Shadowrun Hong Kong Kickstarter Hits $400K in the first 34 hours

It's been an exciting two days for Harebrained Schemes, whose new Shadowrun: Hong Kong Kickstarter campaign (link) hit its funding goal in less than 2 hours after launching on Tuesday!

The company set its goal at USD $100,000 asking Kickstarters to co-fund additional development on their third Shadowrun game.

In the first 34 hours, Backers pledged more than $400,000, unlocking six Co-funding levels including two new Characters, the addition of Animatics to the game, an extra Side Mission, and improved Sound and Music.

Harebrained Schemes has since added seven new Co-funding goals that include a 5th team member, more Side Missions, Enhanced Cyberware, Expanded Magic and a Revamped Matrix.

"We love the Shadowrun world and just want to make a great game and tell a great story for our fans. There's no better partner than our fans themselves! We're thrilled and humbled by how well this Kickstarter has gone so far. With over 10,000 Kickstarter Backers, in only two days, we can't wait to see what the rest of the Kickstarer brings."

                                                                            - Mitch Gitelman, Co-founder, Harebrained Schemes

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Developer Harebrained Schemes looks to fan community to co-fund their third full-length game in the Shadowrun universe

Today, indie video game developer Harebrained Schemes launched a new Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund it’s third full length stand-alone game set in the cyberpunk-meets-magic world of Shadowrun.

Unlike their smash success at crowdfunding the entire development of Shadowrun Returns, Harebrained Schemes is approaching this Kickstarter differently, asking backers to become co-funding partners so they can add more to Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

“We’ve already begun development of the Hong Kong game,” said Mitch Gitelman, co-founder of Harebrained Schemes and Executive Producer of Shadowrun. “We’re self-funding the first 12 hours of gameplay at the quality level of Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut. But we have plenty of ideas for features and runs that didn’t fit into our budget. We love Kickstarter and we think there’s no better co-funding partner than our fans to help us take our game to the next level.”

Set in the magically awakened city of Hong Kong in 2056, players will find themselves exploring the underworld of triads, tongs, wild magic, and bleeding edge cybertech with a crew of flawed, dangerous runners each with their own backstory and special abilities.

"We couldn't be more excited to bring our fans an all new, full length standalone tactical cRPG set in Hong Kong," said Jordan Weisman, co-founder of Harebrained Schemes and creator of the Shadowrun world. "Every time we release a new Shadowrun campaign, we set out to improve on the art, the gameplay and, especially, the storytelling.”

In 2012, Harebrained Schemes funded the development of Shadowrun Returns on Kickstarter and became the first video game company that raised over $1M and delivered the game to backers. More importantly, the game was critically acclaimed and appeared on many Best of 2013 lists and was awarded Game of the Year from Hardcore Gamer.

Their next title, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, was initially released as DLC and was given to Kickstarter backers for free. Last September, the studio released Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director’s Cut, a standalone upgrade that was made available for free to all Dragonfall DLC owners. The Director’s Cut was one of the highest rated PC Games of the year, appeared on many Best of 2014 lists, and was awarded Game of the Year from RPG Gamer. A tablet version of the Director’s Cut was released for iOS and Android in December.

“We're very excited to have Harebrained Schemes back on Kickstarter," said Luke Crane, Community Manager for Games at Kickstarter. “They did a great job with their first Shadowrun project and have continued to release amazing work since. They've shown how Kickstarter creators can invite backers into the development process and build a loyal base of supporters. The new project looks like it's going to continue their streak of excellence!”

Shadowrun: Hong Kong will be developed for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems only, with DRM-free versions available through GOG and Humble. Harebrained Schemes expects to release the game mid-2015, at a price point similar to their previous games.

To learn more about Harebrained Schemes' current Kickstarter campaign, now underway until February 17, 2015 at 10am PST, please visit the website here.

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Successful Kickstarter project Tangiers has a new trailer

Tangiers, the game that was funded by Kickstarter last summer, has a new trailer for you to check out.
Developed by Andalusian, a small indie team from the UK, Tangiers is a stealth game much in the vein of the Thief series but set in a dark, abstracted world. A world that cuts up and re-assembles itself in response to the players actions, a world where you can steal language from the air and use it to further your goals. Play as a ghost through the shadows or stalking predator, the game gives a sandbox experience strongly influenced by the classic immersive sim games.

Kickstarter Page: Link 
Tangiers Website: Link

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Darkest Dungeon, Even Heroes Get Scared

With each passing year and a lot of Kickstarter projects finally coming to fruition, more and more attention and expectations are being cast upon these independent titles. After all, games like Shadowrun Returns, The Banner Saga or Broken Age can easily compete and even surpass titles that have the support of big publishers.
Darkest Dungeon is another one of those projects that has a ton of promise and that I personally want to see completed. If done correctly, this project from Red Hook Studios might quickly become one of the most original roguelike RPG's out there.

What is Darkest Dungeon?
According to the developers and all the pictures and videos available at their Kickstarter page, Darkest Dungeon is going to be a very dark and terrifying roguelike RPG. With each and every step that your brave heroes take, a bit of their courage is leeched, paranoia sets in, fear, irrationality and a few other not so manly feelings start to creep in, "What will happen when they reach their breaking point?".
This emotional baggage system can become incredibly fun (and terrifying) as it is something we haven't really seen in a roguelike before. No longer will you fight only flesh and blood foes but also the unimaginable darkness.

The combat in Darkest Dungeon will reveal the tactician in players brave enough to set out on this dangerous journey. Tough decisions will have to be made, the consequences of your poor choices will be permanent, severe and maybe even fatal.
Starting with the party composition and order you will have to choose which one of your fighters will take point, remember, monsters are not the only threat when you step into the darkness.

Decisions, decisions, even resting in Darkest Dungeon is an event saturated with decisions.
Using your "camping skill" will allow your party to set up camp and plan further advances into the dungeon. According to the devs there will be a few options available like scouting ahead, setting up a defensive perimeter or conserving provisions, all of these decisions will have positive and negative consequences of course.

Finally let's talk about the town in Darkest Dungeon, here is where your heroes will be able to recover from their dangerous missions and relax a bit. You will start off with only a few desolate buildings like a tavern and a church, as you progress through the game a few more structures can indeed be built, from them a few more commodities like extra classes and upgraded gear will appear.
After reading pretty much everything in Red Hook Studios Kickstarter page the Town is what concerns me the most, hopefully players won't be able to transform their party members into four gods of oblivion that wreak havoc upon once terrifying dungeons just by simply grinding a lot.

You can find out a lot more about Darkest Dungeon simply by taking a look at their Kickstarter page, their initial stretch goal was $75.000 (already achieved) which seemed reasonable, especially when you take into consideration that a lot of work has already been done. Hopefully the experienced Red Hook Studios team will be able to reach a higher stretch goal so that we get even more content when the game finally comes out in 2015 (predicted).

Kickstarter Page: Link
Darkest Dungeon Website: Link

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