Merry Christmas from The Silver Lining!

The Silver Lining Development Team would like to thank all of you for your continued support with a special Christmas present created by our Sound Designer, Daniel Chase. While we enter into the final phases of development, we've also begun discussing various projects to tackle after the release of TSL, and this idea seemed to be the most promising one! If you listen closely, you MIGHT even recognize a few voices!

So, without further ado, I give you the official* trailer for TSL II: "How Shadrack Stole Christmas" (3.27 MB)!



Happy Holidays to you and yours!




*That is, as "official" as Christmas-related game parody announcements get.

Neil Rodrigues
Web Director
The Silver Lining

Many of you have been anxiously waiting for this journal entry to be posted. I originally wanted to post something in August, but thought it would be better to wait until September. The main reason for this is that as I write this, almost all the TSL Directors are physically in the same place -- New York! As we wind down, this trip actually turned out to be less about non-stop work and more about the recuperation before the last big push.

I say recuperate, because we've actually made some substantial progress in TSL over the past couple of months. We've really polished off the intro and outro videos in the game, scripted & implemented most of that special addition to the game which I briefly mentioned last entry, and fixed/polished off various scenes and sequences in many places of the game. However, most importantly, we started talking about the game's release.

There's a lot more to it than just creating zips and uploading them; we're thinking of what is best for TSL's future. The release will involve a redesign and restructuring of our website, as well as some changes to the game to match. There is a lot we have planned that we're very excited about!

The future of TSL mainly relies on the game content, which is why we're doing our best to ensure the game is as complete as possible before submitting it to Vivendi. Overall, we're currently at 92% completion and have around 65 issues left to be fixed before sending for approval. These last few weeks are going to be pretty hectic and stressful, but hopefully it'll all be worth it!


Neil Rodrigues
Web Director
The Silver Lining

Game Status

Some of you may have noticed an unofficial countdown thread in our Forum, counting down the days of last month. We had originally planned to have the game ready to submit to Vivendi by the end of May. Back in February I even estimated that the game should be around 92% complete by this time. Unfortunately, productivity slowed down quite drastically in the past few months and we're currently 2% shy of that goal, at 90%.

This slowdown was mainly due to lack of motivation. First, it started with testers finding less and less bugs. Normally, this is a good thing, but it caused developers to feel less inclined to rush out and fix stuff. Eventually, the rate of bug fixing dropped to a staggering halt. There was an entire week in March where nothing new was reported and nothing new was fixed.

Additionally, around a month ago, we decided to add something extra to the end of the game. There was major debate over what should be added, how exactly it should be added, what impact it would have on our deadline, and what impact it would have on fans. Needless to say, there were a lot of things to take into consideration. It would also take a great deal of effort on all our parts in order to make it work correctly and feel worthwhile. While it was obvious that it would add even more work to everyone's plates, we decided that in the long-term, it would be worth it.

It's a chance for us to put our unique signature onto this game, by infusing some creativity and ingenuity. We've gone from wild brainstorming of ideas to specifics of what will work and what won't. Once fully completed, we're fairly certain it will spark up a good deal of discussion. I don't want to spoil much more about it, so all I'll say is that it's based on something that occurs much later on in TSL's storyline, which we've expanded on slightly and integrated into Chapters 1 & 2.

Over the next month or two, we'll be working hard on completing this addition to the game, as well 100 or so other issues we need fixed before we can submit the game to Vivendi. Considering the last thing Vivendi received from us was essentially an alpha version of the public demo, they'll be in for a real treat with the latest build.

I had actually played the public demo of our game very recently, and it's literally jaw-dropping how much the game has improved since 2006. Textures pop more, animations are more realistic, sounds are richer, sequences feel more cinematic, and the interface is much more refined. Even gameplay itself has improved, in terms of better interactivity and responsiveness to what you click in the scene.

Overall, the game has been very well put together, and I can't wait for the day you guys get to play it for yourselves!


