Should B4W games be allowed in the BGMC?

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Today someone asked if Blend 4 Web games can be included in the Blender Game Making Contest. My first thought was that yes, as it’s just a webplayer plugin (like Burster) it should be allowed. But after taking a look at B4W it seems a bit more separate from BGE than I realized.

I think it’s fair to say that for this BGMC (#21 UNDERGROUND), B4W games are allowed if they’ve already started making one. But we need to discuss about what happens from BGMC 22 onwards.

I’m posting a poll about this question since it’s not my decision, but should be taken by the regular users of Blender Artists forum and the Moderators here (Prof Monster for one).

Whatever the result of the Poll, the Moderators can Veto it if they have objections. But it would be good to know how the community feels about it.

Here’s my post from the BGMC announcement thread with some background:

I’m torn on allowing blend4web games, since this is really a BGE contest. At first I thought it was just an add-on like Burster (which plays BGE games through a web browser) but it does seem to be its own engine. The developers of B4W contacted me today to offer to sponsor the contest with a prize for the winner… I wonder if it would be better to have a vote and allow b4w from the next contest as there’s only 4 days left of this one.

I think for now, if you’ve already started making a game with blend 4 web you can include it as long as it’s under 12 mb, I think the source files should be available so people can learn about making games for b4w by taking a look at your files, but you can include a URL link so people can play it on line. The normal rules apply though, this is a contest for non-commercial games made within the 7 day time requirement.

How about the other questions?

  1. Should we accept the sponsorship of B4W and their prize for the winner (it’s a nice big prize, 150$+)?
  2. Now that there are several different game engines spawning out of Blender (like BDX and UPBGE) should we expand the BGMC to include those other engines/forks?
  3. Should we allow other game engines (Unity etc…) if all the assets are made in Blender, or is the whole point of BGMC that the games should be made with the BGE?

I didn’t start the BGMC so these aren’t really my questions to answer unilaterally, there’s also the fact that the contest is hosted here on Blender Artists forum, so we’d have to either explore other hosting options or abide by whatever the moderators decide.

Personally I like that the BGMC is a BGE focused contest, I think it’s the main reason it’s lasted so long (5 years already!), it’s a regular feature of the Blender Artists Forums and I’d hate for it lose its way because of chasing bigger prizes and more widespread audience.

Please give me your opinions!

EDIT: It’s supposed to be a multiple choice poll, but it’s not letting me add a second vote, so please choose the option you most agree with.

2

I think it needs to be limited to official blender plugins/addons. So if, say, blend4web was an official addon (came prepackaged with every blender install), then I would say go for it.

The thing that makes BGMC’s different from other game making contests is that it’s all BGE. People can give useful advise because they are all working in the same tool. As soon as we introduce different tools/game engines, the community aspect of the contest will vanish.

UPBGE is blurry for me. At this stage I’d say no, simply because it means to play the BGMC games you’d need to have multiple versions of blender installed. In my mind, BGMC’s should require you to use the latest blender version. I know in my case that if a game requires a build-bot version, UPBGE, 2.49, 2.69 or even 2.72, there is little chance I will bother to play/vote for it.

At it’s root, this question is:

  • What makes a blender game a blender game?

And in my mind the answer is:

  • It runs in the BGE.
3

I chose the two in the middle :1 Sorry B4W and other engines.

The BGMC is lots of fun, but the real beauty of it, for me, has always been that I get to learn how others use the BGE!

I’ve been at this for years, but I learn something new pretty much every day, and I love it :slight_smile:
If other engines are allowed in the contest, I think it would diminish the BGE :S

That being said, I voted for UPBGE aswell - maybe because I fear for the future of the BGE : 1

4

I would argue that we shouldn’t shut out innovation in the blender game space. Everyone knows the official engine is stalled and alternatives like UPBGE and Blend4Web are rising to replace it. I don’t think there’s a philosophical problem so long as blender is still the IDE.

The real problem is that games need to be playable out-of-the-box, and if you’re not using stock blender, then you’re gonna have to upload binaries for multiple platforms. As least with Blend4Web you can deploy to browsers.

As far as the all-games pack, I wouldn’t bother including binaries. Hell if it gets too popular we won’t be able to have an all-games pack anyway.
Simply listing all games in a central location is probably good enough.

5

What I know for sure - allow UPBGE. I’m not gone live if you don’t allow it. Even though I will do a 2-step conversion to BFBGE, I still use UPBGE for development as it is way higher tech than BGE:)

6

if may suggest…
x - open source engines working with blender

Blender Inc. along with another category Blender&Co.

Overall, best is ppls choice/vote.

7

Well, the community has spoken.
No one is interested in other engines, such as Unity being included in the competition, but there is a lot of interest in the various offshoots of BGE such as UPBGE and Blend4Web. I think it’s going to be up to each host of the BGMC as to whether they open the contest to those offshoots, as some will be more enthusiastic about them than others.

