The fan-driven campaign to save King's Quest IX has been successful. On Friday, Dec. 9, Vivendi Universal Games announced that they have agreed to allow the fan-made game "King's Quest IX" to be released, under the new title of "The Silver Lining." The group making the game will be granted a fan license.

"We are so thrilled with this news," says Matt Compton, one of the members of the Save King's Quest IX campaign. "We were very hopeful that if we organized the fans of the King's Quest series, we would be able to get Vivendi's attention. It feels so good to know that we were successful in doing that."

The Save King's Quest IX campaign was launched in mid-October, just a few weeks after Vivendi issued a cease and desist order to the fans making the game. The campaign focused on asking fans to send letters and emails to Vivendi, as well as having bloggers write about it.

"There are still many King's Quest fans around the world," says Cat Tyson, another member of the campaign. "We know it means so much to all of them that Vivendi has agreed to allow the game to be released. We've very grateful to Vivendi for this."

King's Quest IX is a fan-created project that has been in development since early 2002, and is based on the King's Quest series of adventure games made by Sierra Online. More than 40 people from around the globe have participated in its creation. Upon completion, the game will be made available as a free download on the game's Website.

"After extensive evaluation, Vivendi Universal Games is pleased to announce that the fan developed trilogy project 'The Silver Lining' (previously known as King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining), based on characters from Sierra Entertainment's "King's Quest" series, has been given approval to continue development," Vivendi announced Dec. 9. "We look forward to seeing the first of its three upcoming chapters, 'Shadows', completed soon."

Screenshots from the game can be found at www.kqix.com/media/screenshots/.