will there also be a game proyect for durian ???
like yo frankie for peach ?
I think that the plan (tentatively) is to follow Durian with a live action project with compositing, but the only current projects that we know anything about are Durian and Blender 2.5.
yeah, that would be effin’ awesome! 
right after mango, that is.
No game project planned. In one of the interviews, Ideasman42 said BF is not fond of having another game project, due to the nature of games. With films, you have to make ~10 minutes of CG animation stuff and you’re done. With games, things are more complicated due to their interactive nature and it’s harder to define how much effort you’ll need for a game and it’s harder to make proper and precise plans.
Well, I can weigh into this one a bit as part of the team.
No game is planned.
However, there is no reason a game can’t be made. With the release of all the production files (once we make them of course) it will be up to the community what happens after. I’ve been playing around with the baking tools and opengl shading a lot lately at work (here in Adelaide) and I would be very tempted to make low poly versions of some of the main characters and creatures for someone to start playing with.
But, that would probably be after the project, after I’ve had a rest and then in the time I have spare beyond that. So I wouldn’t rule some sort of game out, but I seriously doubt it will be a Blender Foundation run project.
No point squishing all hope at this early stage eh?
Yeah, the problem with game development is that it is WAY more complicated than creating a CG short film.
However, I think it would be nice to give another boost to Blender’s GE.
Maybe after Project Mango?
In my oppinion, a game project would be a major waste of time and wouldn’t contribute with anything good. There are so many good GPL’d engines out there that make BGE completely useless. The only role Blender really has in game development is in modeling and animation. I say stick to projects like Orange, Peach and Durian, because they are the ones that make huge leaps forward.
Now, for example a live-action compositing project sounds like a pretty good idea. Think of all the goodies that might bring - camera tracking, motion tracking, 3D scanning, or maybe lipsync perhaps?
As an official project for the Blender Foundation, another game project might not be such a good idea due to the complex nature of game design in relation to the planning of a video short. I’m not asying that video is simple by any means, just that video has concept, character design, animation, scripting, environment creation and redering magic. Game creation has all these things plus adding interactivity to the storyline, non-linear storyline (possibly), realtime interactivity, skill balancing, user interface, physics/collision considerations for all environments, optimization issues, intuitive control mechanics, etc.
I like the (implied) suggestion by BenDansie that a community-led game project might follow on from Durian. If a project such as this takes off with a substantial number of the talented Blender users onboard then the community model might be more successful in this undertaking. I am aware that up to now, most (if not all) community projects have failed to reach completion. However, an engaging concept that can be supported enthusiastically such as one inspired by Durian might just be the rallying call that the community needs to get together and seriously put a game together. Concept art from the video could provide for the mood and the artistic style of the game. This is an area that has been somewhat lacking in the projects that I’ve seen so far.
Storyline would be something of an issue though, and the project would certainly need a lead that is enthusiastic enough and flexible enough in their ideas to take the project to completion.
It seems like an interesting possibility, but needs some serious thought and coordination.
I’m all for game dev, it is a shame to close a door on creativity and options in general…like wile cyote, his plans never worked the first time, but he never tried the same thing twice either, implementing improvements.
Hmm. A community lead game is what I was hinting at I suppose, but I was thinking of keeping it the size of a tech demo. (At first anyway.) One level, three or four characters and no more complex than that. Something to show it can be done rather than something people can play on end for hours.
If this single level (if it were a fighting game, could be quite small level wise) was built in the same way as YoFrankie with the library linking, it should be quite easy to build it as a template for further levels. So if someone did take it on to make some sort of game from Durian material I would suggest that plan of attack. No multiple story concepts, character arcs, weapon upgrades etc. Just one very small, playable (but polished!) level / tech demo.
Keep it intentionally small.
Finish the small version off.
Then regroup.
@BenDansie: Absolutely. Small and fairly polished to begin with. I merely raised story branching, character progression, player skill progression (easy to pick up, a challenge to finish the game, hard to master the controls to godlike competence) in order to illustrate the challenges that would face a Blender Foundation project above and beyond the technical challenges and the artistic challenges.
I emphasized a community development model due to the large amount of asset creation and integration (level design) that could quickly overwhelm a small team. I am not a skilled artist/developer but I appreciate both art and games and have dabbled with creating both. Art needs to look good from a pre-determined camera perspective. Games need to look good and be engaging to the player dependent on the whims of the player (“what’s over there?”, “can I get up there?”, “why is this area of the level so completely devoid of interest, what’s the point of it?”).
If you were to create modeled and textured gaming models that could make use of some of the fighting animations from the film (or maybe use the actions from the film as templates) then I’d love to have a go at a basic game with excellent combat. My favourite action games of all time are “Prince of Persia: Warrior Within” and “God of War” (maybe check them out for inspiration for the film if you’re not familiar with them?). The reason for this is a control mechanic that when mastered provides for highly intuitive, acrobatic and diverse combat facing multiple enemies. I loved these games so much that I devoted the time to mastering the combat style and finishing them on hardest difficulty. Games like these are rare and it would be great to see an open game that even aspired to such immersion.
First priorities for a game based on Durian should be:
Fluid, intuitive combat with style.
A good mood to the presentation.
The promise of wonderful things to come.
Context and story would be provided by the film so would not be needed in the demo.
A simple goal such as “escape from the castle” or “retrieve the amulet from the cave” would be sufficient to showcase development and would be a modest aim with a sense of closure for the developers when done.
I think that another game project would be very beneficial to Blender, as we found with the Apricot project, I dont think the idea of another game project should be shot down due to ‘the nature of games’.
We saw how Apricot brought life back into the BGE and gaming side of the Blender community, which was struggling to survive with an uncertain future beforehand.
