Shadowrun Returns - Interview @ Morbid Play

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Morbid Play had the chance to interview Hairbrained Schemes Mitch Gitelman.

Whistler: While I’m sure many of us can take a guess at how you must have felt once your Kickstarter had succeeded but what was it like developing a crowd funded game?

Mitch Gitelman: The entire Kickstarter experience was incredible. I can try to describe it but it was a moment in time that will never be repeated. Kickstarter and Double Fine Adventures disrupted the way that games were being funded and created and we were part of that giddy first wave of excitement. The Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns was one of the single most exciting things I’ve ever been a part of. The positive energy and outpouring of emotion from the fans was palpable and affected us deeply through development.

All we did was stick our toe in the water, asking for $400,000 to make the modest little game we’d conceived of. BAM! We were fully-funded in 28 hours and loving, supportive demands for stretch goals washed over us like a tidal wave. By the time the campaign had finished, we had $1.8 million dollars and a LOT of work to do.

It was chilling to the bone. Besides the requirement to create a good cRPG from nearly blank hard drives, we had to do it “in a fishbowl” with everyone watching, AND do our best not to destroy the wonderful childhood memories many of our Backers had about their personal Shadowrun experiences.

The emotions were high and the team crunched HARD for 14 months to deliver. Luckily, the Shadowrun Community was incredibly generous and supportive, which buoyed us during the hard times. Backers sent us pizza dinners, breakfast bagels, and lots of positive energy. It is a very different experience to make a game that you KNOW people are waiting for. A lot of times, you only have hope. We did our very best on Shadowrun Returns and – given our funding level, the time we had, the huge task of creating, manufacturing, and shipping Kickstarter rewards while keeping the audience updated and entertained and oh yeah, making the game – I am still extremely proud of our team and of our first story, Dead Man’s Switch.

But we knew we could do better. So we kept listening to our audience and started making plans for Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Dragonfall was where we took our storytelling to the next level. The plot was less linear than the first, the characters were more fleshed out, and the narrative provided players lots of dark, dark gray choices that you can only find in Shadowrun. The positive response to Dragonfall, and now to the Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut has been phenomenal – in a way, it’s like the Kickstarter all over again.
More information.
 
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Wow. So much pride for such little accomplishment. The developers must really have been the 'children of the '80s' where everybody was a winner. The original release was pathetic, and the Director's Cut is just mediocre. Not a bad game, but nothing more than mediocre.

Hey guys, take a look at the 'book' of D:OS and W2 to understand what an RPG should be, then do it in your setting, and if you can, I will be first to congratulate you. Until then, STFU.
 
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Wow. So much pride for such little accomplishment. The developers must really have been the 'children of the '80s' where everybody was a winner. The original release was pathetic, and the Director's Cut is just mediocre. Not a bad game, but nothing more than mediocre.

Hey guys, take a look at the 'book' of D:OS and W2 to understand what an RPG should be, then do it in your setting, and if you can, I will be first to congratulate you. Until then, STFU.

Wow, so much arrogance that you seem to think your opinion is an objective fact. Have you ever worked on a video game development team?

First, it should be noted that Wasteland 2 raised $1 million more than Shadowrun Returns on Kickstarter, and inXile then went the Steam Early access route to raise additional funds. And HBS released Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall-DC in the time it took inXile to release W2. Larian only raised $1 million on Kickstarter, but they were an established developer with significant funds coming in from their other games (e.g., Dragon Commander) and private investors. And Larian also went the Steam Early Access route. I think we've heard estimates here that the total budget for D:OS was over $4 million (and since they owned their IP there's no licensing costs to consider). So basically you're comparing SRR/ Dragonfall to two games which had probably double the funding to work with and longer development cycles.

Secondly, if you take a look at review scores: SRR has a metascore of 76 on Metacritic,
D:OS has an 87, Wasteland 2 has an 81, and Shadowrun: DF DC has an 92 (the original DF DLC had an 81). So the general impression among professional reviewers is that Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 are decent, D:OS is very good, and SR: DF-DC is excellent. Of course, ultimately all these reviews are "just opinions" but this is just to point out that your opinion isn't as unanimous as you seem to think it is.

As for my own opinions: I have yet to play W2 (what I've read tells me I should keep waiting until they're done with fixes and adding features in patches).

