The Silver Lining (TSL) is an episodic video fangame based on the King's Quest series, which was developed and released in free download format by Phoenix Online Studios for Microsoft Windows starting on July 18, 2010.

The plot itself revolves around King Graham as he desperately seeks the help of ancient druidic artifacts to undo the evil cast upon his children, Alexander and Rosella.

After a long period of limited production and loss of focus, the original team was reorganized under César Bittar, previously one of the project writers, in January 2002.

Dividing the production crew into five departments (Art, Design, Audio, Programming, and Public Relations), he turned Phoenix into an efficient working unit.

Bittar said in late 2011 that he has managed to keep 5-6 guys still working on TSL, basically for free, and that he was looking to split the studios into two divisions in order to retain interest in the game.

The developers 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 e-mail from Vivendi.

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.

After several months of negotiations, Activision issued its own cease-and-desist to The Silver Lining team, requesting that they cease production and take down all related materials on the game website.

In fact, TSL has always been the intellectual property of Activision, who once simply granted Phoenix the right to produce their game for freeware distribution, with all changes upon request (like removing "King's Quest" from the title).

Marking a return to classic, Sierra-style adventure, Episode 2 sees King Graham investigate the mysterious curse upon his children as he searches for ingredients for an antidote.

[11] The first episode of The Silver Lining was met with both praise and disappointment often in the same review, with most criticizing the voice acting, the lack of puzzles, and the short length.