DIGIPENDENCE - declare yours!

Originally code-named ‘Apricot’, Yo Frankie! (Wikipedia) is the third open project from the Blender Institute. Unlike Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny, and the forth-coming Durian, You Frankie! is a game, not a film although the main character in the game is from Big Buck Bunny. It was released under a Creative Commons Attribution license 3.0.

The original project goal was to work on a cross platform game (at least Linux, Windows, OS X), using Blender for modeling and animation, Crystal Space as 3D engine and delivery platform, and Python for some magic scripting to glue things together. The purpose was to not only make a compelling 3D game experience, but especially to improve and validate the open source 3D game creation pipeline, with industry-standard conditions. Halfway during the project, we noticed the great advances made in Blender’s internal Game Engine, so we’ve added delivering the project entirely in Blender as a target for Apricot as well.

“Here’s a new run-through of the game in the Blender game engine, this time with the music playing in the game, 4x antialiasing, and a decent frame rate. There’s also a multiplayer demo at the end. ENABLE HQ after pressing play.”

Both the game and its engine may be downloaded from here. Source files are included. There are also a number of video tutorials available, and people are encouraged to expand the game by making additions such as levels and characters. Check the project page for more information. Keep an eye on the blog too as there are contests; for example, some very nice cash prizes (1st Prize - 250 Euros, 2nd Prize - 150 Euro, 3rd Prize - 100 Euro) were recently awarded for the levels competition. And of course, all the winning entries are available for download.

There’s also a DVD that can be purchased and “by getting the DVD you’re directly supporting future Blender Foundation’s projects like this, as well as Blender’s development itself”. Here is the official documentation, and GameBlender.org is a good resource for people interested in game development with the BGE.