Now look at what that one project has done, its brought a very nice upgraded game engine and a LOT of new features, bug fixes and speedups. Of course if your not into the BGE side of things a game project is next to useless, but I think its a great thing for the rest of the community, especially those who use Blender only for interactive things.
Also the Apricot project wasnt a good demonstration of a well organized game project in my opinion, and I’m not blaming the team or anyone, it was just the nature of what was planned and what came of that, mainly the disastrous fallout of the CS side of the project, which cost a lot of time. But at least from that fallout we learnt that the BGE was (with a few upgrades) capable of. Now imagine what the BGE could be capable of with a lot more planning and even more upgrades.
So perhaps we can look at it like this:
The Apricot project showed us not to go with risky plans (choosing to use an alternate engine of a completely different make). The next project should use the BGE and only the BGE from the beginning to the end. This gives the project a solid base to start on and progress from. After that whats so hard about planning a game project??? Story and concept done by this date, models/levels have to be done by this date, animation by here, logic and programming by here, and so on. I mean thats exactly how other projects are organised, so the same applys to game projects.
It might be a bit of a risk and huge challenge overall (isnt Durian tho?), but when you look at the publicity, interest and developments to Blender’s little gem we call the BGE, itself then I think its well worth it.
I also dont think a community project would be best, unless some top guns were involved, there just wouldn’t be the backing the project would need (needed features or BGE upgrades wouldn’t be possible - so there goes a main benefit of a project)
The best you could hope for from a community project would be for it to actually be completed to a satisfactory level.
Although as Ben suggests a smallish techdemo would probubly be the best approach if anything was to happen.
@AD-Edge, you sum it up quite well.
@Pesho, other engines are technically better, but try make a game in 3 days with say ogre+lua+bullet+openAL… if your not a fairly advanced programmer you have no chance.
Theres definitely a space for game engines like Unity3D, where you can make your own game (not a quake mod), where you dont need to build it up from components.
BGE is/can be this, and agree with AD-Edge, imagine a BGE project from the start with the BGE advanced where it is, as well as having more experienced devs. - would be fun, I might try a BGE open project, irrespective of the blender institute after durian. see how it goes
yes ideasman, the BGE has so much potemntial.
you guys did a great job with peach in only 3 months and 3 developers right ?
and it was not plannes that way , i image if it was a plan from the beggining to improve the game engine it would be an awesome boos tfot the BGE , if you start the open game proyect try to get ton involved he makes us all want to participate , you too of course but you know he is more “popular”
so the answer is no ? there will not be a durian game ?
thanx !
I agree with almost all said, except would offer a tiny addition:
Of course if your not into the BGE side of things a game project is next to useless
I disagree a little bit. I saw a lot of features that I actually have needed or need in Blender, to produce game art for actually other game engines, or just game art not tied to an specific engine, but yep to a format, and general real time specs.
When I saw apricot’s list of features planned in the blender side , and saw, later on, many of those actually made, hey, I saw the project’s benefit in Blender for producing general game art (which is a good chunk of 3d artwork produced in the world, these days…)
That is, seems, as I had expected, not all would mean imrpoves to BGE (which I actually don’t use) , but also Blender, for real time 3d graphics. Even features that they added, benefit also greately for rendered graphics and movies. (I have in mind a pair of important features, right now, which they added…)
A freely downloadable game would allways be attention bringer, specially of this genre, probably in quite good numbers. And surely a good SEO thing, if blender needs any seo at all, lol…
Besides the base material produced by the group of cracks now with the movie…would leave an ideal position for the game creation…
As with any project, only if some aces join forces (for teh game) would do of big impact… but probably could be comunity made. I guess the dangerous part here is… if sth is produced crappily, lots of ppl wont be late to blame the tool… Which is the opposite purpose pretended…
In my post I only reported what ideasman42 had said in an interview and the reasons he provided why BF is not that fond of organising another game project compared to the enthusiasm they have for movie projects. Since the original question was whether there would be an official game project for Durian as there was Apricot for Peach.
Now if we start discussing BGE game projects and BGE’s capabilities and whether there should be a game project for Durian and all that stuff (+ the significance of Apricot) then I share my opinion with most of the stuff said in this thread. BGE is capable and would be very cool to have another open game project with it. Even if Apricot might seem to the uneducated, to have failed, there’s a lot more to it than at a first glance. It was an important boost for the BGE and another such project would definitely push the engine even further. There’s loads of potential.
+100 000 000. 
ive been working in the hell that is tgea for a few years now trying to make a game work, im slowly finishing up my responsibilities in that and would totally be down for working on a bge made game.
I think a neat idea for a project like this would be to go through all of the actual phases of game development and then in the end release everything. Design documents, technical documents, project schedules, an active and open development blog, commit logs, etc all the way through to the complete game would be wonderful. There are tons of examples of all of these things out there but really there’s nothing available that uses it all in a cohesive project that shows how everything works together, exposes the full development pipeline, and actually has a game to show for it. THAT imo would not only be an awesome asset for Blender and BGE users, but for all indie and student developers as well (and might slow down the number of “I want to make ____ MMO! I’ll be the ideas guy!” people). Admittedly there probably wouldn’t be much in terms of engine development, but arguably most people who just want to “make a game” are likely going to be building on an existing platform anyway. Even if they’re not, this would still be a very helpful start.
A nice side effect of doing this would be that having all of the documents and schedules laid out, identifying unmet needs, etc before even starting would probably really help smooth out and streamline the game’s production. There would be some extra overhead time needed for design, but it would be worth it in the end.
Yes that would be really good, a project like that needs a good leadership and management. Otherwise I imagine seeing a ‘Durian’ game in the team forum section being slapped together by inexperienced users, and most likely failing. :spin: