Is Frankie just a pure cold hearted butterfly-killing squirrel?
Yes. We don’t have the time or resources to create something so totally immersive that it makes people forget about their petty lives. We’ll try though. And the game will be complete enough in the controls, art library, and documentation that anyone interested can make mods of the game and expand it.
The team has decided on Yo Frankie! with the possible subtitle/chapter title “A Furry Vendetta” 
!!
Any particular reasons why that one was chosen? Is it a famous phrase from a movie? It sounds familiar but I can’t remember where it’s from.
The problem with the word ‘Yo’ is it sounds like an old guy trying to relate to youth culture - not meaning to imply anything by that. Teenagers always roll their eyes when they hear older people using the word ‘Yo’.
There has to be a chapter called Frankie goes to Holly Woods. I think that’s a pretty good title.
it’s Frank, not Frankie…
Yo Frank? How many games begin with “Yo”?
Frank and Beans it is. You could even have jokes like when he’s collecting beans a narrator saying how did the beans get all the way above Frank as homage to There’s Something About Mary. Then when he’s had a lot of beans, he maybe makes some fart noises. That’s some Sago style right there and kids would love that. It could also have that innuendo element like Conker’s Bad Fur Day - there hasn’t been a game like that ever made again (Conker is also a squirrel so it’s a good game for reference material):
Everybody loves fart noises - you just vary them with long ones, high pitched ones, squelchy ones, quiet ones. When he’s talking with his friends, you could do the whole fart in the face and blow the hair thing.
There was also a game called Whiplash:
Basically, it was about two animals stuck in a genetic modification lab and Spanx (some rodent, not sure what he is) is chained to an indestructible bunny. This bunny can be set on fire, frozen, made to inhale helium or just swung around to smash stuff up. Hence the name Whiplash.
In the end, the game has to be interesting to play, there needs to be a reason why people will want to move Frank around. If there isn’t, it’s just a technical demo. What does a player actually do with Frank in the game? Is he trying to fight other characters or does he collect stuff?
If he does fight other characters, what reason does he have for fighting them? Does he get some reward for doing so? Like in Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank etc, every bad guy killed gives back orbs or bolts. Bolts relates to the mechanical nature of ratchet and clank, orbs to the more mystical dark eco of Jak and Daxter. It makes sense that Franks should collect something organic like nuts, acorns or beans.
Nuts are ok because they are harder and he can throw them at people and squirrels eat nuts anyway. But are these used to upgrade things? You could have it that once a certain level of beans are collected and he finds a lighter somewhere, he can start frying enemies and burning trees. If he exceeds the burn level, he could set on fire and he has to jump in the water to cool off. This could also work as thrust so that he can fly further. Without the thrust, you can’t reach certain levels.
It could also work as a knock-out tool so that if he has to collect a guarded treasure, he has to let out a silent but violent one to take out the guards undetected. There could be a control mechanism to balance the potency with the noise. If it’s too weak, it doesn’t work, too noisy and he gets caught.
Will there be some rendered cut-scenes? It would be good if you could take the animations from the game and run them through the main rendering engine to give the real fur. Cut Scenes were always good in a game as an indication you’d reached a certain goal. Only 5 or so 30 second animations throughout the game would add to the quality.
Once that all get figured out, a name choice would be easier to sum up the game. If the purpose of the game it just to run around as Frank then I guess Yo Frankie sums that up but you could have FrantiK. A name like To Be Frank lets you use TBF as abbreviation like BBB. Or Furry Flurry Frank (FFF). But they aren’t very interesting.