Interesting that they made it with Godot. I thought Blender still had their own Blender Game Engine, but apparently it was officially retired in 2019 [1].
This looks incredibly wholesome. A giant dog wandering snowy woods, helping a kid? That's peak comfort game vibes.
doodlesdev · 7h ago
Does anyone know of a technical breakdown for the development of this game? Apparently, the 3D assets are real paper objects that have gone through a photogrammetry pipeline, but I've found no information about how they did it! A few years ago, I remember Meshroom [0] being the OSS reference for this, but I'm not sure what you'd use nowadays for this. I'm also curious about the Godot stuff, since I would imagine Blender Studio would've used Armory 3D [1] a few years ago to do this, after BGE went defunct. (Happy they went with Godot though, much more promising).
They've published a series of articles on this project:
>So this is how a lot of our assets ended up being primarily designed in real life as painted paper-cutout models. The models are then photographed, taken apart and scanned. Some paint samples are also created specifically to become tileable.
The paper objects were unfolded, scanned/photographed, imported into Blender, and mapped onto 3D Models of the objects; no photogrammetry was used afaik.
It's nice that the free game engine options are so much richer now than they were in 2008; if memory serves they had trouble implementing Go Frankie fully in the blender game engine, so they made one version in BGE and another in Crystal Space.
Now you can just use Godot.
TimByte · 51m ago
What Go Frankie would've looked like if they had Godot back then
Wowfunhappy · 9h ago
Is apricot any good? I happen to love 3d platformers, but the trailer was not encouraging.
spauldo · 2h ago
It didn't feel finished to me - you could wander around the forest and interact with some stuff but I was never able to figure out what the "game" was. That might just be me, though - I'm not a gamer, really.
Note this was the old Blender before the UI rework and the game engine used here was removed from Blender. I believe the game engine stuff they have now is completely different code.
3036e4 · 1h ago
I bought the Apricot DVD (or was it a CDROM?) to support Blender, and I still have it somewhere. I think all the contents (assets) were also posted online later anyway. Game seemed more like a tech demo and it did not run very well at least on my computer back then.
Still like the old Blender UI, in some ways it felt less bloated and easier to use than the newer "friendlier" UI, but I am happy to hear they moved on to focus on Godot support instead of maintaining their own game engine.
manbash · 9h ago
This looks great. Just a note though that this is "free as in beer". If you want the source code you'd need to login and pay, it seems.
> The license of our sources is a bit muddled. We'll try to clear that up asap. The full production repository is CC-BY since it mostly includes the original art assets. The source code of the game is GPLv3 since since [sic] that makes more sense for the code base of the project.
They just aren't distributing the source for free, it seems, but you are free to redistribute it however you'd like.
cyphar · 7h ago
If the source code is actually GPLv3 then they should be distributing the sources without any additional charges (section 6(d) is very clear on this point). Of course, if they are the sole copyright holder they can make up additional rules, but I bristle with describing this as free software under the GPLv3. As it stands, they are implicitly dual-licensing it under a proprietary and GPLv3 license.
Personally, if I was one of the people that bought the source code, I would just upload it on GitHub since you have the right to do so.
kleiba · 2h ago
The license determines the conditions under which you are allowed to use the program. Section 6(d) thus only states that you cannot charge others for the source code, but that does not constrain their ability to charge you.
This changes, of course, if they are using any third-party GPLv3'ed code - because then they become a redistributor of that code in which case clause 6(d) applies and they must redistribute that code free of charge.
wizzwizz4 · 27m ago
Free of charge to anyone who receives the binary: this doesn't mean "everyone in the world".
gpm · 8h ago
They are distributing for free. For free, they are distributing a compiled version of the game which I have no source to, and no license to creative derivative works of, or to perform or display publicly, and so on.
That thing, which they call Dogwalk, and are distributing for free, is clearly not open source.
The other thing, which they probably also call dogwalk, and they'll give you if you pay them presumably is open source (or maybe the more accurate term is "free software" since the source isn't publicly available - i.e. open), but that doesn't make the download on the page linked by HN open source.
manbash · 9h ago
> They just aren't distributing the source for free, it seems, but you are free to redistribute it however you'd like.
Yes, that was my point. I will know the license when I see it in the distributed code :)
> If I distribute GPLed software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
> No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
cyphar · 7h ago
But they are distributing binaries of the game to the public for free[1] -- the text you quoted describes the exact opposite situation to what is happening. In this particular case you cannot charge separately for source code under the GPLv3 -- see section 6(d).
Of course, if they are the sole copyright holder, they can dual-license things under a GPL and proprietary license (which is effectively what they are doing here -- the DogWalk binaries available from the linked page are not GPLv3 binaries because they are not following the GPLv3 requirements). But this situation is absolutely not permitted under the GPLv3. Otherwise a company could fork a GPL'd project and just avoid releasing GPL'd source code by charging $1B for the source code.
> If you want the source code you'd need to login and pay, it seems.
So… like the GPL?
modernerd · 3h ago
Played this for about an hour on release day.