Final Credits

One of the other major issues we need to complete before sending to Vivendi is the credits. These will appear at the end of the game, and in the About menu. Recently, we sent an email out to all former team members regarding this. If you have previously worked on our game and would like to be credited for your work, but did NOT receive the email we sent out on May 23rd, 2009, please contact core@postudios.com as soon as possible, stating:

1) Your first and last name
2) The date you joined our team
3) The department you were in (i.e. Writing, Art - 2D, Art - 3D, Audio, Programming, Voice Cast, or Beta Testing)

Regardless of how big or small your role was in the team, we greatly appreciate the time and effort you spent working on this game. You helped to make this game what it is today, and your name deserves to be on it.


Neil Rodrigues
Web Director
The Silver Lining

Progress Update

Last weekend, I met up with several of the TSL Directors in Montreal to work on the game. We've actually met up two or three times last year as well, but this was the first time in 2009. Looking back, when I first met up with everyone in 2007, we were a complete mess in terms of organization. We hadn't begun using Redmine yet, and were completing the very first scene in Chapter 2. In this last meeting, Rich was working on completing the last few scenes in the game. We currently have 499 issues left out of the 2,779 logged since 2007.

Simple math will tell you that we're now overall 82% complete! In December, we thought we would be at 78% by the year's end, but due to Christmas holidays it actually ended up being 77%. This means in just 7 weeks, we've brought the game 5% closer to our goal. For those of you wondering what 5% actually translates to, from January 1, 2009 to today, 192 new issues were created and 296 were closed. Those extra 104 closed issues represent the 5% increase.

If we maintain this current rate of productivity, the game will be around 92% done by the end of May. Hopefully, those remaining 8% of issues are minor enough to not delay sending the game to Vivendi for approval. While the game is being approved, we will continue to fix these remaining issues. Once the game is approved, we'll review whatever issues are still not fixed and decide which need to be done before public release, and which can be fixed later in a post-release patch.


What's Next?

The other major topic of discussion we had was about TSL's future. We Skyped with Cesar and Petter (who weren't able to make it in-person this time) and looked through all the artwork done on Chapter 3 together. Needless to say, there was some really hilarious, cute, creepy and jaw-droppingly amazing stuff! Unfortunately, the reality of the amount of time and work needed to complete this chapter for free quickly set in. We finally decided that the best thing for us to do right now is to continue as planned: finish and release Chapters 1 & 2, and then see how things go from there.

We also began to come up with a few ideas & concepts for original games. We haven't decided on anything concrete just yet, but the prospect of finally being compensated for our hard work was enough to get our adrenaline pumping and creative juices flowing! There was a thread someone posted in our forum recently about being disappointed over TSL being cut short. I originally thought that reviewing old TSL files would bring back this melancholic feeling, but instead it did the complete opposite. After seeing so many different facets of our team's imagination, and the huge potential for creating amazing new experiences, I'm very excited about the things to come in the not-so-distant future. The release of Chapters 1 & 2 won't mark the end of an era; it'll only be the beginning.

Neil Rodrigues
Web Director
The Silver Lining

Journal Special: So you want to be a Game Developer?

This past year, there seems to have been an increased amount of pessimism and negativity in the fangame community. Most complaints have been along the lines of: "It's been x years! Why isn't the game done yet?!" Rather than giving the same mundane response over and over, a far better idea is to visually show how much hard work actually goes into making a game like The Silver Lining.

Starting in 2008, each month I'll be discussing a particular piece of our game in great detail -- from design to implementation. By the end of the journal special, you will have a much greater understanding and appreciation for the entire development process. Click the image below to get started:



Neil Rodrigues
Web Director
The Silver Lining

For the past month, we've been working harder than ever on the production of the game. We set a milestone date of Oct 1st where we said we'd implement and/or complete 9 scenes. The team has been doing a great job. We've met approximately 90% of our target! This in itself is quite remarkable because we haven't had this much team productivity since 2005, during the development of the demo for Vivendi. Our plan from this point forward is to complete and finalize 8 scenes every month.

In order to ensure that the game gets completed as soon as possible, we have made the decision to cut back on promotional media and activities. Michael Bright and I are currently occupied working with the production team and thus no longer have time to respond to public inquiries regarding the current status of the game.

For the most up-to-date information about progress and development, please check the Journal regularly. However, I cannot promise there will be any site updates from this point onwards. If there are, they will be displayed on our Home page under "What's New". Once we are ready to release the game, the release date will be publicly announced on our site and by e-mail via our Newsletter. It will not be announced any earlier, so please do not even bother asking.

