Princess Thafi Returns!

Several month's back our late COO, Andy, blogged about the decision to cut a character from the upcoming Wii U game Of Mages & Pages: Remnants of Iniquity.
In the aftermath of Andy's passing, I came up with an idea of a way to bring her back in a different capacity.  Princess Thafi will actually first appear in the upcoming Midieville shorts that we are creating to bridge the story gap from the old Midieville shorts and the new Of Mages & Pages games.

I'm not going to reveal how she comes about, other than to say that she will NOT be the damsel in distress she originally was thought up as.  However, I am sharing with you brand new concept art from S. LaDon Ware of what Princess Thafi may look like in the cartoons/games.

~Jason

Game Demo is Active!

Greetings 3twins fans!

Today I have some really amazing news!  Our game demo is live on our sister site: lectrajack.com!  Now you will need to download the Unity player add-on to run it, but we assure you that is a safe add-on and won't negatively affect your browser.  You may also need to enable that add-on if your browser is set to automatically disable such things.

Also, we are phasing out blogger, and are going to start posting on wordpress on our site, 3twins.net, so please check it out.

~Jason

NEW character!

Today I bring you another new character for our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages.  George the Brown Wizard!  George is the wizard of time and is a Centaur.  In Midieville Centaurs are not just half-human half-horse creatures, they are half-human half-any-animal.

Be sure to share your thoughts on this and other characters we've announced!

~Jason

New Character! Peter the White Wizard

Greetings 3twins fans!

This week I give you the concept image for another of our 12 wizards.  This is one of my favorites so far, Peter the White Wizard!  He is a Greckle (rock person) who hails from the Northwest, but his station is in the central area of Midieville as he protects the Sphinxes who reside in the desert realm.  Peter is wizard over day itself and is the tallest of the 12 wizards.

What part if any will Peter play in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages?  Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!

~Jason

So long, farewell!

A few weeks back I blogged about a couple of forgotten characters in Midieville that may or may not make a return in future stories, or our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game Of Mages & Pages.  Today I'd like to share about a character that never appeared in Midieville who we have decided will not be realized.  Princess Thafi, the daughter to Mathos.

King Mathos was originally going to be an older royal who lived in the White Castle with his daughter, Thafi. Thafi was planned to be a sassy teenager who was often kidnapped by the Black Knight, or who would ask questions the audience may want answered.  Basically she was like Blonde originally was in Hatman & Indigo.  We have since decided to make King Mathos much younger, and single, so it wouldn't make sense for him to have a teenage daughter.

So, we say "so long, farewell" to the unpublished teenage daughter of our good king.

~Andy

Bojac the Centaur and Bojack Horseman! OH NO!!!

Today I'm going to address a sort of "elephant in the room" concerning our Wii U game project, Of Mages & Pages.  Previously we teased a new character named Bojac the Centaur.  As many of you may be aware, Netflix recently released a new series, Bojack Horseman.  The irony is not lost on us. 

This is obviously just one of those "morphic field" type of things Captain Jack Harkness mentioned in Torchwood: Miracle Day.  Two completely unrelated projects arrived at a similar idea completely independent of one another.  I don't know how long Bojack Horseman took to come to fruition and it doesn't really matter.  I originally came up with the name Boajc for a character in a Midieville script I wrote back in 2008.

However, in light of the new show and to hopefully save us from any possible legal issues later on, we are going to be changing the name of our centaur character to something else.  What that name will be, we're not sure of as yet, but we will let you know once we've decided.  It's just too similar to risk it and honestly, it's not that big of a deal.  We at 3twins harbor no ill will towards Bojack Horseman, nor anyone involved with that show.  These things happen.  This isn't the first time we've changed something for similar reasons, and it probably won't be the last.

~Jason

Marvin's new look

Greetings 3twins fans!

Today I'm bringing you a design of what Marvin the Blue Wizard will look like in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages!

I'm not going to go into too much more, but this is a very close to finalized version of Marvin as he will appear as a playable character in the game.

Until next time.

~Jason

ANOTHER NEW CHARACTER!!!

Today I bring you another new character, Selcrah the fairy.  As with many of the concept images, this image comes from S. LaDon Ware.  Selcrah is a spitfire tiny little thing who won't take any nonsense from anyone.  But who is she really fighting for?  For that, you'll have to wait and play our upcoming Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages!

~Jason

NEW Character!

So, I know I've been sharing TONS of new characters, but we're not done yet!!!  Today I'm bringing another new character, Fiddle D. Jibbit.  An elderly Pollywoggle lady who will be a playable character in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages!