I've played about half way through D:OS- I took a break around lvl 13 because I found the fights had become way too easy even on Hard (the highest difficulty). The main strength of D:OS is the combat system. The story is pretty bland and I find Larian's brand of humor very off-putting. Most of the quests were mediocre at best; yeah you can do them in almost any order but it doesn't matter because they're mostly either generic fetch quests or "go here and kill X". Or you get to make difficult moral decisions like whether or not to throw a talking sea shell into the ocean or sell his pearls. The setting is also your standard generic medieval fantasy fare (with more talking inanimate objects than typically seen). IMO, the random loot system and excessive loot makes inventory management a huge PITA. Then there's the terrible design decision where you have to hold down Alt all the time to see Objects and hundreds of barrels / crates full of random junk to pick up. In terms of graphics and combat mechanics it's a very good game, but there are definitely huge flaws.

SRR "Dead Man's Switch" I found to be decent. The story was good, just very linear and a bit short (it seems to end rather abruptly). But SR: DF-DC I found to be an exceptionally great game. Excellent story with some interesting choices to make. And best of all there's virtually no filler content (e.g., fetch quests, tutorial levels, random encounters / endless respawns, mandatory grinding etc.) that is a common shortcoming of RPGs. IMO, Larian needs to take a page from HBS when it comes to story writing / quest design.

TL; DR: STFU.
 
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I thought they did a fantastic job; There are little touches I would like to change like voice acting added and more 'open' environment with break-ables but over all I was surprise by the quality.
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I do wonder if it sold well and if they will be doing more stories like the last one.
 
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I thought they did a fantastic job; There are little touches I would like to change like voice acting added and more 'open' environment with break-ables but over all I was surprise by the quality.
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I do wonder if it sold well and if they will be doing more stories like the last one.

I am ambivalent about voice acting. There's the concern that if a developer writes an RPG with planned voice acting that they'll make dialogue segments shorter or with fewer options too cut down on costs. And there's also the issue that most of us can read a lot faster than someone can speak, so full voice acting in a dialogue heavy game is unnecessary / as most players will probably skip ahead before the voice actor is finished anyway. But I guess I wouldn't mind limited voice acting (like if it was just the comments your teammates made on missions, maybe one-liners in battle, or stuff NPCs like the merchants said… I think that could be nice assuming the VA was decent. But in the case of Dragonfall everyone is actually supposed to be speaking German so if there was VA, should it be German with subtitles? All things considered I'm glad they didn't spend any of their budget on VA.

I find the whole open world concept pretty overrated. I'm not a fan of Elder Scrolls games, but I hope CDPR can pull it off with Witcher 3. However, in this case, I think DF was about as open as you could get without sacrificing the story. And since there's no random encounters / grinding, there's not really any need to return to areas after you complete their missions so I don't know what would be gained by allowing you to return to all of them… Unless there were more sidequests you could get there.. If there were even more missions of the same quality I certainly wouldn't complain :).

By "breakables" do you mean destructible cover? If so I think that could be cool, but I imagine implementing this would be a lot of work; aside from the additional art assets needed to pull it off (without having destroyed objects just vanish), they'd have to make sure it didn't affect the game balance… I could see certain weapons / character builds becoming overpowered if for example, grenades / shotguns could destroy cover.

I also hope it is selling well for them. When it has been brought up HBS seems opposed to the idea of doing another Kickstarter for a Shadowrun Returns sequel / expansion… What is very encouraging is that on the HBS website under job openings you can see that they are hiring a Lead Artist "for our next Shadowrun campaign" and also an Environmental Artist for "brand new, unannounced PC title". So it sounds like they must be doing pretty well financially if they're planning another Shadowrun campaign and a new PC game (which from the descriptions is safe to assume isn't the same game).
 
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Yes I'm glad to hear that they are looking to continue work on the system with a new story. Perhaps this series will become as successful with the cRPG community as the old Gold Box games? We'll see...
 
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Wow. So much pride for such little accomplishment. The developers must really have been the 'children of the '80s' where everybody was a winner. The original release was pathetic, and the Director's Cut is just mediocre. Not a bad game, but nothing more than mediocre.

