting date of October, as Neowin points out. Nonetheless, Microsoft has said that “hundreds of thousands of fans” have already signed up to participate.
The project features a wide array of tools that allow for the quick creation and customization of worlds, characters and mechanics. It contains basically everything needed to build a fully functional game.
The best thing about it is the creative freedom it offers its users, as the tool set can be used to create varied environments, and the end result can be anything from a Space Invaders look-alike to a first person shooter.
From what could be seen in the various showcases available, the game creation tool is able to create amazingly striking settings with ease, while allowing any alterations to be intuitively operated.
Microsoft first demoed an alpha version of the project earlier this year, during the E3 conference. Enthusiasm stirred in users all around the world when Microsoft announced that the game-making video game will be a free download.
Players will be able to generate their own content or download and edit other users' content by using the Xbox controller, keyboard, mouse, touch-devices, Kinekt and SmartGlass.
Additional details and videos of the development tool in action can be found on the Project Spark homepage. Project Spark has also been demoed on the Surface Pro Win 8 tablet, but Microsoft pointed out that the beta will not work on Windows RT (Surface and Surface 2 tablets).