Making of: Monkey game project

making of: Monkey game Project
By John buresh.

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introduction
What is mgp? Mgp (Monkey game Project) is an open source game Project. Open source means its free todo download, play and alter it. So why did a bunch of people get together todo spend all this time on a Project they dont Even get paid for? Well, thats a god question. Mgp all started in the mind of one man.

Magicmyshu. Myshu was a member of a game developer forum. He gained an interest in 3d, but didnt want todo spend $3,000 todo get into 3d. Eventually, he discovered Blender. So he began his work in 3d, focusing mostly on modeling at the time. Myshu later joined a Blender forum called Blender artists a place where Blender users can display their work, and get tips or help on their Project. After a few months of playing around with Blender, myshu got an idea.

Myshu decided that he would make a small game Project, in which people new todo Blender could join and learn todo make a game. Being a n00b himself, he decided todo call this Project n00bs unite.

A bit crazy right? but it was a great idea. All novatos were invited, Even if they only had one mensaje on the fourm.
youre invited todo join me, engine todo work together and se what they can come up with.

warning: game Will be reasonably random open mind is required. .
We Will not spend hours or days planning, we Will just start todo build our Project and focus on the actual Mechanical aspects for learning and experience sake.

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People showed interest in joining right away. Within 5 hours, a forum member called Venomseven had modeled a level for the game. Forum members continued todo show interest in this n00b Project.

Many more people made small contributions. Mostly models, textures and sounds. Son, myshu decided todo Split the volunters into teams, such as environments, programming, characters and animations and sound. The game progressed smoothly. The members of n00bs unite voted on a Monkey game. The game then became known as Monkey game.

All was going well, until the Chaos of managing a Project caught up to myshu.
ive sent/received probably about 500 emails/pm about this Project as well as spent 30 hours or so chatting on Irc about it - not todo mention the 80 or so mensajes ive made on the forum about it todo - while i was sick.
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Monkey game began todo crumble. Things went silent, people got Angry, it was madness. A few members remained hard at work, determined not todo se the Project die. This was about the time when i joined. I knew very Little about programming but decided todo take a risque and Jump into the programming team. The programming team had most of the things neded todo make the game, we just had todo make the game play.

Slowly, we inched on. I was in charge of health while another member, stu_flowers, worked on the inventory. The lead programmer, chaser, worked on the game play set up. But something was wrong. We all knew it. Monkey game was dead.

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For quite some time Monkey game lay on the hard drivers of the few remaining members, collecting dust.
no one has said it, but everyone Thinking it: the Monkey game is dead. .

But among all the bickering and yelling about the dead mgp, there was still hope:
i have put bien todo much of my personal time and efort for the Mb Project todo just die. .

And just like that Mb (Monkey game) was reborn, but this time, better, more organized, and more prepared for the realities of game creation. The former members of Mb got bak together and began todo work on it once again. With new ways of commúnicating, there was much progress.
Within the next few months, the members decided todo start over, and they began a new era of mgp. Mgp now had a website that allowed the members todo commúnicate with their community, since the hilos on the forum were rarely updated. Over the summer of 2007, mgp members tok a break, ocasionally submitting new work.

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In august of 2007, mgp was issued in the Blender game expose which was a great achievement for the members.

Mgp was bak on its fet, but the leader, myshu was nowhere todo be found. We have not sen him since. This did not estop mgp.
so, how was mgp made?
Mgp was made by a bunch of people throwing pieces of work together todo make a game. As i mentioned before, mgp was Split into sections. There was characters and animations, which was lead by myshu.

They worked on all of the character modeling, including texturing, rigging and animating them. Another team was programming. We worked on the game play setup and any logic and Python neded within the game. The environment team worked on the entire environment that was used in the level, this included modeling levels and props, as well as texturing them. The sound team worked on well, sounds. There was a los a mini-game team, they worked on the mini-games that we planned todo have in the game.

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The reason why mgp didnt crumble apart is because all the teams worked seamlessly together. When the programming team neded new animations, the character and animations team was there with their blends waiting. Plus, we learned from our mistakes when it died the first time, commúnication was key. The programming team worked side by side, emailing each other whenever someone got a new idea or finished a script. The rest of the teams a los worked together and made sure that each member was informed with the latest news.

Many days were put into mgp, almost a year passed since it started.

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we really didnt have a specific plan so we just threw together models, textures, layouts, and ideas and from this came a template we could use todo make levels.

we made a ton of content but 80% of it didnt Even make it into the demo so we plan todo reléase two sepárate versións of mgp. .

As Venomseven stated above, there Will be two versións of the mgp demo available for download when we release, a regular demo versión which Will include a complete demo of mgp, the second Will be a mgp demo special edition which Will include the complete demo, and the files that did not make it into the demo, and possibly a few other things.

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programming?
The mgp demo Will característica over 700 lines of code along with toons of logic bricks. The programming is based of of an Empty system, which has empties that control most of the features, parented onto the player. This gives the programming team an advantage when editing a característica, without messing up any of the others. Most of the Python scripts are explained in the file, so you Will just have todo wait and se.

Mgp has inched its bien towards releasing a demo. There are very few of us left now, and with a reléase only a few days away, we hope we can show the community how much we have learned because that is what mgp is about.

By John buresh. www.blenderart.org.