Pros: charming character and environment design, beautiful modelling, animation and sound. A good demo of what Blender and a talented team can make. It's worth downloading to experience.
Cons: on macOS I saw slow startup (it beachballs for seconds before showing the opening screen), which seems to be a consistent thing for Godot macOS exports. Also choppy performance (stuttering movement in heavy forest scenes, dropped frames). At present it serves as a good promo for Blender but less so for 3D in Godot.
TimByte · 48m ago
Still, as a proof-of-concept and Blender showcase, it's super impressive
modernerd · 44m ago
Agreed, didn't mean to take away from that.
I subscribe to the blog and have learned a lot from the Blender Studio team to see their process:
Perhaps the beachball is Gatekeeper reaching out to Apple's servers to verify notarization? It seems a little faster on subsequent launches but still beachballs for ~2 seconds.
nirui · 1h ago
Protip: you need to pull the kid when his trying to pull VLC out of the river ice. I was sitting there for a half minute watching him doing it without realizing I'm part of the action. But what do I know? His not asking for help and I'm just a dog.
mkw5053 · 7h ago
Very cool, I wish there was a web version though! I have no idea how difficult it would be to port.
vyrotek · 6h ago
Godot will export for web if it was coded with gdscript. Unfortunately, C# web export hasn't been released yet.
troupo · 4h ago
I joked somewhere that Unity remain the only ones who have never shipped a game of their own
modernerd · 38m ago
Not for long, though — they're now building something in-house with the help of Konami.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_Game_Engine
[0]: https://alicevision.org/#meshroom [1]: https://armory3d.org/engine/
>So this is how a lot of our assets ended up being primarily designed in real life as painted paper-cutout models. The models are then photographed, taken apart and scanned. Some paint samples are also created specifically to become tileable.
https://studio.blender.org/blog/devlog-papercraft-woods/#mak...
https://studio.blender.org/search/?type=post&project_title=D...
It's nice that the free game engine options are so much richer now than they were in 2008; if memory serves they had trouble implementing Go Frankie fully in the blender game engine, so they made one version in BGE and another in Crystal Space.
Now you can just use Godot.
Note this was the old Blender before the UI rework and the game engine used here was removed from Blender. I believe the game engine stuff they have now is completely different code.
Still like the old Blender UI, in some ways it felt less bloated and easier to use than the newer "friendlier" UI, but I am happy to hear they moved on to focus on Godot support instead of maintaining their own game engine.
https://studio.blender.org/projects/dogwalk/gallery/?asset=8...
> The license of our sources is a bit muddled. We'll try to clear that up asap. The full production repository is CC-BY since it mostly includes the original art assets. The source code of the game is GPLv3 since since [sic] that makes more sense for the code base of the project.
They just aren't distributing the source for free, it seems, but you are free to redistribute it however you'd like.
Personally, if I was one of the people that bought the source code, I would just upload it on GitHub since you have the right to do so.
This changes, of course, if they are using any third-party GPLv3'ed code - because then they become a redistributor of that code in which case clause 6(d) applies and they must redistribute that code free of charge.
That thing, which they call Dogwalk, and are distributing for free, is clearly not open source.
The other thing, which they probably also call dogwalk, and they'll give you if you pay them presumably is open source (or maybe the more accurate term is "free software" since the source isn't publicly available - i.e. open), but that doesn't make the download on the page linked by HN open source.
Yes, that was my point. I will know the license when I see it in the distributed code :)
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
> If I distribute GPLed software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
> No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
Of course, if they are the sole copyright holder, they can dual-license things under a GPL and proprietary license (which is effectively what they are doing here -- the DogWalk binaries available from the linked page are not GPLv3 binaries because they are not following the GPLv3 requirements). But this situation is absolutely not permitted under the GPLv3. Otherwise a company could fork a GPL'd project and just avoid releasing GPL'd source code by charging $1B for the source code.
[1]: https://studio.blender.org/projects/dogwalk/gallery/?asset=8...
So… like the GPL?
Pros: charming character and environment design, beautiful modelling, animation and sound. A good demo of what Blender and a talented team can make. It's worth downloading to experience.
Cons: on macOS I saw slow startup (it beachballs for seconds before showing the opening screen), which seems to be a consistent thing for Godot macOS exports. Also choppy performance (stuttering movement in heavy forest scenes, dropped frames). At present it serves as a good promo for Blender but less so for 3D in Godot.
I subscribe to the blog and have learned a lot from the Blender Studio team to see their process:
https://studio.blender.org/projects/dogwalk/production-logs/
This is usually related to code signing and notarization
xcrun stapler validate /path/to/DogWalk.app
…shows:
DogWalk.app does not have a ticket stapled to it
(But spctl --assess --type exec --verbose /path/to/DogWalk.app shows it's notarized as expected.)
Perhaps the beachball is Gatekeeper reaching out to Apple's servers to verify notarization? It seems a little faster on subsequent launches but still beachballs for ~2 seconds.
https://gamefromscratch.com/unity-finally-start-developing-g...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPta7CBDd0E