Interview with Harebrained Schemes' Mike McCain

Mike McCain, Studio Art Director / Dragonfall Game Director, chatted with FogKnight about Shadowrun, Dragonfall, and indie development.

FOGKNIGHT: How was Harebrained Schemes born?

MIKE: Jordan and Mitch officially founded Harebrained back in 2011. There were about a dozen of us, starting out - some folks that had worked with Jordan at his previous venture, and a few new contractors like myself. We were working out of a storage closet we rented from Gas Powered Games. Literally! It was this tiny, L-shaped closet on the far side of the lobby. There, we created our first title - Crimson: Steam Pirates, an iPad game published by Bungie Aerospace. Next up was Strikefleet Omega, a realtime fleet–command game for mobile which broke a million downloads and was very well received by both players and reviewers.

Our big breakout moment as an independent studio, though, was the Kickstarter campaign we launched for Shadowrun Returns in spring 2012. After that success, we more than doubled the size of the team and moved to a larger office in Kirkland to accommodate (which is where we still are today.)
 
FOGKNIGHT: What is Harebrained Schemes' goal as an independent game studio?

MIKE: Well, at the end of the day, we want to always be making games we love. We're passionate about telling great stories and entertaining an audience, so storytelling and world-building is always a part of what we do. We want to stay small, making games that appeal to a core geek audience. We're not limiting ourselves to RPGs, though. We have a very nimble dev team, and it's important to try new things as creators. 

FOGKNIGHT: Why did the team specifically choose to make the modern version of Shadowrun?
 
MIKE: It just seemed like the timing was right. Shadowrun in particular, it's such a great setting to work with, but it hadn't really had a memorable videogame since the SNES days. Jordan and Mitch had always thought it’d be great to revisit that world, to build a really classic Shadowrun experience for modern platforms. And then Double Fine completely changed the crowdfunding landscape with Double Fine Adventure - and they both realized, this is the perfect way to do a game like Shadowrun.

FOGKNIGHT: What elements of previous Shadowrun games did you really want to include, but just didn't work?

MIKE: Our design team started with some of the original Shadowrun tabletop rules as they were designing combat and character advancement. We knew this was going to be a turn-based game and we really wanted it to feel true to the *spirit* of the original. Unfortunately, raw tabletop rules rarely translate well - so we iterated over and over again until we had something that worked onscreen but still felt like it had the same basic elements and core ideas of the original rules.
 
FOGKNIGHT: What was the game's development state before it got on Kickstarter for funding?

MIKE: We launched the Kickstarter campaign for Shadowrun just as we were wrapping up Strikefleet Omega. We went into it with an idea, some design docs, and a team motivated to create something amazing. As the campaign gained traction, it evolved into something more than that. I think going by today’s Kickstarter standards, things may have turned out differently for us. The popularity of Kickstarter means backers have more choices in what they’re investing in, making success harder without a working prototype.

FOGKNIGHT: How did the team react from the overwhelming love from the fans during the Kickstarter campaign? Did the team get pressured, motivated, or both from such a great reception?

MIKE: I think all of the above really! It's an experience I'm really glad we were able to have as a team. Keeping our Kickstarter promises was of course a huge motivating factor for everyone, it’s something we took extremely seriously. I think the challenge was making sure we were setting ourselves up to deliver on the vision that our Backers believed in, while still giving ourselves the necessary room to react to the natural twists and turns of the development process. Overall, Kickstarter did what the name promises for us - it kickstarted us into the team we are today.
  
FOGKNIGHT: Magic in a futuristic setting is scarce in role-playing games. How difficult was writing a lore for such setting?

MIKE: Well, the nice thing about Shadowrun is that the setting has nearly 25 years of history and lore to draw upon already. So while there's plenty for us to create and experiment with, the basic rules of magic - how it works and why it exists - have already been established. The hardest part for me was probably just figuring out how to *explain* the existence of magic and the general premise of the setting to viewers in a minute-long trailer. I'm proud of how we managed to distill that, though. 

FOGKNIGHT: For such an ambitious franchise, what was planned then scrapped from the game and why?

MIKE: Lots of things, but I would say that's just the nature of game development. : ) We wanted to have a team of characters, more world exploration, deeper conversations... fortunately, we got to keep working on Shadowrun and we were able to get a lot of those things into the Dragonfall expansion!

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FOGKNIGHT: Even though it is a Shadowrun game, were there any influences from other media for the game? What were they?

MIKE: Definitely - it's almost impossible to do cyberpunk and not channel Blade Runner and Neuromancer at some point. For me, I grew up on the old Infinity Engine RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, so those were also an important touchstone not only for the isometric view but also for how the game plays and for how our storytelling works. (Similar to Planescape: Torment, Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall both feature what we call "GM Voice", descriptive text that appears in dialogue. It really makes the written work richer, more like a novel almost.)

FOGKNIGHT: Before Dragonfall was released, fans were criticizing how linear the base game was. What happened for it to result like that?

MIKE: I think we absolutely did the best that we could with the time that we had, but at some point we had to ship the game. Thankfully, we were able to react to that feedback with Dragonfall - something that players and reviewers of Dragonfall seemed to really pick up on and appreciate!

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FOGKNIGHT: Shadowrun Returns Editor was one of the best features made for the game. What do you think about the abiliy of the fans to create modifications?

MIKE: We love it. That's something Jordan was really passionate about from the get-go during the Kickstarter campaign. Our core audience loves Shadowrun. They don't just consume Shadowrun, they participate in it - that's what tabletop gaming is all about. So we wanted them to be able to participate in this adventure as well. 

FOGKNIGHT: Was there anything that you and the team regret after releasing the game? If so, were they the same ones that got fixed in Dragonfall?

MIKE: Yup, as mentioned before, we were really happy to be able to improve on our craft in almost every way with Dragonfall. Which isn't to say we were unhappy with the release of Shadowrun Returns - quite the opposite. But it's simply the nature of the creative journey - you're always learning and striving for something better, and it's awesome when you have the chance to actually apply the lessons learned from one project immediately to the next.

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FOGKNIGHT: What is Harebrained Schemes working on next? Can we expect an announcement anytime soon?

MIKE: Our next big release is Golem Arcana, which comes out in August - that's next month! Look for that at your favorite local tabletop games store or head to  http://golemarcana.com/. The Golem team's been super hard at work, and I have to say the art team has really outdone themselves, we got the first final-print miniatures back from the factory a couple months ago and I was floored - they're amazing! The game has a really rich world and because it's enhanced by your tablet or smartphone, it's a lot less intimidating to get into than other miniatures games. 

After that - we're not *quite* ready to say anything right now, but we'll be announcing something in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! : ) Follow us on facebook (HarebrainedSchemes) or Twitter @WeBeHarebrained to hear more.

Day 22 | Harebrained Schemes