If you have any other questions/comments regarding these decisions, please address them to: feedback@tsl-game.com Any inquiry or complaint made elsewhere will not be responded to.


Neil Rodrigues
Assistant Web Director
The Silver Lining

Recently several of the directors met up in New York. I first met with Richard Flores (Art Director) in Montreal, Canada, and then we both drove down to Albany, NY where Cesar Bittar (Project Director) currently resides. From there, we travelled down to Queens to meet with Michael Fortunato (Assistant Art Director), where Rich and I stayed for almost a week. We then all went back up to Albany and stayed at Cesar's place for the weekend. We were also able to meet with artists Jon Stoll and John Leopold that same weekend, albeit shortly.

It was my first time meeting these guys in real life, and it was a lot of fun! Even though I hadn't met any of them before in person, we have known each other for 4 years through e-mail & MSN. Mike is definitely more wacky and hilarious in real life than over MSN, Rich is a cool & laid-back guy and Cesar is... Cesar. Actually, Cesar was shockingly less annoying in-person than he is online!

There's quite a difference between working in-person and working online. Getting caught up on all the latest bugs while sipping an ice cap at Tim Hortons, working on user interfaces while one of Mike's roommates plays XBox 360, and of course late-night director meetings at Applebee's! That was definitely an interesting experience: a basket of fries, chicken fingers & riblets on one side, and an Excel spreadsheet with prioritized assignments on the other. Yes, we did a few "working dinners".

Our primary reason for the meeting was to get away from all real-life distractions and get some solid work done on the game. Rich brought his entire desktop computer with him (monitor and all), I brought my laptop, and Mike had his laptop and numerous electronic devices (which really came in handy since Cez doesn't have a router). It was MUCH easier to work in-person rather than remotely. Rather than typing to describe something in detail along with screenshots, all you had to do is point to the screen and say "this" and everyone would know exactly what you're talking about.

We then looked over several DVD's of work that the team had already completed in the past. There were so many videos that I had never seen before! It's easy to forget how much hard work went into this game over the years. After we had done this, we immediately decided to go through each scene and mark down what is done and what still needs work. We also experimented with some camera features, and found a new way of exploring each scene that really immerses the player into the game. Then we went through every task left to be done, prioritized them, and decided who to assign them to. We discovered a better way to coordinate team efforts, and decided to test our plan out immediately.

Cesar, Rich and I each worked on the very first scene of the game, which appears in both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Cesar worked on adding and modifying narration dialogues, and setting up dialogue cameras. I worked on adding conversation topics, lipsync, and music. Rich worked on exporting characters, set cameras and fixing the set & other objects in the scene. Because we were working on different parts of the same scene, it was easy to divide-and-conquer. By the end of the day, even though there were still a few bugs, we were able to see how everything meshed together. Trying to accomplish this same feat online would have taken at least a week or two due to all the communication overhead. In real life, it just took one day. The scene went from 20% to about 80% complete in just a matter of hours.

The best part of all is that we committed our changes to our Subversion central repository as soon as they were functional; meaning everyone on the team was able to see the work we did immediately. This made it very easy for them to play-test the scene, view the same bugs we did, and dive right in to pick up exactly where we left off. If we didn't have a central repository, only one person would have the most up-to-date build of the game at a time, and there would be constant synchronization problems due to people not always having the latest version of things.

It was really great to finally meet other people on our team, but it was also fulfilling to see that much of the game has been completed. In the past, we've been working on pieces of the game all over, and while there was no doubt that progress was being made, from a direction point of view it made it very difficult to measure overall progress. Now our plan is to work as a whole to complete the game from the order the user plays the game in, which in turn makes progress easier to see, and testing easier to do. With this shift in organization, it is much clearer to visually see where we stand and it makes it easy to prioritize tasks that still need to get done.

Neil Rodrigues
Assistant Web Director
The Silver Lining

It’s been quite a while since we've posted in these journals. It’s been something I've wanted to do but could never find the time.

