I’ve written and rewritten this introduction, like, four times. Here’s a précis.

My point is, why – whyyyyy – make a 3D game when it looks totally revolting? Because this game looks totally revolting. It looks totally revolting in ways that other totally revolting things can only dream damp dreams of. It’s not that I’m a graphics slut, mind you, but rather that this game simply looks totally revolting in a way that’s so totally revolting, it’s actually distracting. I know I’m supposed to care about Alexander’s YouTube sex video controversy (or whatever royal scandal the plot is trying so desperately to impart; I stopped paying attention when the game started putting preceding King’s Quest narrative synopses into new sentences), but I just can’t stop gawping at King Graham’s grotesquely malformed limbs. It’s like watching a documentary about Chernobyl babies or something. I liked this project more when it was still a 2D AGS game.

At least they included multiple endings. Lol.

In theory, anyway. I mean, there’s not much making up for the fact that this game is just horrible, horrible, horrible. Okay, they’ve sort of improved the pathfinding algorithms from Episode 1: What Is Decreed Must Be. And… well, that’s about it, really. Pretty much everything that was wrong with that game is still wrong here, only there’s more of it this time around.

Tedious exposition? [x]

Atrocious voice work? [x]

Vapid dialogue? [x]

Characters that used to be cool, now tragically reinvented as maudlin, neurotic, and terminally insipid dorks? [x]

I can't work out where the rest of her is either.

Contrived fan service and excessive references to previous games that would be utterly inscrutable and of no value to newcomers? [x]

Drearily linear and obvious puzzle-solving with absolutely no evidence of ingenuity whatsoever, including a puzzle involving the acquisition of a map when the player apparently already has one? [x]

And as an added (un)bonus, they’ve also included the most hilariously awful running animation cycle I’ve ever seen. I won’t make a joke about the Special Olympics, because it would be insulting to the Special Olympics. But pretend I did anyway.

It's a coat of arms. Or something.

I previously summarised Episode 1 as “King’s Quest fanfiction with bad 3D graphics”, and I can’t think of a better way to describe the sequel. Where each original Sierra title introduced an entirely new adventure, the writers of these games have simply taken all that material and mashed it together – with no regard for its intended context or significance – into something you’d expect to find next to My Immortal in an Encyclopedia Dramatica entry of the worst things on the internet.

After playing this game for five minutes or so, I started feeling excited. It wasn’t the hilarious references to dialogue from previous King’s Quest titles, nor the reappearance of just about every main character from every King’s Quest title ever. It wasn’t even because Graham looks kinda like Michael Palin from Monty Python. No, I started feeling excited because The Silver Lining: Episode 1 is one of the most horrid games I’ve ever played, and I could barely wait to slag it off.

Not that I had long to wait, mind you, because completing this game involves picking up three (3) things, and talking to a bunch of people, and walking around for about twenty minutes. I say “walking around”, of course, but I really mean “pausing frequently to contemplate the uncompromising temperament of manifest reality and props” because the pathfinding algorithms were obviously coded by a damp brick blitzed on methamphetamines.

Probably the same damp brick blitzed on methamphetamines who committed these instantly quotable quotes to tragic posterity:

“The impressive and large suit-of-armour gives an imposing presence of guarding the hallway.”

“Something died here, even when he knows his children are still alive, something was cruelly murdered here when Rosella’s wedding ended in such tragedy.”

And the same damp brick blitzed on methamphetamines who hired the narrator’s dismally dismal voice actress.  And decided that nobody would notice the smudgy blots masquerading as texture work all over the show. And thought that “Graham” is pronounced “Gram”.

See, this is what happens when the sort of person who says stuff like ‘I CAN LIEK TO MAEK A GAEM LOL” actually makes a game. Or, more specifically, when loads of people who say stuff like “I CAN LIEK TO MAEK A GAEM LOL” team up and make the Voltron of indie game development disasters. You know what The Silver Lining: Episode 1 is? It’s King’s Quest fanfiction with bad 3D graphics. And Alexander doesn’t even get his togs off.

I appreciate this is an amateur project, and that it’s free to download and play, but that simply doesn’t make up for it being thoroughly and unremittingly dreadful in every way. Especially after almost a decade of development. It’s little wonder Activision stipulated they delete the “King’s Quest” bit of the title before allowing them to release this rubbish.