Shadowrun Returns Thanks To the Power of Kickstarter

Double Fine really started something special with its hugely successful Kickstarter project. Many other developers have seen how easy it was for them to raise money for their adventure game and followed in their footsteps, and gamers have responded tremendously. Wasteland 2, Leisure Suit Larry, Tex Murphy and now Shadowrun- all returning thanks to the backing of thousands of gamers that want them, despite the fact that no publishers wanted to take a chance on the properties. Shadowrun Returns is the latest and greatest in this trend.

Now, we're not talking about a sequel to Shadowrun, the Xbox 360 and PC first-person shooter that came out a few years ago and that even the developers admit wasn't that great, we're talking about the classic SNES and Genesis games. The Genesis version in particular might be my favorite game of all time- allowing you to explore a world and go on all kinds of crazy adventures in a futuristic cyberpunk world. Want to hack into corporations, steal their data from the matrix and sell it for tons of cash in the black market? You can do that. Want to break into the local police station and kill everyone to grab a ton of guns? You'll need a helluva lot of armor and bullets, but you can do that too. Yes, it did GTA3 years before GTA3 did it.

Now Jordan Weisman, creator of Shadowrun (a franchise of role-playing games, card games, novels and even music) has bought back the license for his Harebrained Schemes start-up, a studio who's already released the massively fun iOS game Crimson Steam Pirates. Seeing the success of other classic game developers they've taken to Kickstarter to bring back Shadowrun as a 2D turn-based RPG. The game's already nearly doubled its funding goal and there are still over two weeks left.

They're planning new stretch goals for funding over their goal, including an entire new city in the game, chosen by the people who back the game. If you're interested in contributing to this exciting project check out their Kickstarter page here.