Shadowrun: Hong Kong Update #15, $774,696 and Counting

The new update for the Harebrained Schemes’ Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter campaign includes a short write-up from studio head Mitch Gitelman on the broad strokes of the game development process at the studio, and links to a recent interview the developers gave on Twitch.

A snippet:

Preproduction

(Prepro) is where the project starts to take shape. Lots of research is done about the topic. Lots of documents are written to specify how new features will work. Lots of thought goes into scoping out how long each feature will take to make from beginning to end. Lots of lists are written to identify all the stuff we need to make. Lots of concept art is created to clarify the look and feel we’re going for. Lots of meetings are attended to get everyone on the same page and prioritize our work.

(Prepro) is where things get challenging. It’s when we plug all of the above into a schedule and pour a stiff drink. There are no lack of great ideas, as anyone on our KS Comments page can attest to – and that’s the problem. We always have far, far more ideas than we have time to execute on them. So some (pet features) have to go. We prefer to cut features early rather than pretend we’re going to get them for months. The project feels more under-control that way and it avoids the morale hit down the road when a long-hoped-for feature is finally abandoned.

Production

When you’ve done enough planning and you can start actually MAKING THINGS, the project moves into the Production phase. By this point, the team is usually chomping-at-the-bit to get started. The transition to Production is always tricky and often a bit uncomfortable because some work is dependent on the work of others and the timing may not mesh. It makes the project feel a little off-balance. But things eventually right themselves and we quickly get into our groove.

Production is usually the longest phase of the process and has a long through-line of problem solving. (No plan survives contact with the enemy) is a famous saying that applies here. No matter how much we plan, there are always surprises waiting for us when we start actually making the stuff. That’s when things take longer than expected and some features we thought would make it into the game are set aside for another day.

I’m also taking the liberty to embed the two YouTube videos that make up the full interview. We’re talking about slightly more than 2 hours of interview footage (occasionally punctuated by follow notifications) in total, so be sure to have some time before you start watching: