Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘The Silver Lining Haunted Castle Experience’

Review Fix chats with Richard Flores, Chief Technical Officer of Phoenix Online Studios and director of “The Silver Lining Haunted Castle Experience,” and Katie Hallahan, Phoenix PR Director and Designer, who break down the development process and goals for this cool VR experience.

Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this game?

Richard Flores: The real inspiration for this game were the classic haunted houses found in our neighborhoods and theme parks.  It always amazed us how locations that we walked by every day could be turned these intricate and detailed horror experiences during the Halloween season.  We wondered what that might be like in the King’s Quest universe so we thought why not find out?

Katie Hallahan: We’ve also been experimenting with VR recently and since the Castle of the Crown was already a a 3D set, it was a great opportunity to use that to take those experiments to the next level, and give a sneak peek at Episode 5 at the same time.

Review Fix: What was the development cycle like?

Flores: The turn around for this project was pretty short.  Discussions about the concept started in mid September.  We officially started the project on October 5th.  It was an ambitious timeline with the goal of testing our development team’s limits under pressure.

Review Fix: With all the competition on the mobile market and in the indies now, how difficult was it for you guys to try and make something that stood out?

Flores: It’s always hard to stand out in such a competitive field so we decided to do so by giving our audience something unexpected yet familiar.  The Halloween season allowed us to revisit locations from our previous games and give them a refreshingly different tone and flare.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this teaser?

Flores: People want to play this teaser for the immersive experience of walking through classic locations from the original KQ games.  We’ve always played those past games as an observer.  This is the player’s opportunity to physically step into these places and explore them as if they were really there.

Hallahan: It’s also a fun teaser for Episode 5–we wanted something different to get everyone excited since we also announced that the episode will be coming next year!

Review Fix: How does it tease the future?

Flores: Some of the rooms you explore and the characters you encounter have never been seen before and are unique to TSL Episode 5.

Review Fix: How did it feel to develop for VR?

Flores: VR has been really interesting to develop with and something that we’ve only started doing in the past year.  In that short time we’ve already seen the technology make leaps and bounds every few months so we’re really excited to see where its going next.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Flores: I think we all hope this will be remembered as that weird anomaly in the Silver Lining timeline.  Something that you have to play because it’s so radically different from the rest of the series.

Hallahan: It definitely has a unique feel in comparison to the rest of the game–and our other games, for that matter.

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Flores: We have some new members on our team who had never been through a release so we thought this would be a good experience for them and a great team bonding exercise.  It also provided us an opportunity to test out adventure game mechanics in a VR environment which is something we feel has a lot of potential.

Hallahan: We also wanted to let people know that yes, we’re working hard on the next episode, and give them something new to see for it. We realize it’s been a long time since the last release, so this was a great  way to reconnect with the fans who’ve been waiting patiently for more news.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Flores: Anybody who’s played the game knows that episode 5 is coming next year.

Hallahan: 2017, the saga concludes.

Flores: Beyond that, a VR adventure game is definitely something we would be interested in doing.  Whether that would be a sequel to one of our existing titles or something completely new has yet to be determined.  A few of our team members have presented some interesting concepts so we’re still trying to narrow it down.

Review Fix: Anything else you want to say?

Flores: This game is really a love letter to our fans to thank them for their on-going support.  We hope it brings back some fond memories for them and gets their imagination going for what’s coming in the final chapter.

mm
About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*