The Silver Lining (game)

"The Silver Lining" ("TSL"), originally titled "King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining" ("KQIX"), is an unofficial continuation to the "King's Quest" series created by fans, which was granted official legal permission from "King's Quest" copyright holder Vivendi Games, Inc. Under development by Phoenix Online Studios (POS), it claims to be one of the most professional fangames to date; it has grown to be one of the largest fangame projects when measured by team membership. [ [http://www.tsl-game.com/team/ Team] "Team section of official TSL website from July 26, 2007"] The project was shut down for two months after its creators received a Cease and Desist order from Vivendi. It was revived after a successful letter writing campaign by fans, as well as a professional DVD portfolio created and delivered by the team itself. [ [http://pc.ign.com/articles/674/674825p1.html King's Quest Lives Again] "article on IGN by David Adams from December 9, 2005"]

Background

Although TSL is usually considered to have officially started after its reconstruction in 2002, the original team working on the game was formed in October 2000. After a long period of limited production and loss of focus, the original TSL team was later reorganized under new leadership.

The current TSL team was created in January 2002 under the supervision of César Bittar, previously one of the project writers; now Game Designer and Project Director. Dividing the production crew into five departments (Art, Design, Audio, Programming, and Public Relations), he made POS into an efficient working unit. Little of the original plot was kept, so its resemblance to the original team's concept is limited.

Goals

The final official game of the series, "", released in 1998, departed from the formula of the previous games. Fully three-dimensional, the game shifted the previous focus on the family of King Graham to an unknown character, and changed gameplay from adventure-style play to a focus on combat and aggression. Upon release, many fans felt the game did not do "King's Quest" justice as the final game in the series.

Phoenix Online Studios' stated intentions in production of "The Silver Lining" are to return King's Quest to its adventure game roots and to provide closure to the series. In striving to achieve this end, it also hopes to spark a new interest in the adventure gaming genre.

The game itself will have a completely original story, based on previous segments of the King's Quest Series. In addition, it will feature 3D graphics, original musical scores, sound, and voice acting.

Cancellation and resumption [ [http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/freeware-king8217s-quest-ix/677071p3.html KQIX: The Silver Lining -- A Talk with Phoenix Online Studios.] "GameSpy article by Allen 'Delsyn' Rausch from Dec. 16, 2005"] [ [http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1517812/20050712/index.jhtml Vivendi Games Agrees To Crown Fan-Created 'King's Quest' Sequel] "MTV article by Stephen Totilo from Dec 9 2005"]

From its inception, the "TSL" project stated intention was to give closure to the King's Quest series with the belief and assertion that the project was legal under U.S. fair use copyright law, though acknowledging that this was a legal gray area. Notwithstanding this position, they maintained a notice on their site promising to end the project if confronted by Vivendi Universal, the owner of the King's Quest license.

In September 2005, after over four years of development, and immediately after providing their first trailer and announcing a release date, Phoenix Online Studios received a cease-and-desist email from Vivendi. Phoenix kept their word and immediately halted all development on the project as they entered negotiations with Vivendi. Part of POS' final proposal included the "TSL" Trailer and The Making of The Silver Lining videos, both of which are now publicly available from their [http://www.tsl-game.com/media/promos/trailer/ Trailer] page.

Once the news was made public, fans of the game and the series began a mass mailing and e-mailing campaign organized by the Save King's Quest IX team to persuade Vivendi to allow Phoenix Online Studios to complete the project. Vivendi is said to have received over one thousand e-mails of complaint related to their Cease and Desist order to Phoenix Online Studios.

Thanks to public relations efforts of the project team, the quality of the work completed so far, and the ardent outcry from the fans of the project, on November 29, 2005, Phoenix Online Studios was granted a Fan Licence by Vivendi. The licence allowed resumption of project development with the requirement that the title be changed to remove the "King's Quest" reference (spawning unconfirmed rumors that Vivendi is planning to release an official Kings Quest IX in the future.) All characters, locations, art, story, plot, and script content were permitted to remain unchanged.

Release

"The Silver Lining" will be released as a trilogy, although no release dates have been officially announced yet. The first part will focus mainly on King Graham, the second will change the focus to Alexander and Rosella, and the third will focus on all three characters.

*Part 1: "Shadows"
*Part 2: "The Two That Are One"
*Part 3: "Eternities"

On July 30, 2006, a short demo of Chapter 1 from Part 1 was released. It can be downloaded from the official website.

References

External links

* [http://www.tsl-game.com/ Official website]
* [http://thesilverlining.deviantart.com/ The Silver Lining's deviantART page]
* [http://www.myspace.com/tslgame The Silver Lining's MySpace page]
* [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/thesilverlining/ GameSpot's webpages for The Silver Lining]
* [http://kingsquest.wikia.com/wiki/The_Silver_Lining The Silver Lining - KQ Omnipedia page]
* [http://www.postudios.com/ Phoenix Online Studios]