Yo Frankie! is an entertaining 3D game where you – as a really mean squirrel – get to jump over rams and sheep, and throw bones and acorns, all on amazingly very well designed and varied levels. Based on Blender and Crystal Space 3D, it’s a game that you and your little siblings will surely enjoy.
Dubbed as Project Apricot (following the pattern of previous short 3D animations Orange/Elephant’s Dream and Peach/Big Buck Bunny), Yo Frankie! is based on a 3D animated character in the short 3D open movie animation Big Buck Bunny which we featured some months ago. But unlike its predecessor projects, Project Apricot isn’t just a 3D animation movie – it’s a 3D game!
Project Apricot, the Open Game, started February 2008 and published the game in September 2008. This time the target was to improve Blender as a tool in the game creation pipeline, using a level editor to the external engine Crystal Space. During the project also game creation and prototyping in Blender itself was added as a target.
Like the other open projects, Yo Frankie! is made by the best artists of the Blender Community invited over to the Blender Institute in Amsterdam to create this little, evil squirrel running around the meadows.
As Frankie the evil squirrel, you get to whoop your tail to sheep, get their bones, collect acorns, run around and jump on cliffs. But be careful not to jump into water – you’ll see little Frankie drown.
Now 7 months after the release, Yo Frankie! is released as v1.1 with new winning levels from their design competition, faster running times, loading screens between levels and improved graphics and textures.
Yo Frankie! (BGE) is now also part of Blender Projects, that means that you can make and share your own levels, characters, whatever! and also help in the development and maintenance of the game.
So go ahead and play as the villain squirrel and let us know what you think the objective of this game is, because as much as we liked playing it, we still cannot figure it out.
The game runs on Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux. Enjoy!
Related Links:
Yo Frankie! Website
Blender Open Projects
Yo Frankie! on Crystal Space 3D
The Blender Institute
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License and is available as a free game download from Yo Frankie’s website with Blender.org support.