WA, Gardenia Park: Early Plans & Concepts

[natie]

Hi everyone!

Both Winx Adventure and Gardenia Park were with us for a relatively short period. Today, one thing is clear — the original plans and ideas behind them were far more ambitious than what we actually got to play.

Although very little official information remains, let's discuss early videos, images, texts, and any other materials related to plans for these projects here.

Theories and speculations are very welcome!

[natie]

First of all, I'd like to mention the conversation between me and Hallowinxer about Gardenia Park images from another topic. It's still not clear where those images came from. They could either be fan-made or early, lost prototypes...

I accidentally came across this interesting place where there are not only clothing items made by fans but also a few old ones. (but almost all of them can already be found in the avatar on this site )
https://parco-di-gardenia-game.forumcom ... t=47480306

Also, there are such interesting screenshots on this forum. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Are they from Gardenia Park?
https://i.imgur.com/1ZrrM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/KjdVU.png
the first image looks scanned

Wow!! I hadn't seen these pictures before. But I started to browse the forum you linked and found the same pictures there:
https://parco-di-gardenia-game.forumcommunity.net/?t=47480514 So I think the places are also fan made. Looks like they had their own "Let's play Gardenia Park" section on their forum and they made lots of fan made clothes and also these places.

Yes, this is exactly where I found them! It seems like there were no such places in the game, but I don't think the images themselves are edited though. To me they really look like some sort of concept art.
The first image looks like part of a page with Gardenia Park advertisement in some magazine or something like that (judging by the texture, the image was most likely scanned, and there's another picture in the top left corner).

And the second one... When I first saw it, it seemed to me like a screenshot from completely other random mobile game. The art style is a bit different. But it could also be an early concept art for Gardenia Park. In Season 2, there was a nightclub in Gardenia called "Disco Planet" and some of the decor elements from the image resemble it.



Respectfully, in 2011, there weren't many people who could draw such locations, but the possibility still exists.
Also, a nightclub-like location would be an obvious idea for early concept art, since such places were common in children's MMOs (e.g. Club Penguin )

But yeah... these are just my speculations. I'm too excited and crazy because looking at these unfamiliar images connected to Gardenia Park feels like traveling back in time.

Yes, this is exactly where I found them!

Oh I see, lol I'm such a Sherlock Btw finding these kind of old forums just makes me feel so nostalgic I found another one a while ago where there was "Magix mall" kind of section where you could "buy" fan made clothes for your avatar and the owner of the "shop" edited the clothes you chose to your avatar. It's such a cute concept and it always feels so heart-warming to see them even though they haven't been updated for ages.

But the idea of them being concept art or prototype art sounds logical!

And the disco picture reminded me too of the season 2 disco in Gardenia!

What do you think?

Anyway, I have even more questions for everyone:
Do you think the developers managed to do everything they planned in Gardenia Park?
Why was the project shut down and replaced by Winx Adventure?
Was it just because Gardenia Park was in 2D, or were there other reasons?

*X-Files theme starts playing*

[DarkPinkie2024]

That's awesome, I can't wait for gardenia park to happen here if possible.

[natie]

That's awesome, I can't wait for gardenia park to happen here if possible.

Oh, I hope so someday! But right now, I'm mostly looking forward to Winx Adventure, which is coming soon...

[natie]

Now about Winx Adventure. I'll start with the image that actually made me create this topic.
I found it in someone's blog while looking for other old images from the official website. According to the original post from Sep 24, 2010, it's a part of a magazine article.

Besides some interesting text info (for example, something about a bank and possessions O.o), there's an image that looks like concept art. 3D models with big heads in a room... I've never seen it before! So I wanted to share and discuss it with you!

These models actually reminded me of the models from Winx Fairy School (2013) game!

[juleic1123]

I have A LOT to say about this!

I digged so hard and so much for Winx Adventure especially. So it's great to have this topic.

So, first things first:

Specialists in Winx Adventure were supposed to return. They promised and mentioned it a few times on the news between September-December 2010 themselves after the beta closed and the official silently removed them. My guess is that with Garden of Charmix and future plans they had for the game, specialists just became something that would give them headaches and they knew they had to disappear from the game in order to have room to create these new game modes.

