Project Spark Beta and Content Sharing Detailed

For those of you eager to get a taste of Microsoft’s Project Spark, the beta sign-ups are now open.

Project Spark is the latest addition to world-building games on consoles. The game is currently in alpha, and at this time, the beta is only available for Windows 8 PCs. Beta testers will help generate content in preparation for day one of the final version. You can sign up at joinprojectspark.com.

Today, the devs also gave some more insight into how user-generated content sharing works. 

In similar fashion to the LittleBigPlanet series, Project Spark allows users to create their own worlds – be it an episode of Miami Vice or a reincarnation of a scene from Skyrim – and share them with an online community. Dave McCarthy from Microsoft Studios explained to Gamespot how this sharing system works. 

Tags and Voting System

User-generated content will be tagged. For example, you could search for worlds labeled “first-person shooter” or filter out characters tagged “mechs”. Other search filters would include the usual “most popular”, that employs the catalog voting system. You can even browse through the dev team’s hand-picked favourite content or their editorial section.

As an added bonus, seamless cross-platform compatibility enables players to create a world on a console, tweak it on a tablet, and play it on a PC. 

Unique Features Per Platform

With this compatibility come unique features for every platform. The Xbox One version will utilize the Kinect‘s speech-recognition command functions to let you design your world. As seen in the E3 demo, you can tell the Kinect to select different kinds of terrain for you, to move objects around, and much more.

Likewise, the Windows 8 PC and tablet versions will similarly utilize their platform’s functions, but more details on this will be revealed later on this summer. For now, the devs are careful to preserve seamless transitioning between platforms.

Project Spark is aiming for the same launch window as Xbox One, so expect it sometime around the end of this year. It will available on Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Windows 8.