Hey guys, take a look at the 'book' of D:OS and W2 to understand what an RPG should be, then do it in your setting, and if you can, I will be first to congratulate you. Until then, STFU.

Wow. It's morons today that are everyone is a winner...

I think they did a decent job here....why don't you take your own advice.
 
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I'll be honest that I stopped playing Dead Man's Switch maybe 60% through. Not sure why but just lost enough interest but I recently started Dragonfall (Directors Cut) because it was in my queue and found it much more enjoyable story-wise as well as C&C wise.

I have to say that this was the best value of all of the kickstarters I've backed so far (26 successful, 11 delivered). D:OS being a close second. The game was fairly polished where lack of save anywhere was only noticeable issue but wasn't a big deal for me then and has since been addressed. They delivered a polished game that supported mods out of the box of course though they have their own issues like why do I have to hack the game files to use custom portraits in the main campaigns.

I'm elated with the current crowdfunding setup where we can get these games of this quality that probably would not have been made at all without kickstarter. Yeah it would be great if they were all the size of Baldur's Gate 2 but I thing we can agree that is unrealistic.

Anyway, If they keep making stuff as good as Dragonfall I will continue giving them money either via kickstarter or steam or whatever means they desire. If ks got them to a point where they can self fund now and come out better in the end then it doesn't bother me and ks did its job.
 
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I've only played the main game of this so far, but I enjoyed it enough to run through it twice so far, and I don't often do that that quickly. If my backlog eases off for a minute, I might finally get to this one, the only other thing that has given me pause is to play the new version, I have to make a new team. I kind of really enjoyed my team.
 
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I just finished Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut, and thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, it is one of the best RPGs that I have played in years. It is a bit linear, although there are some good optional quests, but the story is very engaging, and the dialogue is expertly written. The side quests are also pretty lengthy, so it doesn't matter that there aren't a ton of them, and the game itself is a pretty good length. I'd recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good RPG.
 
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I have to admit that I'm a little surprised by this much praise for Dragonfall. I thought it was good but not great. It's still a very linear game compared to most crpgs even if it's less linear than Dead Man's Switch was.

It was a solid 8/10 for me but definitely not more.
 
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8/10 for me, probably equal to or slightly better than Witcher 2. I view 8/10 as a very good game, something that I would recommend for everyone. Probably the best new cRPG I have played in the last year but I have not played Original Sin yet :) Still waiting for the mega patch.
 
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Pass that joint over here. That must be some good shit you're smoking. ;)
Witcher 2 was OK, but Dragonfall was far better.
As soon as you understand that some of us prefer turn based combat along with good story more than twitch real time combat along with good story you will not write stuff like this.
 
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Pass that joint over here. That must be some good shit you're smoking. ;)

Each to his own ;) I loved Witcher 1, probably a 9/10 for me, the problem I had with Witcher 2 is that despite the well done story it was just too much railroading, with zones being closed off for no purpose (chap 2 was the one I had the most issues with). I am certain I am going to enjoy Witcher 3 a whole lot more.

I probably would have given dragonfall a 9/10 but I had a few issues with it's implementation of turn based combat. The biggest annoyance (playing as a mage) that most of the main battles seemed to begin with the enemy attacking first with no chance to go into cover. Often I would die without even getting a chance to move (playing on hard).
 
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Witcher 2 was OK, but Dragonfall was far better.
As soon as you understand that some of us prefer turn based combat along with good story more than twitch real time combat along with good story you will not write stuff like this.

I enjoy both types of games, but you're delusional if you really think Dragonfall was that good. That's just my opinion though so don't read too much into it.

Like bjon045 said, to each his own. :)
 
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I struggle to imagine why anyone would compare Shadowrun with Witcher 2 in an effort to establish "worth" - as they're so different.

Now, I haven't played Dragonfall much yet, but I wasn't impressed with the original game. I found it passable and a mediocre effort, which sort of matched the small team and budget. The Witcher 2 is a work of art, from where I'm sitting, and the two games don't really exist in the same space in terms of what they're trying to achieve.

I can see how both could be 8/10 games to some people, but that doesn't make them similar. If you're going to compare games in such a way, I'd say picking two similar games might work better if you want to communicate your opinion efficiently.
 
I tend to rate my games based on enjoyment levels not as works of "art". I guess I am not the only one smoking something good :)
 
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