Atmosphir is a new gaming development platform that was announced at the recent TechCrunch50 conference. The interesting thing about it is that it lets you create rich 3D platform games (which are very similar to Mario 64) by simply dragging and dropping Lego-like blocks on a virtual canvas. The video above shows gameplay and development tools and they both seem quite fun. Games created on Atmosphere can be shared on the platform’s website to let others play and/or edit them if they wish. 

Atmosphir games are created and played using a desktop client for PC and Mac which is currently only available in a private beta (you can sign up for an invitation here). The client will be available for free once the project is fully launched towards the end of 2008.

For more info on Atmosphir you can visit their official website or view the transcript of the Q&A session of Atmosphir during TechCrunch50.