Blender Game Engine Tech Demo

For several months the Blender and Crystal Space projects have been working together to develop an open-source game they hope will be of a professional quality and deliver an industry standard 3D gaming experience. This game, now called Yo Frankie, was supposed to be released at the end of August, but that deadline wasn't met. However, released now is the first technology demo for the Blender Game Engine. This tech demo is playable and includes a small level from Yo Frankie, but to be released soon will be a more game-oriented demo that includes additional characteristics and game-play options.

This Blender Game Engine Tech Demo named Yo Frankie Demo 1.1 is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Furthermore, it's supported on both x86 and x86_64 platforms. Additionally, there are two versions for those with and without GLSL (GL Shading Language) support from their graphics card and display driver. As this is more of an engine demo than game demo, there is only a single map with limited options, and as a result, the download size is only about 30MB. For those interested in building Yo Frankie for other platforms or would just like to look at the inner-workings of this demo, the source-code and other game files are available for download. The source-code is GPL/LGPL licensed while the graphics files are available under the Creative Commons license.

All of the in-game objects are created using the Blender modeling software while the game engine is based around Crystal Space and the Blender Game Engine (with two versions being available). The Crystal Space engine is driven by OpenGL and fully supports vertex and fragment shaders along with decals, a plugin-based mesh system, HDR lighting, and collision detection and dynamics through the Open Dynamics Engine and Bullet.

Yo Frankie is known formerly as Project Apricot and has been officially in development since February. This project follows Project Orange and Project Peach, which ended up being short films created by the Blender Foundation using their open-source 3D modeling software. More information is available at YoFrankie.org.

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