There has been some very strong chatter on the forums of late. Some of you are slowly starting to lose faith in ever seeing TSL come to life. I honestly can't blame you for that. TSL has been in development in some form or another for 7 years now. It’s had its highs and lows, and those of us who have been working on it for so long can't really remember a time when our lives existed without it.

And though things have slowed down, it’s not without reason. I lost my mother to cancer this past holiday season. Our Assistant Art Director Michael Fotunato's grandmother passed away recently as well. My co-director Cesar Bittar has been working 12 hour days at Activision. Saydmell Salazar recently married and settled in the United States. Other team members are searching for employment or wrapping up their university degrees.

To those of you who voiced their concern about the viability of TSL, I say THANK YOU. Your messages have actually inspired our team to regain some of the momentum we lost. It has reminded us of the importance of the game we promised and how it rekindled the desire to relive an era from our youth.

As Art Director on this project I've had the privilege to help steer the game in the visual direction it’s taken. We found great inspiration in the original artwork from the King's Quest series. The artists of the time always found ways to break new ground with every instalment. I still remember seeing KQII in stunning EGA 16 Color graphics and was left breathless (up to that point my KQ experience was limited to 4 Color CGA). I hope we will be able to bring you the same feeling with TSL by finally bringing Graham to life in 3D like never before. Our talented artists have been continually refining their craft, bringing a hand-painted feel to a 3D world. Every screenshot brings us more and more refined detail as shown in our screenshot recently displayed during the Christmas season here.

On the technical front I'd like to say that we've managed to tackle several key issues that were recently plaguing us. A classic case of the writing department leaving the programmers and artists scratching their heads and wondering as to how we’d pull it off.

This project has always proved challenging and continues to do so on a daily basis. Maybe that’s why most of us have stuck around for so long. We get on each others’ nerves, sometimes we want to strangle one another but overall the people on this team are a very talented bunch who I adore working with.

Thank you to the fans, thank you to the team, and thank you to all others who just landed here by mistake.

Richard Flores
Art Director
The Silver Lining

Struggling for Perfection

Hi everyone!

This is my first journal entry, and I hope there will be more to come.

It's been just about a year since we completed the Vivendi demo. It's also been about a year since I assumed the role of Programming Director. And what a year it has been! The successful revival of the project, all the media coverage and the amazing feedback on the public demo has been an amazing experience. Getting back on track with the full game after the shutdown issues were resolved was a more difficult process than we expected, but supported by all these wonderful things that happened to us in the meantime, we got the ball rolling again. And it's quite a ball to keep in motion! The full reality of this struck me only after taking on a director's position. It's not only a matter of getting things done, it's a matter of helping everyone else to get things done too.

Already when we were working on the Vivendi demo, which later became the public demo with a few small modifications, it was obvious to us that some components of the game engine simply would not "cut it" as the platform to run the full game on. It was acceptable for the demo, with its limited number of scenes and functionality, but the system requirements and other limitations were already becoming a problem. We simply had to take a step back and rework some things before we had what we needed to base Shadows on. This was one of the reasons why it took some time to get back on track with the game.

This last year, we have updated several parts of the engine, replacing and adding various systems. We've also reworked and developed new tools to help us transfer the art, music and other important components into the game. But we have not only settled for improving the existing features. This year, we've aimed even higher than we did when we were working on the demo. The fan feedback has helped us to see what people liked about the game and what we needed to do better, and with the confidence of an overall positive response we have taken on the massive challenge that completing this game is with new energy.

As an example of this, one of our latest improvements to the game is a dialogue system with new features. In the demo you can see how characters play a set of generic animations during dialogues. This gives an acceptable illusion of them talking to each other, but as you've probably noticed, their mouths do not move in sync with what they are saying and there are other timing-related problems as well. While this might still have been acceptable in the full game, we simply decided that we could do better! That decision surely delayed the release date a bit, but when seeing the result, I think you'll agree that it was worth it. With the help of a 3rd party development tool that was affordable to us, we have been able to add full lipsync to our characters. In layman's terms that means dialogues don't look like badly dubbed foreign movies anymore. And not only that, we've added facial expression animations too, so that we can easily trigger "feelings" to the lines in our script. Thus, our characters can now "act" to reflect the voice actor performances and better bring the script to life the way it was envisioned. It's a small component of the game, but one of those details that are very important to enhance the gaming experience. I hope to be able to demostrate this system to you all in upcoming preview videos, as it's looking really cool in action!

