Shadowrun Returns - Interview @ Morbid Play

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.