Shadowrun: Hong Kong Update #12, $692,534 and Counting

As the Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter campaign gets closer to the $700,000 stretch goal, Harebrained Schemes has published a new update with a write-up from producer Chris Klimecky, who attempts to explain what his job title entails. Here’s a snippet:

Making a great game is not a straight line from point A (great idea) to point B (the game you play). It’s hard – always, every time. If it wasn’t, every game would be great, and that’s obviously not the case. Each phase of game creation has its own unique difficulties and opportunities for the team. Managing not only the phases themselves but the evolution of how the team works from phase to phase can be tricky and it’s easy to lose production efficiency. For example, going from pre-production, where ideas are being fleshed out, to production, where the plans made in pre-production are executed, can easily get bogged down in the creative process. Everyone has ideas (many of them good!) that need to be filtered into something we can accomplish. But, if we go too far into the time when we’re supposed to be building by continuing to come up with ideas about what we’re going to build, we get into schedule trouble really fast.

What’s fun about being a producer is that I am constantly dealing with new problems to solve and working with great people from all areas of the team to solve them. Every day is something new and with a game like Shadowrun: Hong Kong, always fascinating. Even though I have to be the bad guy at times (“Sorry Mitch, we cannot add five more missions to the game within the same time frame!”), the team knows I am there to help them be at their best. If they have any issue that is holding them back from being their most creative and most productive, I will point them in the right direction even if I don’t have all the answers.

In the end, a great game and happy team is my goal. At Harebrained Schemes, the environment is such that both are achievable – which, if you’ve been around the game industry much at all, you’ll know is pretty rare. So I’m glad to be here, working on Shadowrun: Hong Kong, for you to enjoy soon. I am already proud of this team and confident we can exceed expectations. We’re all going to do everything we can to make the most of the opportunity. Thank you for making it happen!