Tag: Harebrained Schemes

Shadowrun Returns

The timeline of my unequivocal* fandom of Shadowrun:

1992
One weekend, when I was about fourteen years old, my cousin and I rented Akira on VHS. We had two other films that we watched first and we never got to watch it together. Talking about it with a buddy at school, he highly recommended going to watch Akira that very night. So I did. And I loved it. I thought it was amazing, and it nourished a dormant science fiction seed that people like my father, my cousin, and my best friend at the time had planted in me. I didn’t know anything about cyberpunk, but I was a quick study. I read my first Gibson and I was hooked.

1993-1997
It wasn’t until the mid-90s that some of my friends had introduced me to Shadowrun. Then my cousin showed me Shadowrun, too. (To be honest, I don’t know which came first, my cousin or my friends.) Regardless, I wanted to really play a game. My regular gaming group, which my cousin was part of, were heavy into D&D at the time (Ravenloft to be more specific) but they were open to playing a game or two. The mechanics were a bit off, so it never really worked out.
I also found Shadowrun for the SNES, further fueling my interest. I played that game inside-and-out, partly because I didn’t have a weekly Shadowrun game running. I loved the game, the atmosphere, the music, the storyline, and I didn’t even mind the fact that it hardly seemed to care about canon Shadowrun material.

Around the same time, I started going online, finding more Shadowrun information and connecting with different people. At first it was the Shadowrun Webring, later Shadowland.org and the Deep Resonance Forums (which later became Dumpshock), the latter would later spawn Bulldrek, where I really came into my own.

1998-2007

Third edition was released. I had been reading and collecting some Shadowrun books and since our D&D campaign was winding down, I thought it would be the right time to make a real push to play the game. Over the next ten years it was the predominant game our weekly gaming group played. I got into my own as a GM and it allowed me to indulge in my cyberpunk and RPG hobbies, while at the same time express myself creatively.

I opened a Shadowrun website of my own, first on dv8.nl and later on wiredreflexes.com, where I started collating Shadowrun information relating to my own campaign. It proved to be really popular and I got to develop a bit of a name for myself in the online Shadowrun community.

2008-2010
By 2008, I found myself getting a little burned out on Shadowrun. I hadn’t switched over to fourth edition yet, and found that my interest in the system was almost zero, while my interest in the mixture of hardcore cyberpunk, post-humanism and neo-tech mysticism had grown, while the fantasy element that had always bothered me about Shadowrun (the clinical use of magic as well as metahumanity) was beginning to seriously get on my nerves. My games began to change a bit, focussing more on the cyber, less on the fantasy.

When the PC game was announced, I was cautiously excited. It was going to be a FPS, which I didn’t think was a great idea, and when more information got released it seemed like the producers were taking a big shit on the Shadowrun core. I couldn’t even be bothered to pirate the game.

2011-2012
I was getting more and more interested in web-development, and decided to work on a Shadowrun browser game together with my brother. Shadowrun: Corrosion became my hobby project. I ceased all other development on my website on focussed only on this browser game. A long term project that was already garnering some interest, I still work on it today.

Shadowrun Returns
Yesterday, I came home to find someone posted a link about Jordan Weisman, the original creator of Shadowrun and one of the driving forces behind its original producer, Fasa Corporation, who had bought back the digital rights to the Shadowrun IP. He and Harebrained Schemes were using kickstarter.com to set up a project to develop a Shadowrun computer game, asking fans to donate $400k so that the game could be made. I immediately donated $115. When I did, the ticker was set to about $45. Now, about 30 hours later, it’s at $465k, well past the amount required to start development.

Adam said he was surprised that people were so surprised at the initiative taking off. I guess I was, too. Maybe not as surprised as I was excited to be part of it, to watch it gain traction and to watch them succeed with ease. I had hear him talk about kickstarter before, but I had never donated or paid too much attention to it.

I’m very excited about the game.

* When I say unequivocal, I don’t really mean that. I’m not super fond of metahumanity, furry elves, immortal elves and Year of the Comet can go fuck itself. But… you know. Whatever.