Silversword concept art - Princesses

Archive entry by Ste Pickford on Wed, 27 May 2009
Subject: Wizards & Warriors 3

More concept art / game design illustrations from our 1989 NES game Silversword (Wizards and Warriors 3).

We nicked a great little gag here from the first or second NES Dragon Warrior game. As I recall, in one of those games you met a princess who asks you to marry her, and there's a yes / no dialogue box. If you selected 'no' she just said 'surely you will' and popped up the yes / no question again.

We though this was hilarious, so decided to nick the idea but go one step further. In the original design for this game there were three princesses that you had to rescue (as your character had three disguises: a knight, a wizard and a thief - a homage to Ultimate's Atic Atac), and each one gave you the same question. You had to commit to marrying all three.

At the end of the game we planned for all three princesses to come on screen together, looking to marry the dashing hero who'd rescued them, only to discover they were all betrothed to the same person.

To get you out of this sticky predicament, we went for the ultimate cheapo cop-out - a UFO was going to fly on the screen, zap the hero with some kind of teleport / time travel beam, and send him to the future, where the player would be told that the story would continue in the next game: Lasersword!

I don't think this ending made it into the final game...

Tags: drawing, concept art, npc, princess

Follow up post: Silversword concept art - Wizards Guild Keeper

Predecessor post: Silversword concept art - Wise Old Man

View the softography page for Wizards & Warriors 3 »

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