I've been asked why a lot of these preview images are in black and white.  Why do I do that?  Well, I can't reveal everything all at once, and since color is going to play a big role in Of Mages & Pages, I'm saving some of those details for later!

~Jason

Go outside/inside and play!

It's summer time and parents everywhere are directing their kids to turn off their consoles, drop the controllers, and head outside to get some fresh air, sunshine, sunburns, cuts/scrapes, and bug bites.

But what if you kid wants to stay indoors and play video games*? 

There's a lot of pressure on parents to treat video games a unhealthy pastimes that rot the brain and the body. As a viral post went around social media recently said "Kids need less Xboxes and more tackle boxes!". Public Service Announcements blame too much screen time for a host of social ills and medical journals now say  and sitting too long is almost as bad a smoking.

So what's a parent to do?

Simple- Get the kids up an moving! Help them learn that while the fantastical worlds that games transport us to are nice, we have to live in this one which can also be filled with wonder and excitement. Exercise and movement are essential for healthy development.

BUT... (there's always a but)

Don't forget that an healthy imagination, problem solving, and abstract thinking can all be improved when kids spend time with quality games. A healthy body needs a healthy brain too, and good quality video games that challenge the mind (puzzles, mysteries, stories, adventure) can promote that.

*I hear there's a new on coming for the Wii U that's quite fun

 

~Mutz

Another New Character Another New Creature!

So last week I brought you a new character, Uberon the Shadow Folk.  A new character and creature that will be featured in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages.  This week I bring you yet another creature and another new character!  Today I present to you: Nyln, the King of the Greckles!

The Greckles are a fierce rock people who live in the northwest most part of the land of Midieville.  What part will Nyln play in the game?  Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!

~Jason

New Character New Creature!

Last week I brought you an image of an old character, Xilva, that has finally been realized for our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages.  This week I bring you a brand new character that is a new type of creature!

Here you see an early concept by S. LaDon Ware of Uberon one of the Shadow Folk.  The Shadow Folk are a formless race of conniving opportunists who love tricking unsuspecting travelers into getting lost and losing many of their belongings.  They live in the darkest depths of the Woodlands of Mystery.  How does Uberon play into our game?  Well, you'll just have to wait and play it to find out!

~Jason

Finally Xilva!

Several years back when Andy wrote the first few scripts for Midieville they looked much different than anything we have on the website.  The stories were meant to be full 10-20 minute animated adventures following a trio of creatures sent on quests by the king.  Those three adventurers were: Marvin the blue wizard, Gidju the dragon and Xilva the elf.  Though when we started making the Midieville shorts they were mostly just a way for us to cut our teeth in animation and served as tests for things we wanted to try out.  For logistical reasons, the lovely Xilva was cut from those and we just never found a good story point to add her into the fray... until now.

Now that we're taking the world of Midieville and putting it in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages, Xilva has a place in the land of Midieville once more.  So, I present to you a peek at one of the oldest and most neglected characters from the 3twins wheelhouse, Xilva the elf.  This concept drawing comes from S. LaDon Ware.  Xilva will be joining our heroes at some point in the game and finally take her place next to Marvin and Gidju!

~Jason

Shark House Concept

Today I decided to share with you all a really cool concept image that I received from S. LaDon Ware last week.  This concept features The Red Witch Naaj's house made out of a sky shark.  This image or one similar to it will be featured in our second DLC after the game releases!

That's right, our game, Of Mages & Pages: Teento's Revenge coming out on the Nintendo Wii U will have DLC (or as Nintendo calls it "Add On Content").  What will the DLC offer?  Well, for now I'm going to leave that under our hat, but you can expect it to be extremely worth it! 

I know I personally am quite hesitant with spending extra money on DLC unless I feel it greatly adds to a game.  That is the approach we are taking with our DLC.  But more on that later!  For now, just take a look at the cool shark house to get another feel for the world of Midieville featured in our game!

~Jason

Games That Tell A Story

Michael’s post on Monday left me feeling a bit nostalgic about my video game roots. I grew up gaming on a ColecoVision. The classic system boasted a stunning 16-color display at 256x192 resolution and was powered by a whopping 3.58 Mhz processor and 1 whole KB of RAM! Okay, that’s pittance compared to today’s machines, but in the early 80’s that was all we needed to play classics like Lady Bug, Mouse Trap, and Donkey Kong.

