The
first
episode of The Silver Lining brought us back to the Green
Isles, where the wedding of Rosella and Edgar was rudely interrupted
when Rosella and Alexander were cast into a deep sleep by unknown
magical assailant. King Graham picks up his hat and adventure clothes
and starts searching for the cure. I was a bit cautious of this first
chapter because it had more story than puzzles and did not bring back
those mind bending elements that is the reason we play adventure games.

Episode
one ends with Graham securing a magical scroll that will guide him
to the ingredients of the spell that will wake his children. In Episode
2 we finally start to search for those ingredients. Graham will visit
three of the islands in this adventure. The magic scroll prevents
him from visiting places that do not lead him to spell ingredients.
This works very well, from a story standpoint. Graham is still able
to travel among the available islands freely throughout the chapter.
From the logistical standpoint I’m sure this helped the developers
narrow their scope for each episode, which hopefully means we get
more episodes quicker. The map also provides some direction in the
start of the story by providing Graham with a face of someone he should
talk to.

The Puzzles and the Story Deepen

The
puzzles are typical fare for this sort of game. Walk around, talk
to everyone you can find, click everything that is clickable. If all
else fails click all your inventory items on everything you can. It
does appear that some areas in this episode were there for future
use. You can spend a lot of time looking around the shops on the isle
of the crown, but most of them are just for show, at least for the
moment.

At the right time, you’ll
meet a brand new character who will tell you more about the Black
Cloaks, and will introduce you to their arch enemy. I’ll refrain
from spoilers. Although this piece is fascinating story-wise, I wish
the stories and the puzzles were better intertwined. They seem to
be distinctly separate.

The Bad

I’m
pretty impressed with how polished this game is for an indie, free,
release. But, that said it was not without its imperfections. One
dialog, for example, tells you that if you want to purchase something
from a merchant you have to talk to him. In fact, talking to him yields
no results; you actually have to click your money bag on the merchant.
That was the hardest puzzle I had to solve throughout this episode.

The game also had some
visual display issues on my machine, mainly relating to the map. I
was assured these were fixed by the time the initial release came
out, but I didn’t have time to check. This was a minor blemish,
however, that did not detract from my overall enjoyment of the game.

Mysteries Left Unsolved

Near
the end of the game, we find that something has happened to Valanice,
Graham’s wife. Unfortunately, I’m not sure exactly what
that was. I believe it had something to do with her appearance changing,
but since the last time I saw her was a month or two ago in the previous
episode, I couldn’t quite compare.

We also get a cut scene
glimpse of what Alexander may be going through in his coma. The game
so far has alluded to the fact that Graham, or someone, needs to enter
the dreams of Alexander and Rosella in order to help free them from
the spell. I suspect we’ll find out more about that in the next
episode. Which I am eagerly awaiting.

System Requirements:

• Windows XP, Vista or
  7
• 1GHz Intel or AMD Processor
• 512 MB RAM (1GB recommended
  for Vista and 7)
• 100% DirectX compatible
  video card with 256 MB video RAM
• DirectX 9.0c+