Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter Project Update #4, $819,000 and Counting

For the fourth update of the Shadowrun Returns Kickstarter fundraising drive the folks at Harebrained Schemes, which tackles the issue of a Linux port. As it turns out, they may outsource a Linux port if they reach the $1 million threshold, and deliver it a little later than the other versions:

It’s obvious that there are a lot of very passionate fans out there who are clamoring for Linux support, and we would love to be able to include everyone in Shadowrun Returns.

As we said over the weekend, we’re being very careful not to over-commit to ideas and features (especially just to get more funding).

When we added the Mac version of the game (thanks to your enthusiastic support), we did it because we have the necessary Mac experience in-house and our development environment already supports PC and Mac. We were confident that we could deliver without over-burdening the overall product.

Linux is a bit of a different story, however. While it’s true that we have a great environment for cross-platform development (how else could we target PC, Mac, iOS, AND Android!), it does not, at this time, include support for Linux. Because of this and because we needed to add Linux to our small studio’s skill-set, we felt that committing to a Linux version was unwise, so we (reluctantly) took it off the table.

Since that time, two important things have happened:

‘¢ We reached out to members of the Linux community to better understand the scope and developmental risk that a Linux port would introduce.

‘¢ Our partners at Zipline Games (the creators of our dev environment, Moai) have rearranged their development roadmap to support Shadowrun Returns and add Linux to their list of supported platforms.

So here’s the deal: We can now say with confidence that if we hit our $1M stretch goal, we will be able to partner with the right external developer, port Shadowrun Returns to Linux, and deliver it in a reasonable amount of time after the game is released.

We’ll also add it to the $15 reward level (alongside the PC/Mac versions). Now if you’re a Linux-only user, you’ll have to wait for your version, but from what you’ve told us, you’re willing to do that.

Thanks again for all the support, the constructive comments, and for your patience.

HBS