Dog Walk: Blender Studio's official game project
14 comments
·July 14, 2025i80and
Wowfunhappy
Is apricot any good? I happen to love 3d platformers, but the trailer was not encouraging.
manbash
This looks great. Just a note though that this is "free as in beer". If you want the source code you'd need to login and pay, it seems.
https://studio.blender.org/projects/dogwalk/gallery/?asset=8...
Wowfunhappy
It's free as in freedom!
> The license of our sources is a bit muddled. We'll try to clear that up asap. The full production repository is CC-BY since it mostly includes the original art assets. The source code of the game is GPLv3 since since [sic] that makes more sense for the code base of the project.
They just aren't distributing the source for free, it seems, but you are free to redistribute it however you'd like.
cyphar
If the source code is actually GPLv3 then they should be distributing the sources without any additional charges (section 6(d) is very clear on this point). Of course, if they are the sole copyright holder they can make up additional rules, but I bristle with describing this as free software under the GPLv3. As it stands, they are implicitly dual-licensing it under a proprietary and GPLv3 license.
Personally, if I was one of the people that bought the source code, I would just upload it on GitHub since you have the right to do so.
gpm
They are distributing for free. For free, they are distributing a compiled version of the game which I have no source to, and no license to creative derivative works of, or to perform or display publicly, and so on.
That thing, which they call Dogwalk, and are distributing for free, is clearly not open source.
The other thing, which they probably also call dogwalk, and they'll give you if you pay them presumably is open source (or maybe the more accurate term is "free software" since the source isn't publicly available - i.e. open), but that doesn't make the download on the page linked by HN open source.
null
manbash
> They just aren't distributing the source for free, it seems, but you are free to redistribute it however you'd like.
Yes, that was my point. I will know the license when I see it in the distributed code :)
Wowfunhappy
But it's still open source!
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
> If I distribute GPLed software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge?
> No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
erikpukinskis
> If you want the source code you'd need to login and pay, it seems.
So… like the GPL?
reader9274
Can't unzip on MacOS
null
Not their first time around the block! https://apricot.blender.org/
It's nice that the free game engine options are so much richer now than they were in 2008; if memory serves they had trouble implementing Go Frankie fully in the blender game engine, so they made one version in BGE and another in Crystal Space.
Now you can just use Godot.