Game News Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter Update #35: Release on August 20th

[Infinitron]

Tags: Harebrained Schemes; Jordan Weisman; Mike McCain; Mitch Gitelman; Shadowrun: Hong Kong

As promised last week, today's Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter update announces the game's release date, which turns out to be August 20th. That makes Shadowrun: Hong Kong possibly the first Kickstarter-funded RPG ever to actually be released on the date originally declared during its campaign. The update also comes with a bunch of goodies including a celebratory video featuring Mitch Gitelman, Jordan Weisman and Mike McCain, wallpaper, screenshots and animated GIFs. Here's an excerpt:

Hey everyone!

Mitch here, with just enough bandwidth to pull my head out of polishing the game to let you know that Shadowrun: Hong Kong has an official release date! During the Kickstarter, we estimated that we would release the game in August… and that’s why we’re releasing the game in August!

August 20th, 2015 at 10am PST, to be specific. On Steam, GoG, & Humble.

Estimating, scheduling and delivering something as complex as SR:HK is tough and I’m extremely proud of the entire team for their focus, dedication, and hard work. I’d like to say a special thank you to our ace Producer, Chris Klimecky and my co-Director, Mike McCain for their work in getting the game to you on time. Mike joined me at the helm a ways back so I could dedicate more time to writing, and his work has been first rate - just like it was on Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director’s Cut.

The game’s really coming together and it’s amazing to see the team’s hard work and creative collaboration on-screen. Making games is an incredible challenge but making games with these folks is an absolute pleasure.

We’ll be sending out another update in the next couple of weeks regarding how to get your keys from BackerKit and an update on all the remaining Kickstarter rewards.

In the meantime, here’s a few new screenshots & gifs we grabbed for you. Thanks for staying with us since January and we’ll see you August 20th!



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Hey, giant rats! Matt Barton will be pleased. Note that two of those screenshots aren't included in the update for some reason, including the one showing off the new Enhanced Matrix. Wonder why they did that.

 

[Infinitron]

I’d like to say a special thank you to our ace Producer, Chris Klimecky and my co-Director, Mike McCain for their work in getting the game to you on time. Mike joined me at the helm a ways back so I could dedicate more time to writing, and his work has been first rate - just like it was on Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director’s Cut.

Back in March: http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=9828

Writing

Andrew and I have had the toughest time on the project so far. While I was managing the Kickstarter campaign, Andrew completed a detailed story outline. Once we had focused time together, we realized that our story was too complicated to tell within our time budget. We decided to step back and reassess our basic assumptions so that we didn’t end up with some sort of “Frankensteined” version of our story. When this proved to be a more time-consuming than I was comfortable with, I called in Mike McCain, the Game Director of Shadowrun: Dragonfall, to lend us his editorial perspective. I’m pleased to report that the process worked and we have a story we’re happy with. Andrew is now hard at work, happily writing dialogue and consulting with the designers on their runs. Huzzah!

So, in the end they had to bring in the guy who did Dragonfall to get things done. I guess Mike McCain is HBS's Sawyer rising star.

 

[t]

So... what about the keys from the codex campaign?

 

[Infinitron]

So... what about the keys from the codex campaign?

What about them? I don't think you're going to get any keys before, you know, everybody else does.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Part of me can't wait for this game, part of me says I should wait for the Director's Cut Gold Edition Enhanced Edition Ultimate Edition - Edition. An unfortunate side effect of the recent tendencies of developers to release unfinished games keep improving their games way after release.

 

[hoverdog]

Part of me can't wait for this game, part of me says I should wait for the Director's Cut Gold Edition Enhanced Edition Ultimate Edition - Edition. An unfortunate side effect of the recent tendencies of developers to release unfinished games keep improving their games way after release.

the point with Dragonfall is that it was originally released as an expansion/DLC to SR: Returns. This is not the case with Hongkong, however.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Fair enough. I probably won't be able to resist anyway when it comes out.

I'm really curious what they did with the revamped matrix.

 

[Starwars]

Man... this is really close. Looking forward to it.

 

[eXalted]

The Matrix and the damage font look nice.

 

[skyst]

There was a gif of the zombie samurai ( ) companion in the backer email that looked pretty sweet. Would recommend googling it up.

 

[Kem0sabe]

This being released next month really made my day

 

[Excidium II]

Hoping for less SJW propaganda this time.

Also is the 4th screenshot an older one? Looks p. awful.

 

[The Great Deceiver]

Eleven comments? Is everyone writing PoE reviews?

 

[Severian Silk]

I am burnt out on SRR games for now. The writing in SRDF wasn't all that great and I am still recovering.

 

[Morkar Left]

The writing in SRDF wasn't all that great and I am still recovering.