It wasn’t long, though, before my family upgraded to a Nintendo Entertainment System and I became captivated with Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda. From my first taste of those latter two titles I was hooked on role-playing games. While I loved the simple, puzzle solving aspect of the single-screen games on the ColecoVision, it completely blew my mind that a video game could also tell a complex story! I invested hours in Final Fantasy and Zelda not just because the game play was fun, but because, like a good book, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next!

This is one of the many things that excites me about our upcoming game for the Nintendo Wii U, Of Mages & Pages. It’s going to be a beautiful blend of the puzzle solving aspects I loved in classic arcade games along with the rich story telling we find in the RPG genre.

Plus, there’s one thing you won’t find in Of Mages & Pages that has always bothered me about RPGs: heroes walking into houses uninvited just to chat with random strangers who are seemingly unfazed by home invasion! And with that gaming flaw in mind, I leave you with this hilarious strip about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: http://9gag.com/gag/arpwbgp?ref=fb.s

Until next time,

~Steve

The Purple Wizard

A while back I showed one of the more important secondary characters in our game, Leon the green wizard.  Today I am showing a concept drawing of one of the other wizards from the wizard council.  There are 12 in total.  The image accompanying this post shows Jeff the purple wizard.  As you can see, Jeff is a unicorn.  This concept drawing also shows a more detailed version of what his staff will look like.

Each of the 12 wizards in our upcoming Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages are a different type of magical creature and most of them will only be seen briefly, but we are working out the designs for each of them.  Again, this is just concept art, Jeff's final design will likely change a bit, but I wanted to share another little tidbit from the game since I haven't in a while.

~Jason

Summer Blockbusters

Hey it's that time again. Time for your friendly neighborhood blogger to post and time for Summer Blockbusters. I stole that line from Spiderman, but you probably knew that already. All the excitement of summer blockbusters, The Amazing Spiderman 2, X-Men-Days of Future Past, Transformers-Age of Extinction. What a cornucopia of choices. The best part is that the excitement doesn't end there...

Later this year 3twins will be introducing our new Nintendo WiiU game to the market. I for one can't wait. Stay tuned to this blog and our website for more information as we get closer and closer, and if you pay really close attention, you may even get a sneak peek into some of the character designs.

~Tom

Nine Years!

The image attached to this post is our first company logo.  It looks so outdated to me now...  Last Sunday marked eight years since the first Hatman comic went online.  And this month marks nine years that 3twins.net has been a registered entity on the web.  It seems crazy when I think about it; how many milestones have happened in that time, how many pitfalls and obstacles we've ran into and overcome.

It took us a year to get our first comic finished!  Three years later we were approaching our 50th issue.  Then we went into a semi-hiatus for four years so I could get my bachelor's degree.  We've created two audio comic series: Hatman & Indigo and Ion Bunny, and two web cartoons: Midieville and Star Fetched.  Now we're working on a game for the Nintendo Wii U.

We've been to comic cons, had loads of meetings, written tons of scripts, and commissioned thousands of pieces of art.  Some of the other bloggers have recently pointed out how much we have done.  However, as the captain of this ship, I say, "we haven't even started yet!"

~Jason Kuder
3twins.net Incorporated
Co-Founder, Chairman, & CEO

Sketching A Script To Life!

Everything starts with an idea and that idea is brought to life by an artist. Like any idea in the world of media and entertainment you must first understand the story and it's characters, then you go straight to sketching. This requires hours of sketching and refinement until the artist captures the heart of the story. The next step is carefully inking (marker) all the sketches into a final image, then i scan it onto the computer and bring it to life with color.

There was a time before Disney went CG, they were known for their reliance on traditional artists, storyboards, and sketches. Have no fear, artists are still needed to sketch out a visual depiction, whether it be for animation, movies, or a video game. Even in the world of Disney and CG, sketching remains the quickest and most valued shorthand used to bring any idea to life.

~Michael

What's Your Favorite 3twins Character?

I was thinking about the time I went to Yokohama, Japan. I felt like I was in a video game! Neon colors, happy synthesized theme songs for everything (including crossing signals) and every business had it's own anime mascot. That's right, even the adults in Japan had their favorite anime characters. I challenge you to find your own theme character and post them right here on our blog. From any cartoon, comic book, video game or whatever. If you're short on ideas review our past posts and find one here. We have lot's of lovable characters that are looking for supporters. I, myself, choose Bojac the Centaur, from the upcoming hit Wii U game "Of Mages and Pages" by your friends here at 3twins.net. Post your favorites here and let's see who wins!!!

~Tom