Yo Frankie! First Crystalspace builds available

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During last month’s premiere of Yo Frankie! I was in for a bit of a surprise. Clearly I hadn’t been paying enough attention, but about halfway down the project the decision was made to create two versions of the game: the Blender Game Engine Edition (BGE) and the CrystalSpace Edition (CSE).

A few days after the BGE release, the first CSE builds were posted. They’re Linux only so far and judging by the amount of comments there are still plenty of bugs and optimization issues to solve. I hope they’ll be ready in time :)

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    • Shadowflier

      yey, cant wait to dig in. Good job everyone at the Blender Institute.

    • MeneerDePeer

      I’d like to say thanks to all those Linux users for finding the bugs for us Windows users!

      (how’s that for saying “blah, I need a Windows build” :P)

    • http://inkweaver-review.blogspot.com NathanKP

      Wow! Sounds great. I’m not even going to try to get the game running on Linux, though. I’ll wait for the windows version, with less bugs, and less setting up. :)

      NathanKP – Inkweaver Review

    • Lars

      urm, could you shed some light on why that decision was made and where the differences are?

    • http://www.venomgfx.com.ar Pablo Vazquez

      @ Lars: there have been a lot of discussion around that, check our blog. To make the long story short: Crystal Space is not up to a production level like we wanted to do in first place, the artists in the team decided to switch to Blender Game Engine since the gameplay we had after 4 months in CS could be done in 5 hours in BGE, sad but true. The problem is not in CS, the problem relies in B2CS, the plugin that exports Blender data to Crystal Space, is too slow to work with it.

      The main differences between CS and BGE are in gameplay.

      CS have (among other things) nice reflections/refractions, HDR bloom, and soft shadows. But for an artist is SO slow to work, exporting.. trying animations.. awkward way of managing materials.. and so on. I see it more like a tool for developers than artists..

      BGE have (also, among other things) a very fast workflow for the artist to develop the game, testing animations, assigning logic, and so on, is very easy for an artist to develop a game without the need of a developer (although we have a good one with us: Campbell Barton, and we couldn’t achieve what we have now without him).

      In the case of Yo Frankie!, you will see differences gameplay/graphics wise.
      CS have more eyecandy, while in BGE we worked further in the game experience, making Frankie available to walk, run, jump, double jump, glide, kick enemies, throw enemies (yes, pick-up and throw enemies), throw nuts/bones, grab ledge, tailwhip attack while walking/running/gliding, play in multiplayer with frankie or an extra character, enemies such as rat/sheeps/ram, and so on.

    • http://www.ckdesigns.co.nr Calum Knott

      @ Pablo Vazquez
      Thanks for clearing that up, I had been wondering for ages

    • Aka

      @MeneerDePeer – Nah u don’t. Switch 2 Linux. xD

    • http://apricot.blender.org blengine

      The main problem with B2CS is the dimwit that ‘develops’ it, who consequently quit shortly after the switch to the BGE, and the main problem with CS gameplay was the designer, living proof that intelligence is not necessarily inherent in programmers.

      In this case, after the hunky blender devs got through with it, the BGE outperformed CS without breaking a sweat. When factoring in the users too, success would’ve been possible with either engine, so it was ultimately a question of who was more capable. It should NOT have taken 6 months to code throwing nuts. The decision to change was made out of pure frustration from incapable software and incompetent people.

    • redbyte

      Seems fair enough to me :)

    • tyrant monkey

      @Pablo Vazquez

      You description of the workflow using BGE is great. I would like to develop some simple casual games but though I have coded before am no pro but what you describe here sounds like BGE is very artist friendly, something I didn’t know. perharps its time I start learning that part of Blender.

    • Lars

      @Pablo: Thanks for the update! At university, we’re currently in the process of deciding what to use when and for now, it seems we’ll use Ogre3D and really do everything from scratch / by hand, since the university doesn’t want to force the students on a single product (because in that case, that would have been Microsofts XNA for sure ;) )

    • thinkinmonkey

      Fantastic, but… when a version for WINDOWS ?!?! I want to play it !!! NOW !!! :D

    • AD-Edge

      @blengine

      Sounds like it was a tough beginning for the project, and a very frustrating beginning at that…. I guess there was a lot of issues that went on behind the scenes.

      And 6 months to code throwing a nut? You guys rewrote the entire game engine in less time.

      CS had the potential…. But im very happy that the overall outcome is a turbocharged BGE. Cant wait to see it supercharged oneday ;p

    • BlenderLovingSquirrel

      Pablo is the man!

    • ethana2

      I look forward to having a .deb for it.. Or, if an .exe comes out first, I’ll just use that instead of the linux version.. I do that a lot, whenever it’s the path of least resistance, like with Wolfenstien ET.. I don’t follow instructions, I just double-click the thingy and type my password.

    • http://advanced-lemon.blogspot.com/ epat

      Hmm… So when’s all this eyecandy gonna be available for the BGE? :P I never liked CS much anyway, but I thought this was meant to be a CS project in the first place? Am I wrong?

    • http://www.venomgfx.com.ar Pablo Vazquez

      @ epat, please read mine and blengine’s comment above :)