Blender Studio Releases Free New Game 'Dogwalk' to Showcase Its Open Source Godot Game Engine (notebookcheck.net) 25
"Steam quietly welcomed another indie game this week, but this one is distinctly different for a lot of reasons," writes Notebookcheck:
Dogwalk, which debuted on July 11, is the kind of short, gentle experience that almost forces you to smile. Developed by Blender Studio, the game introduces players to a gorgeous winter landscape. You play as a cute, fluffy dog, with a small child in tow...
What's particularly interesting here is that Dogwalk is more than just another charming indie project. It's Blender Studio's showcase for what's possible using fully open-source tools. The entire project — assets, animations, and code — is made with Blender and the popular Godot Game Engine. Unlike industry giants such as Unity or Unreal, Godot is completely open source, meaning it doesn't require developers to pay royalties or follow strict licensing agreements. This should make it great for small studios and independent creators, as it lowers the entry barrier to game creation.
Dogwalk is 100% free, which fits neatly into its open-source philosophy
What's particularly interesting here is that Dogwalk is more than just another charming indie project. It's Blender Studio's showcase for what's possible using fully open-source tools. The entire project — assets, animations, and code — is made with Blender and the popular Godot Game Engine. Unlike industry giants such as Unity or Unreal, Godot is completely open source, meaning it doesn't require developers to pay royalties or follow strict licensing agreements. This should make it great for small studios and independent creators, as it lowers the entry barrier to game creation.
Dogwalk is 100% free, which fits neatly into its open-source philosophy
YoFrankie! (Score:4, Interesting)
Blender is such a great open source tool. (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently have a project going using Python scripting in Blender using scipy.optimize.differential_evolution and Cycles rendering to optimize the shape of a reflector to match a desired light distribution pattern. It's not a perfect tool for the job, but it seems to be pretty accurate.
Performance issues = bad showcase (Score:1)
low framerate for a basic game
Re:Performance issues = bad showcase (Score:4, Informative)
Is it really low framerate, or animation stylistically choppy on purpose?
Re:Performance issues = bad showcase (Score:4, Informative)
It's the animation style and not the actual framerate, at least according to Steam reviews.
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Re:Performance issues = bad showcase (Score:4, Insightful)
"We intentionally made it bad".
Ok. Was your intention to smear the engine?
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It's a common style nowadays, like some sort of counter reaction to the change from hand drawn animation to 3D animation, where the software could fill in between keyframes and be effortlessly smooth.
I've seen a fair argument that smooth is not necessarily better, that human choice in the animation allows the animator to decide which frames linger a bit and which frames move on. For example in a fast paced action sequence letting some frames linger to give the viewer a chance to see what happens.
However the
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"Cinematic 24 fps is back!"
No.
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I've seen it a lot in games that aspire to look 2D-ish. They seem to think it looks quaint and human.
You see it in pre-rendered 3D animation content a lot too, which isn't trying to hide bad performance, since the rendering isn't real time either. The spider man movie being a prime example of this "some choppy animation as an artistic choice" sensibility.
bad title (Score:2)
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...and requires Steam install.
Re:bad title (Score:5, Informative)
no, it doesn't. godot is self contained, it only requires hardware vulcan and opengl support.
maybe you are referring to the game link in tfa, which is a link to the steam version. the game is also available independently as a standalone executable for linux, windows and macos.
finally (Score:2)
Finally, the waiting is over.
Moores law for game engines (Score:1)
As someone who grew up watching and playing games evolve from Wolfenstein to the Unreal engine in a ~20 year timeframe, I expected to see another 20 year jump in graphics here.
Please know I am not hating, its pretty but could someone help me understand?
Was there just so much room for improvement back in the 80's that new game engines made the increments appear bigger?
Was there a game engine Moores law that ended too?
Are engines today held back by hardware/graphics cards? instead of
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I think I am stuck in the 80's and 90's mindset where back then "better" meant more realistic.
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Linux?? (Score:2)
Check steam: Linux and Mac emblems, no native Linux version.
"Game made with fully open source tools!
Ok.
Re: Linux?? (Score:2)
I don't care if a game has to run in proton any more, since the performance is now so good. And when proton starts using ntsync it will be even better.
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It's at the bottom under System Requirements:
Minimum:
OS: Linux distribution released after 2016
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 / AMD Athlon XE BE-2300
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 2500 / AMD Radeon R5 Graphics
Storage: 1500 MB available space
Been playing a Godot game (Score:2)
Blender doesnt OWN Godot. More shit article titles (Score:2)