I’ll talk to the B4W guys and put a notice about their prize on the BGMC announcement thread.

I don’t fear for the the future of BGE, but I do feel that anything that comes next is less likely to be so monolithic as BGE has been. There will probably be different ways of programming (logic nodes, code etc…) and different ways of exporting projects.

The issue still remains that people have to have a method of playing your game, and we also want to keep the open source nature of the BGMC. People want to look at what other people have done (especially the winners) and find out how they can improve their own games. So I’m not keen on uploading .exe files (not everyone runs windows) or having only a link to the game which runs in a browser. I also think that unless there’s a really compelling reason for not using the vanilla BGE it’s best to stick with it, I for one don’t want to have to download multiple versions of Blender as well as forks and other engines each time just for playing one or two games which don’t use the latest version of BGE.

In other words, if you use something other than BGE your game should be able to do something that BGE can’t (like run on my phone or have much better performance or graphics).

8

Why not open it even more and allow to use other game engines as well (option 4). It will probably have more community involvement, more competition, new ideas and even more opportunity to learn.

9

No. Because the name is Blender Game Making Challenge. There’s no point on including other engines, it will confuse everyone when testing the games, and since you need to provide the source code, it will force us to download the other engines (UE4 > 4GB, Unity ~ 2GB, etc…). I wouldn’t vote for a game that forces me to download new software just to play it once.
Plus it’s NOT fair since some engines provide pre-made assets.

10

My opinion is that we should not mix playback engines inside a single BGMC. Simply because I don’t want to download multiple versions of Blender and wait 20 minutes for a webpage to download all resources to my pc so I can start the game for each BGMC.

I think we can organize a UPBGE BGMC where UPBGE will be promoted and used to make all games, so everyone will have to download UPBGE so they can test all games. The same applies to B4W.

Including other engines like Unity and Unreal Engine is something that goes against the point of BGMC, because its a personal Challenge to Make a Game in Blender. There are other game dev contests and game jams that you can join with other engines, this is the only one that is for Blender community only.

Just my personal opinion.

11

I thank blend4web is allowed because it very strongly connected to blender than other engine like Unity and Unreal. It reproduces the behavior of blender viewport and it allows to export your project to web, but it looks the same as in blender. It more close to Blender than other engines.

12

none of them are allowed and this is good. if you want to make a gamemaking contest for b4w, go and make it somewhere else. this contest is for blendergameengine only and your poll is undemocratic and gerrymandering because a voter doesnt have the chance to vote none of the engines. shame on you.

13

One of the poll options is “vanilla” i.e. normal blender game engine only, nothing else allowed. I only use the BGE myself, but with the uncertainty surrounding blender 2.8 a lot of people are learning to use other variants based on blender but with some changes. For example UPBGE gets rid of the multitexture mode and makes some other improvements but is otherwise almost the same as the vanilla BGE. Another long running option is the Burster plugin which converts BGE games to run in a web browser. Others make more radical changes like blend 4 web which uses Java for scripting and some kind of logic nodes I think for visual programming. The question is where to draw the line between a modified blender game engine and a completely new engine.

That’s why I posted this poll.

The main point of the BGMC is to have fun and learn about Blender. For the person hosting the contest though it can be a little stressful. People get upset because they don’t like the theme or disagree with the rules, other people want to use a different engine or don’t want to upload their blend for fear that others will “steal” their work so they upload a executable which mac and linux users cant play. Some people finish late or don’t mark their thread correctly and their entry gets missed out, then they feel bad. Last time there was a lot of argument about the outcome and voting, despite the fact that the host had spent a lot of time and effort setting up a special webpage and clearly stated how the votes would be counted. Then there’s the fact that the host can’t take part in the contest… all in all I prefer competing in the BGMC to hosting it.

I want to help make the contest as accessible as possible so people can join in whether they are experienced developers or complete newbs. I’ve considered in the past having different categories for experience (beginner, intermediate and advanced) so people have something to aim for, or different categories for different engines, but the competition isnt that big. Sometimes there are 15 entries other times just 6. If more people take part then maybe we can try out some new things and see what the BGMC can become. Let’s see how BGMC 21 goes and maybe next time we can try out some new ideas.

14

Sounds wise enaugh!

Hm… When I first arrived BGE forums and the community, it felt way better, more clean, peaceful and well aranged. Now I see many arguments and problems. Hm… Why’s that?
However, I am glad that still some of the old good people who I remember from the moment when I joined - some are still here and they tell what needs to be told.
Full respect to Smoking_mirror for handling this horror. No worries - after 3 days you’ll be free from this luggage:D

3 days!? Holy cow! I’m getting too late.
Sorry guys, I got some more important work to do than joining long discussions. I gotta make something for BGMC.

Good luck and God bless you!:slight_smile: