The Silver Lining: King's Quest... kind of.
Taramoor
StorytellerRegistered User regular
StorytellerRegistered User regular
It looks like Activision has officially permitted the unofficial spiritual finale to the King's Quest series to continue its production. It is expected to be unleashed onto the internet July 10th, of this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgRUr0HwQVE
From Kotaku:
http://kotaku.com/5573587/fans-at-last-will-find-the-silver-lining
So does anyone here think the project will ever be finished?
I realize that fan-made projects simply don't see the light of day very often, but I know that if this one somehow, magically, manages to coalesce into a tangible, playable THING, then I will download it more than once just to show my support.
I will also donate an amount greater than one dollar to the dev team, because I am not a filthy pirate.
Granted, the King's Quest name hasn't really been the same since the travesty of VII and the less said about Mask of Eternity the better, but we must never forget that King's Quest V and King's Quest VI are two of the finest examples of adventure gaming this side of Grim Fandango.
Who knows, maybe the fervor over this weird King's Quest fanfic-turned-game will get Activision to realize they have a hot property in their archives and they'll retool and re-release it like LucasArts did with Monkey Island for XBLA.
I know it's not going to happen, but I need to dream. The last time I made a hopeless wish for a video game a new Kid Icarus was announced the next day.
C'mon Activision, exploiting existing franchises is what you do! You're sitting on a goldmine here!
Bastards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgRUr0HwQVE
From Kotaku:
Fans At Last Will Find The Silver Lining
Fans At Last Will Find The Silver Lining When last heard from, those behind a long-in-development, fan-made King's Quest sequel were on the verge of an agreement with Activision allowing them to finally complete their project. This afternoon, that news came. The Silver Lining will finally be completed.
Phoenix Online, the collection of fan-developers who'd been working on The Silver Lining for upwards of a decade, will release the game on July 10, for free, thanks to a non-commercial license from Activision. In February, the publisher had shut down their development on the graphical adventure game IP, which transferred to Activision in the merger with Vivendi Universal. Phoenix Online had an earlier non-commercial license from Vivendi to continue work, but Activision apparently wanted no part of overseeing or approving pro bono work on a game it had no intention of reviving.
An outpouring of support for Phoenix Online and, perhaps significantly, a lengthy feature by Stephen Totilo explaining the odyssey of this game apparently changed Activision's mind. In early May, the publisher said it had renewed discussions with Phoenix, "given the overwhelming community support for the Silver Lining project."
This afternoon, the Silver Lining website returned with the announcement of a deal with Activision, and a release date of July 10. According to a statement on the site:Our team is ecstatic about this, and as hard as we've worked for 8 years, it's the tireless belief and support of you, our fans, that has made this possible. We want to give special thanks to the Save The Silver Lining team, who put together and ran an amazing and organized campaign, and rallied our fantastic fans to make a difference. You made it possible once, and now we've done what seemed impossible for a second time! The support we received from all of you was amazing and honestly blew us away. We always knew we had some of the best fans out there, but even so, wow! We will always be grateful for your unending belief in us.
They've released a trailer introducing us to The Silver Lining - their Vivendi agreement required them not to use King's Quest so that may be the case here. In this game: "players will assume the role of King Graham as he sets out on a quest to save his children, Rosella and Alexander, from a mysterious curse."
The Silver Lining [site]
Send an email to the author of this post at owen@kotaku.com.
http://kotaku.com/5573587/fans-at-last-will-find-the-silver-lining
So does anyone here think the project will ever be finished?
I realize that fan-made projects simply don't see the light of day very often, but I know that if this one somehow, magically, manages to coalesce into a tangible, playable THING, then I will download it more than once just to show my support.
I will also donate an amount greater than one dollar to the dev team, because I am not a filthy pirate.
Granted, the King's Quest name hasn't really been the same since the travesty of VII and the less said about Mask of Eternity the better, but we must never forget that King's Quest V and King's Quest VI are two of the finest examples of adventure gaming this side of Grim Fandango.
Who knows, maybe the fervor over this weird King's Quest fanfic-turned-game will get Activision to realize they have a hot property in their archives and they'll retool and re-release it like LucasArts did with Monkey Island for XBLA.
I know it's not going to happen, but I need to dream. The last time I made a hopeless wish for a video game a new Kid Icarus was announced the next day.
C'mon Activision, exploiting existing franchises is what you do! You're sitting on a goldmine here!
Bastards.
Taramoor on
0
Posts
"The only problem is trying to find the right levels of bloom to add to the graphics. Oh, and the addition of gore and realistic bullet physics," states Third Party Developer That You've Never Heard Of. "Yeah, this will be the first King's Quest game with guns."
The Silver Lining 3: Lining Your Socks Off is rumored to be in development, adding an anthropomorphic Cat as a sidekick with attitude to the mix. It will have co-op.
Huh? July 10 is like two weeks away, of course it's already finished.
What? It's a free fan project how on earth does piracy figure here? Sure you can give them a donation if you want but they didn't do this to make money. In fact I'm fairly sure they've signed licencing agreements specifically forbidding them from doing so!
Did any of the King's Quest series ever leave the retarded club of Sierra games you can make into an unwinnable state without even being aware of such?
Two things.
1. It was a joke, mostly about those people who pirated the games that were "Pay whatever you want, it's for charity" thing. I will donate to the dev team though, because it's awesome that they managed to push this through for ten goddamn years.
2. King's Quest and the rest weren't Gabriel Knight or anything. Yes you could reach an unwinnable state, but if you know everything you have to do the game's only a couple of hours long anyway. Part of the fun is figuring out what's necessary to keep from getting trapped.
Granted, having to hit the cat with the boot or the stick in 5 was bullshit, but it's not like it's difficult to start over, correct the mistake, and get back to where you were. In fact, I think 5 and 6 (the best of them) were the ones with alot of alternate solutions to help in case you DID forget to do something.
And King's Quest was never as bad as some adventure games when it came to the solutions being completely illogical. Typically there was a reasoning that could be followed.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
King's Quest was much worse than most adventure games because the solutions were both illogical and indecipherable. Quite often you would die or worse, get permanently stuck.
That is inexcusable.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
The candy/disguise/cat rape sequence of events from Gabriel Knight? The fake woodchuck from Roger Rabbit? The Bubble Gum balloon from Curse of Monkey Island?
Every adventure game has some pretty insane combinations, but I'm having trouble thinking of anything really crazy in King's Quest 5, though there was definitely some difficult timing on some of the events like the previously mentioned Cat/Mouse bit and the Witch sequence in the woods. Even the Harpy Island was explained to you before you got there.
Hell, Laura Bow & The Dagger of Amon Ra was impossible if you didn't go to a specific room at exactly 10:05 pm (game time) and pick up a shoe that otherwise wouldn't be there. There were no hints that it was necessary and no way of knowing what you were missing once you got to the end of the game.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
The only thing like that I can think of is the fake lamp thing, but you can beat that just by having a mint leaf on hand because the genie's crazy addicted.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Monkey Island had more logical solutions.
Ifnkovhgroghprm
There's showing the ring to the guy early on, and it's easy to miss things from the labyrinth (I never found the coin it turns out I needed when I was already trapped in the Underworld).
Both of those are for the harder ending, though.
The pie. The rat as you mentioned (maybe also the emeralds and the honey?). Plenty of oppertunities in that game to really screw yourself over (or get yourself killed). Gabriel Knight 3 had the silly moustache cat hair thing, but overall the Gabriel Knight games were pretty logical, more logical than King's Quest I've always felt.
Not to say I don't love King's Quest games (because I do, I have fond memories of 4, as it was the first one I ever played, and 6 which is my favorite), but those games could really be a pain in the ass from time to time. I will, however, be waiting to see what the Silver Lining will be like (funny this post shows up now, I was just talking about the game series earlier in the week).
Hitting the yeti with a pie? The leg of lamb? Accidentally walking into a building where you simply get killed? Yeah.
Of course I have great hope for this game because it was not designed by Roberta Williams or Jane Jensen.
You must be very mistaken, Krathoon.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I'm pretty it doesn't, if my memory serves correct (at least the 1st one doesn't, don't know about the other 2). In order to move to the next "day", you need to accomplish everything necessary. I don't think you can even die or get a game over in the game until the final 2 days.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Fuck the honey, fuck the desert, fuck a lot about that game. But for whatever reason, I have really positive memories of that game. I was a kid, so it seemed so cool to be walking around and talking to people. I loved adventure games. It was (in a backwards, retarded way) kind of fun to fuck up, learn from my mistake, and get past each problem. It made me feel like a badass.
If I tried to play it now, I'd give up after ten minutes and come here to bitch about it. I miss the old days.
Although in the game's defense, that is (as you said) in the last bit of the game so it's not a big disaster (assuming one atleast saves before doing the endgame). You can die before the final 2 days, btw
I heartily recommend Gabriel Knight 1 though, it's got a great story.
Fixed.
I love the KQ series, but it definitely had its problems. Still, I remember playing a demo of TSL years ago and it was looking pretty good. Glad it's finally seeing release. I'll definitely be playing it.
I actually liked KQ7 too, albeit the fact that I was a girl in her early teens when I played it may have helped (it is rather Disney-like). It's definitely not as good as some of the earlier King's Quest games, but it's not horrible.
