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

NEW Character, Sam the Magenta Wizard!

Today I bring you another new character for our upcoming game for Wii U, Of Mages & Pages, Sam the Magenta Wizard.  Sam is a Griffin and has dominion over "earth" meaning soil, rocks, ground, etc.  Sam watches over the Pyroclast people and is the wizard who lives closest to the Evil King Anell.

~Jason

Midieville Returns

With all the excitement about our upcoming Nintnendo Wii-U game Of Mages & Pages we have decided to continue our story of Midieville.  The latest saga will bridge the gap between the Spellbook saga, and the story in the game.  If you remember the "Duel" episode that we released a few years back that featured Marvin challenging Naaj to a wizard's duel, this is actually the first episode of the ten part story.  You can watch that episode here. Take a good look at the art because it's all changing when the new episodes start rolling out!  We will begin debuting new episodes prior to the release of our game.  Keep checking in with our Blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed to stay up to date on all the Of Mages & Pages news.

~Andy

Players Psychology & Game Play Design

Every game player has his or her favored type of game play, whether consciously or subconsciously they play a game to gain something from it on a psychological level, as a game designer we must see the psychology behind both the game we design and the people that play it. In this process we must answer the questions  before it the player asks it, thus keeping the game from losing its appeal. Building a puzzle game puts us in strategy column, making it important to anticipate what we think the players will do to solve the puzzle/obstacle and change it up, upping the  challenge of the game. If it is too easy the player may walk away, second we must understand the importance in utilizing the appropriate  type of reward system in the game. If the game posses to be draw out with high difficulty or too little for too long of period without a reward system to balance out the players work (& time) may result in a player walking away.

A reward system is a must, but it is also important to determine how it is executed. In this process the designer must decide how and when each reward is given. The How/When is vital to game players interest and desire to continue playing that game. In the Game world the dispensing of  rewards has been generalized into two types of methods, Ratios and Intervals.  Ratios; are rewards given based on the number of actions a player completes. Intervals; are in which the  period of time changes after each reward. It is our job to get inside the players head and keep them on their toes and interested in our product, in doing so these are some of the things we need to look at and understand about game design.

Michael

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

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

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

The Black Knight Image

So, Friday I posted an image of what the character of the Gold Knight will most likely look like in our Wii U game Of Mages & Pages.  Today I give you The Black Knight and how he will likely look in our game.

~Jason

The Gold Knight Image

Quite a while back I mentioned a new character for our Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages, the gold knight.  At that time I wasn't ready to show you a concept image for him.  However, today I decided to show you an image that is very similar to what he should look like in the final game!

So take a look at the Gold Knight for our game!

~Jason

Website Updates

Greetings 3twins Fans!

If you check out the main page of 3twins.net you no longer see the spread of Hatman & Indigo comics, rather you will be greeted with a site under construction image.  Complied by our very own, Michael Lude, this picture features images from Hatman & Indigo, Star Fetched, Midieville, and Of Mages & Pages.  If you click the image you will be directed to our Comic’s page (if you have flash player installed in your browser).

What are we doing this for? You may be asking. From the early days of 3twins.net our site has been fully flash based, but now there are many devices like macs, smart phones, and tablets that no longer support flash player.  So we have enlisted the help of Never Hall to completely revamp our website making it non-flash friendly.  This is a slow and tedious process, so please be patient, but this new image is step one.

Stay tuned to our blog and Facebook for updates as we progress through this process, as well as sneak peeks at our Wii-U game, Of Mages & Pages.

~Andy

NEW CHARACTER: Leon the Green Wizard!

Greetings 3twins fans!

Today I'd like to show you a new character for our upcoming Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages.  This is Leon the Green Wizard.  If you watched any of our Midieville cartoon shorts, you may recall Leon being mentioned by name in the final installment of the Spellbook saga: http://www.3twins.net/Spell10.html  Here's a little teaser for you, the story discussed in that short plays a large role in the game!

This design comes from the game's Lead Animator, Michael Lude.  He is fast at work on designing all twelve wizards for the wizard council.  I will share them each with you as time goes on.  However, other than Marvin, Leon is the most important wizard in the game!

Stay warm and we'll see you in March!
~Jason

NEW character concept drawing!

Greetings 3twins fans!

It is always difficult for me to know what to post about and what to keep as a secret with regards to our progress in the game.  Sorry it has been a while since I posted anything.  My grandfather has been in the hospital, so I hope you all understand the delay in new teases.

That being said, today I would like to introduce you to another new character to our Nintendo Wii U game: Of Mages & Pages: Teento's Revenge, Myreej the jester.  Myreej is the royal advisor to the good King Mathos.  These sketches are still a work in progress, so his final design may change, but I wanted to share this with all of you.  These designs come from the newest member of our team, Michael Lude (who some of you may remember from several great Hatman stories like Back to the Beginning)

-Jason

So much I can't talk about!

So, I was trying to give you teases once a week, but obviously fell behind on that.  I have so much to talk about, but I can't!  I know that just seems mean of me, doesn't it?  Well, Andy and I discussed a lot of the progress we've made over the past couple of weeks and decided that we should keep a lid on it for now.  However, I can tell you what he and I have been doing.  In addition to being the producers on the game and directing the various elements that go into the game, Andy and I are writing the story that will unfold in the cut-scenes.  Since it has been over five years since we posted a new Midieville on our site, What we've been doing is writing loads of appendices and back-stories for the world and characters.  A lot of that stuff won't end up in the game itself, but it is helping us to flesh out the world for "Of Mages & Pages" and give our artists, animators, sound designers, and programmers a better feel for the world of the game.  Maybe we'll touch on some of that content later on, but for now, its all just helping to put everyone whose working on the game into the realm of Midieville.

Loads more to come!

-Jason

NEW CHARACTERS: The Golden Knight

Our Nintendo Wii U game, Of Mages & Pages will feature some new characters.  I'd like to do a short series introducing each of them briefly.  The first new character is The Golden Knight.  This addition to the team is narcissism personified.  The Golden Knight sees himself as the bravest, second most important person in all the Land of Midieville; second only to the good King Mathos.

What does he look like?  Well, he's a knight and his armor is gold.  That's all you need to know for now.

I'll be back in a week or so to tease another interesting tidbit of the game.

-Jason

As an added bonus, here are some old concept drawings of what the Black Knight's helmet might have looked like (art by Steve Surine).

3twins and Gaming!

Greetings 3twins fans!

I know it has been a while since I posted, and I have a lot of exciting news to share.  I was just waiting permission from Nintendo to find out what all I could share.  Did I just name drop, Nintendo?  Oh, yes I did!  That's right, we are currently making a game for the Nintendo Wii U!  Our Midieville story is being re-worked into: Of Mages and Pages, a puzzle game for the Wii U.  This is the biggest opportunity we have had yet for any of our franchises.  As hinted at above, there are rules and regulations we need to abide by, so there are certain things I cannot share with you.  However, I will try to regularly tease bits and pieces of the game to pique your interests.

So far, we have a team of 16 people working on the game.  The game will likely take between 9-12 months to complete (depending on programming).  I'll bring you more teases later!

-Jason