http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1435… This book, Mastering Blender Game Engine, (for Blender version 2.66a) has not been released yet…But if you pre-order it now on Amazon you can get it for like half the price when it does arrive (which it looks like will be in mid to late June-July, 2013)…if you are like me & have found that Blender game Engine tutorials online are for earlier versions of Blender, you may be craving this book…Just a heads up…
This short animation reel was me tweaking some of my lessons…I learned from a David Ward Blender Cookie tutorial (creating basic game character) that using the ‘B-Bone” setting for the bones when rigging is more fun (it makes the bones like block shapes) than the regular bone look I was using…I learned how to move the camera around a bit instead of always moving my subject…Transparency is new to me, which is neat…getting the hang of slicing my cube in half(using loop cut & slide) at the beginning, deleting the other half’s vertices, then adding the mirror modifier…I am still stuck on Game Logic insofar as creating an animated sequence then programming that as a keyboard key trigger…I think maybe I need to watch a different tutorial on that one-or maybe I will need to wait till the book comes out…
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc… The Blender Wiki has an introduction to the Game Engine which I am going to read now…
Loops: from Garageband, texture loops…
Looping the clip:SimpleMovie (an easy way to just copy & paste several loops in then Export as Apple tv)…
iTunes:storing my movies in iTunes library is handy
RealPlayer & Quicktime: handy for playback
Computer: iMac desktop with 4Gb memory, a snow leopard, 10.68, 2Ghz intel core 2 duo
3 button Logitech mouse (wireless)

More:Game Logic heads up!!! (Watch the tutorial linked below for Game Logic, BUT at around 20 minutes into the video, IGNORE his two corrections-he tells you to change the word object to armature, then he tells you to delete the armature as an object modifier-THESE TWO STEPS DO NOT WORK IN BLENDER 2.66A SO DON’T DO THEM!!!) But the rest of the tutorial is great! 

(correcting a blip in the basic game character tutorial-The terrific David Ward tutorial on Blender Cookie has 2 blips which can cause people like me grief…)
So http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/05/13/game-enginecharacter-part-1/ In this tutorial (which is great btw), SKIP the CORRECTION PARTS he tells you to do around 20 minutes of time into his video…A commenter named Albert Gushiken points out that this is not needed when you read some of the 266 comments under the tutorial-many frustrated people like me…
I suggest you do like I did…Make a simple mesh, rig it, record some simple keyframes of the armature moving in the Animation section, using Action editor, & don’t forget to name it…Then set up something like what I did in Game Logic, in the game Engine & try it out…You should get it to move! Not sure why he got the blip in his tutorial but it might be because we are using now 2.66a & he was not…

Rigify is a Blender add on that is there inside but you have to check the box inside user preferences to activate it…It gives you a whole human rig! Wow!

About: http://cgcookie.com/blender/2013/04/23/quick-rigging-with-the-rigify-addon/ So here is the terrific video tutorial to watch to learn how to use the Rigify add-on that just needs to be activated inside Blender 2.66a …I sort of figured it out mostly, & got it to work…I’m guessing I will need some more help with this, but it sure is easier to get a human body moving with this add-on!

(I should add that you really should get all your ducks in a row regarding the game engine first before you try to use a rigify rig in the game engine…Just do like a really basic mesh with a basic rig first, get your animation frames going, get your game logic thing set up, & just see if it all works…No sense in doing a complex rig if you can’t get your game to move when you press a button…It’s like getting all dressed up but you have nowhere to go! (What’s the point?)

So after failing again to repeat my steps, I decided to make a second screencast, when I did finally succeed again…Here are steps you need to look at again, at least I did!
Ok, model & rig, like normal…Control P, set automatic weights, with armature selected AFTER you select your mesh (select mesh, THEN press shift, then select armature last, in Object mode-then only then control P, set automatic weights…)Ok you are good to go…
Next: Still in Blender render, Choose ANIMATION (top left menu dropdown)…In Animation CHANGE from Dope sheet to ACTION EDITOR PLEASE…Hit the + button to name the new keyframe sequence you are going to make…When you hit the + button, you will be able then to type in a NAME…Important!!! You are still in Blender render here…
Done…Ok, next step: (with the ARMATURE SELECTED PLEASE)Go to Game Logic…Go to Blender Game…Get into Object Mode…
Add a new Sensor, choose Keyboard, press any key to choose the letter which will activate your sequence…I chose A…Then add a new Controller, choose AND…Now link the sensor node to the Controller node…Finally add a new Actuator…Type in the word you named your keyframe sequence (I called mine break)…Change the word Play to LOOPSTOP…(in the dropdown menu)…In the chooser bar, please click that & choose your word name from the menu-it will be there-if not, you ain’t going nowhere & must start again)…Move the start frame slider to 1…Move the end frame slider to however long your end frame is…In the Blendin slider move it to like 3…(so your action starts slowly)…Okay now start your GAME…(I just click the start button but others do it another way…) Now, I also noticed that though the tutorials say to change my view to GLSL, that it didn’t work…So I put my view into Multitexture, (far right menu), with texture selected as well…(see screencast for where those buttons are exactly)…Now when I start the game, if I press A, the entire keyframe sequence called break will play…It will loop if I keep holding A down…This is the basis of the game engine-of making more complex actions obey keyboard letter pushes…But get this going first with just a simple mesh…It has taken me 2 days to figure this out properly…(granted I am new-but still it didn’t all work exactly right even when I seemed to follow all instructions)…

So, yes, you can use the pre-installed Rigify add-on in Blender 2.66a for really simple meshes too! (Like if you are daunted by the complexity of rolling all the finger joints or adjusting your mesh model to be so perfect-take a break & do a marshmallow figure & it still totally works!)…

Update: Friday April 26th, 2013: after rewatching Jonathan Williamson’s creating a basic Game engine tutorial on Blender Cookie, I found that in his tutorial, the GLSL plus Texture setting requirement DOES work…In David Ward’s tutorial Creating a basic Game character, I found in easier to work just in MULTI-TEXTURE mode…I am guessing that because of the complexity of rigging & animating keyframes then setting them into Sensor Controller & Actuator modal Nodes, that doing this in multitexture is easier for the naked eye to see…However, I am pretty sure that you could do this also in GLSL plus texture setting, like David Ward said too, but that it wasn’t as easy for me to see the objects in that mode so I did it the other way, just multitexture…I have not yet used the rig keyframe sensor node action method into a real game yet, so I will see if this can be done in GSL plus texture mode then…(I am sure it is fine-just I guess wasn’t my preference whilst I was just learning & not needing to publish my game at all…Translation:If you aren’t rendering your game, some settings are not crucial maybe???)