Of course it takes some care to know just how high you should aim. There's always room to improvement, and no matter how good the game gets there will always be ideas that we had to leave on the "cutting room floor" and various compromises that we aren't too happy with, but that we know were necessary in the end to actually get anything completed. That's just a natural part of game development (and with almost everything else in life too when you think about it). It's about balancing your ambitions with good judgement when it comes to practical limitations. That was very much the case with the demo, which needed to be completed quickly in order to convince VU Games that we were not just a lot of hot air but could actually make a decent game. The challenge is even greater now, and we are constantly reminded of simple facts like that we are not professionals in this industry, that we are spread all over the globe, that we have no budget, that we have an actual life on the side of this (well, at least some of the others tell me they do) and so on... Many would claim that we are crazy to keep going. Well, they may be right, but if this is what craziness is like then I don't mind being a little crazy. I don't mind at all!

Petter Holmberg
Programming Director
The Silver Lining

TSL Evolution

2006 has been quite the year for The Silver Lining. As the best Christmas present we could ever hope for in December 2005, our game was granted official legal permission from Vivendi Games to continue development, after being shut down two months prior due to a Cease and Desist request. The main thing that Vivendi wanted us to do was to change our game title. In order to be legal, no longer could we be known as "King's Quest IX"�, "KQIX"�, or "KQ9"�. However, considering this was the only thing Vivendi requested, we were ready to evolve.

After being known by approximately 60,000 people (if not more) as "KQIX"�, and after branding everything both inside our site and out with those letters, we in PR knew that this would be quite a challenge. It took us 5 months to finally finish redoing our website, in order to properly and officially evolve on May 31, 2006. With the change of name also came a change of style and class. Many people complimented our new design before we could even ask them for feedback, and others who were normally quick to criticize were literally left speechless.

This project as a whole changed from a fun hobby to a serious and now legitimate career, with unlimited opportunities awaiting us just beyond the horizon. If you've visited the Phoenix Online Studios site, you'll notice that our motto is: "Adversity is the foundation of virtue"�. Some people have asked me why we chose this particular proverb. It is symbolic for a lot of things. First of all, when Vivendi approached us and asked us to shut down, we never gave up hope. In fact, both the team and fans worldwide worked even harder to prove that we will overcome this somehow. Secondly, it represents the basic plot of our game. The Royal Family of Daventry is always faced with some form of adversity, but they never cower in fear. Instead, Graham, Alexander and Rosella take on the heavy burden of conquering evil, otherwise all hope is lost. Finally, the motto represents life in general. We are all faced with hardships, but nothing is too difficult or impossible when you have the passion and drive to succeed.

In this same vein, our project has just succeeded in accomplishing a huge milestone. On July 30, 2006, we released our first public demo worldwide. Our game has been largely anticipated for over 4 years. While some may have lost hope when they realized we would no longer able to meet our planned winter release date; we were able to take everyone by surprise and meet it four months later. The demo is now far more stable, smooth and playable than the one we sent to Vivendi back in November 2005; even though the gameplay is essentially the same.

Our project will continue to evolve, in ways that we never thought possible or could even imagine, but we will never forget our past. This is the whole idea behind the two Evolution wallpapers. Each photo illustrates the process used for all art assets that go into our game: sketch, 2D colour, 3D model, 3D texture. This evolutionary process that Graham and Shadrack have gone through represent years of design, rework, adjustments, alteration and finalization, before we declare work as acceptable, with respect to our quality standards. Many other companies do not do this due to lack of time and money, and as an unfortunate result, their customers become unsatisfied with aspects of the final product. Sadly, by that time it is too late.

With our game, development does not end with release. We care about our fans by releasing software patches to fix critical and non-critical defects. We listen to constructive feedback, and respond accordingly. We offer aide and support to anyone that seeks it. There are many large-scale commercial companies that do not perform these basic things even today. This is why I firmly believe the entire game industry is in desperate need of its own evolution. Otherwise, it will take a team like ours to show the world how quality products are meant to be made.

Neil Rodrigues
Assistant Web Director
The Silver Lining