Pretty much the best writing we have seen in rpgs for years and it belongs to the top writing for gaming in general.

 

[Septaryeth]

There was a gif of the zombie samurai ( ) companion in the backer email that looked pretty sweet. Would recommend googling it up.

Wait what you guys actually received emails!?
I received nothing except for the backerkit confirmation for the past few months!
Well, anyway, the gifs can be found on their KS update.
Here's hoping the whole email ordeal won't affect them sending me my reward

 

[Infinitron]

When you pledge to Kickstarters, they email you about updates. If you're not getting them then something is wrong.

 

[SCO]

When you pledge to Kickstarters, they email you about updates. If you're not getting them then something is wrong.

Yes... something wrong like having pledged through the codex like a sucker.

 

[Roguey]

I turned email updates off a long time ago because I was tired of the spam. I guess things would be a lot less spammy now, but eh.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Avoiding reading about this as much as possible. I was a backer, so I don't need to be convinced on its merits. I am hoping it matches the quality of the Dragonfall Director's Cut, with even more reactivity / opportunities for roleplaying (in the Chris Avellone sense - lots of dialogue options, quest solutions etc).

 

[Athelas]

Pretty much the best writing we have seen in rpgs for years and it belongs to the top writing for gaming in general.

I don't think I can agree. Dragonfall impressed me with the varied mission design that even allowed for different approaches many times. But I didn't think much of the writing, none of the situations/missions presented seemed to rise above cliche and the Shadowrun setting struck me as silly.

Then I tried out the Shadowrun SNES game and the setting instantly clicked for me. Dragonfall just throws slang like 'Lone Star' or 'street doc' around, in the SNES game you find out what these things mean because have to impersonate a Lone Star to get information or you to have to find a street doc to find out there's a cortex bomb inside your datajack. Within the first few minutes of the game I was picking up the leather jacket off the corpse of the orc that ambushed me in a dark alleyway.

There is none of that 'grunginess' in Dragonfall. Harebrained gave the Shadowrun setting the Bioware treatment and it's a really poor fit. It doesn't seem fitting for a team of supposedly covert shadowrunners to use public transport to travel to and from their assassination mission. It feels equally wrong to have a shadowrunner dramatically soliloquizing their childhood trauma...

...especially when that childhood trauma consists of something that would put even Bioware to shame, like being Satan's personal concubine.

 

[Starwars]

Dude, Shadowrun on the SNES have Kitsune, the fox-lady... And a "mysterious" antagonist called Drake (wonder what he could be?) and a vampire called Vladimir.

I thought the Dragonfall writing was fantastic in that it was entertaining. No, nothing that would make me really pause and consider the meaning of life but extremely entertaining to go along with. Sure Glory's backstory is silly in some ways and "Biowarian" but I dunno, I really enjoyed going through it. Her mission in particular was fucking fantastic atmopsherically speaking (the DC missions are kinda bad gameplay-wise though unfortunately) if you ask me.

That said, I get what you're saying as well. I would like to see a very "grounded", down and dirty Shadowrun campaign where you're really dealing with the streets.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Dragonfall has good writing but it's very light and without much depth, it is a mobile game after all.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I thought Shadowrun Returns had a better vibe to it than Dragonfall, but neither one lived up to Shadowrun for the SNES; graveyards full of zombies and vampires, chop shops in back alleys, and that fucking Jester that I could never beat as a kid. It's probably nostalgia.

I liked Dragonfall better than Shadowrun Returns overall though. I can't wait to try out the latest one, but as others have said, I fear they will just release a better version overtime like Wasteland has done. Who am I kidding? I'll probably pick this up when it comes out.

 

[Morkar Left]

I consider Dragonfall having the best writing because the truth is really subtly communicated. To make the right decisions in the endgame you really have to pay attention to the nuances made in the dialog through the npcs. It was one of the few games where I really had to pay attention to the npc motivations.

At first I had a pretty clear vision how I would deal with npcs when I would finally met them. But the conversations with the npcs, especially the antagonists, made me change my opinion realizing that I probably didn't get the full picture before. The npcs all had strong motivations that felt real and I could identify myself with.

My final decisions were made on evidence by closely paying attention to what they say, the motivations they could have, the motivations they say they have and combining it with the things that had already happened or how they acted before. Ultimately I would say I made all the right decisions (ai, dragon). It felt really satisfying because it wasn't delivered on a plate.

The amazing thing is that the npcs were able to convince me to change my opinion (or not in some special cases). Reconsidering it I would even say it was excellent writing which I haven't met before in a rpg.

I have nothing against the SNES game (it's a completely different gamestyle) but compairing its writing to be en par or even better than Dragonfall is an insult at best.