Still, there is a LOT of hidden things that Winx Adventure had in store that never saw the light of day:

- Dance movements and light sprites is one of them. Both the male and female avatars have 3 spots for 3 different dances on Winx Adventure that never saw the light of day, this combined with the fact we see the Disco Planet building when the game was launching leads me to believe the disco was going to be part of the game, but they scrapped it.

Rainbow also released an article about Winx Adventure on their own website back in September or November 2010 at the time, with a lot of info that never came to be AND THINGS WRONG:


- It says the game was around since September 2009 but it's been since September 2010. Also, the developers started working on Winx Adventure in June of that same year. Unless they merged Gardenia Park, which was available in September 2009, this seems like a lie.

- The bank is a lie, unless they meant the inventories and the decorator in-game?

- the choose between specialist and fairy, which by the time this article came out was already 1-3 months after beta ended and specialists were removed.

- Beauty shop on the promotional image of this article is completely different from the version in-game.

- We also see the winx rooms' in Love&Pet which never came to be.

- We also had "a lot" of events planned from september to december promised two weeks after the game released, but only Hallowinx came to be. (Unless you count my best room contest in the forum, then I guess 2? )

- When Gardenia changed in July 2011, they temporarily released ALL FEATURES, but they couldn't be clicked. Some users even had a picture taken of all the menu options available. They went back and locked them again, promising they'd all be available one day. (And we know how that turned out )

- Pets were teased in the Hallowinx event in 2011, but nothing about pets ever came back or was talked about prior and after the event.

- Garden of Charmix was supposed to have multiple chapters and had A LOT of things planned, including more transformations, but the game closed before any of the updates or other chapters was released, ultimately becoming one of the biggest marketing lies back then.

[natie]

I also wanted to share a piece of an interview with Iginio Straffi before I forget. He gave this interview to a Russian newspaper, and it was published on March 31, 2010. He talked primarily about the creation of Winx Club and financial matters related to it, but he also mentioned Winx Adventure there!

Here's the translation
Thanks to ChatGPT for the translation. I was too lazy to translate it myself, sorry!

Kids aged 10 to 12 need a story they can relate to, they need friends, they need the Winx world. Right now, we are creating a large online community where every user will be able to create an avatar, a personality, decorate their own room and house, make friends, and in another part of the project — which we’ll call Winx Adventure — form teams with other users to fight evil. Yes, and all of this will be in 3D.

Part of it will start working in July, and by September users will have access to the entire Winx universe. We’re doing this because fans want more than just the cartoon or dolls — they want more content.

*sigh*

[juleic1123]

Now about Winx Adventure. I'll start with the image that actually made me create this topic.
I found it in someone's blog while looking for other old images from the official website. According to the original post from Sep 24, 2010, it's a part of a magazine article.

Besides some interesting text info (for example, something about a bank and possessions O.o), there's an image that looks like concept art. 3D models with big heads in a room... I've never seen it before! So I wanted to share and discuss it with you!

These models actually reminded me of the models from Winx Fairy School (2013) game!

I love that you found that blog, because it's very, very complete. It's the one I follow since 2010!

[juleic1123]

other animations that are available on WA but never saw the light of day:
Clap (players would clap in a loop)
Catch (players would pick something from the ground, reminds of like picking flowers)

Animations on the Garden of Charmix Folder:

Look out (players confused, looking around, animation seems to be the default stance for players in that level, for exploring)
Specialists' animation (????!) of them thinking with their hands on their chin.
Jump animation (while character looks down, like it's dodging an obstacle on the floor)
Snatch, Snatcherstrangle, snatcherpillar, snatcher grab - new animations of players getting trapped in something, the fact their arms seem tied up makes me think it would be vines.

There is also two unused spell attacks that belong to transformation 4, but I don't have a transformation 4 on the folder, so I'll assume they were working on a new transformation and increasing the rooster of powers for new players and that's when they were dismissed.

I can show videos later of these animations if you want to.

[juleic1123]

As promised, here's all the unused emotions used for Garden of Charmix and Winx Adventure.

Note: clapping, bow and dances for both specialists and fairies were in the emotions folder, so we can assume they were going to be extensions that got deleted.

All other animations like jump, lookaround, pickup were from the garden of charmix folder, which is very interesting to have a random specialist version of pickup.