Microsoft first unveiled its Project Spark game maker project back at E3 with a promise of a launch later this year. Today at Gamescom, Microsoft is revealing it will launch Project Spark beta for Windows 8 in October. Project Spark is essentially a game maker within a game, letting players build custom worlds, characters, and animations from an Xbox One, PC, or through a SmartGlass app. Everything is customizable, and you can even share the finished game, or edit other friend's projects.

Although Kinect integration was previously promised, Microsoft is detailing how it all works together today with the Xbox One. Project Spark will include voice and motion capture with Kinect to let players capture facial animations, body motion, and voice, and then create custom characters and dialog in their games. Kinect users can record their own face and then use it for an in-game character, or record custom body motions and assign them as an attack move in games. A new video shows off some of the games possible through Project Spark, and Microsoft says the closed beta will start for Windows 8 devices in October and January 2014 for Xbox One.