These games did not have much re-playability after the fact, so going back and doing things the RIGHT way was part of the challenge. The satisfaction from conquering & shelving these games is unmatched.
Also
Kobayashi Maruhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru:
I think that the audience is much larger and more diverse than it used to be. I have also found that with less time (i.e. I'm no longer a kid playing video games all the time), I have less tolerance for the try-fail-try-fail-try-fail-try-WOO-FINALLY-WIN style of gaming. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but I have a feeling it's more niche, and game companies in general are trying to create easier games that appeal to a larger audience.
For instance, I grew up playing the original Prince of Persia, and I had a heck of a time playing the re-done PoP Classic, but I also really enjoyed the new Prince of Persia (the one before this latest Sands one), since it was a less tense and more flowing gaming experience. So, it's just that there are more styles of gaming now than there used to be. There are still games like Demon's Souls (if I got the name wrong, I apologize) which I understand appeal to the hard core audience that appreciates learning through failure
Edit: That's completely off-topic, though. I recently surprised my girlfriend by getting the old KQ games running on DOSBox on her Mac, something she had just assumed was impossible, and we had some fun playing them, so I'm looking forward to this, just to see how well it is done.
The games were designed as a sort of MMORPG, though, which is a different paradigm. It's still interesting to go through them in single-player, though Shadow of Yserbius kind of breaks down eventually once your spells cap and your enemies don't. The sequel handles that better, though.
Being able to die isn't the same as being stuck and not finding out until hours later. GK1 is split up into self-contained chapters. The absolute worst-case scenario is having to start the day over.
These games were brutally unforgiving yet somehow still awesome.
I never said it was. I was correcting the statement that you can't die before the final 2 days (you can, although not a lot). Gabriel Knight 1 (probably 2 and 3 as well, barring one or two well known puzzles, although I really need to replay these as my memory is letting me down on them) is a very logical game with very few ways to get screwed over really especially compared to several of the King's Quest games.
Man, I still have that newest King's Quest collection rerelease (the one with no extras or anything) sitting here shrinkwrapped. I should really break it out and replay the games. And I still wish I hadn't given away my original King's Quest collection to some younger kids all those many years ago.
This is the problem with Sierra games, they genuinely hated their players and loved throwing crap like this in "better bring along every piece of arbitrary piece of crap from act 1 or else you'll be screwed over in the finale! and have to start the game over" Because everybody knows Adventure game puzzles are twice as fun the second time around.
Sometimes they liked to mix it up and have items that would result in your death if you took them. There's no skill in having to save every single scene because Sierra were bastards, its just needless time wasting and fuckery.
Take Space Quest V, there's a puzzle in the game where you need to pick the right adapter plug for a device, the thing is you don't find out which plug you need until the end of the game and the plug is randomly generated, so the only way to solve the puzzle is to save it and then reload and play through again from that point once you've found out what the plug will be.
These games werent about skill, they were about patience and storytelling. We knew that situations like that could happen. Navigating the map, the item list, the dialogues, the seemingly random ETCS., was part of the maze, the yarn to unravel.
Could learning patience and trial & error techniques (in a form other then memorizing boss patterns) against seemingly illogical situations possibly be a useful ability for anybody to develop?
Will anybody play The Silver Lining without alt-tabbing to google stuff?
I personally have pretty much always played adventure games with hint books (remember those?) or walkthroughs handy because I enjoy the setting, characters, and story more than solving the puzzles.
it was a different time for games though
6 was great too, and robin hood, I wish I could play those games again, but to the best of my knowledge without a dos emulator (or some speicial software) none of them are playable anymore
edit: playing an adventure game (at least the KQ5/6 since those are the only ones I played) with a hint guide is like playing a FPS with a bot, I can see doing it just to kind of get a feeling for what the games were about, but the reason they exist is to excercise critical reasoning and the payoff is solving problems that had up til then eluded you, but I don't think I have the patience for that kind of thing anymore either, because so many games are such a constant stream of stimulus
And DOSBox works great for the old Sierra games. I even have the Windows version of KQ6 running under Windows 3.11 through DOSBox.
Nah. It was just massive, and you died every 5 or 6 screens without finding an oasis. You had to chance upon one specific screen with a skeleton who had some item (a boot?), visit a temple by a cliff without getting spotted by bandits, then find the bandits' camp in the far corner of the desert (which i never found without a guide). If you went too far west or south, it was nothing but desert forever. Too far east, death by scorpion.
What
I always just held off on buying the plug, went to Space Quest XII, entered the maze and looked at the plug before the death droid came, snuck back into the time pod, went to the mall again and bought the part I needed
I never had to save the game and keep playing only to have to replay a big chunk of the game