Crowd sourced funding through Kickstarter has launched a number of projects. Double Fine’s Adventure, Wasteland 2, and now Shadowrun Returns. Shadowrun goes back to pen-and-paper role playing during the late 80’s, early 90’s. It spawned a number of books, plus a few video games. One for the SNES and another for the Sega Genesis. The pen-and-paper game has been played through the years, and has seen a number of iterations of the ruleset, now in Version 4.0.

Jordan Weisman, one of the creators of the role playing game, has started a project for Shadowrun Returns. A 2-D Tactical RPG. It sounds like the player is going to be able to view the world through four different realities. One of a Street Samurai, Combat Mage, Shaman, or Decker. And at certain points having to use all four views at the same time to complete the “Shadowrun.” It’s not the real-time hacking of the Matrix like the Sega Genesis version, but I can’t wait to see what they do. They’re even going to allow players to write their own modules, like Neverwinter Nights, and I’m sure a whole community will arise around this thing.

It’s great to see companies taking risks and making the games that the fans want made. Double Fine and Wasteland 2 both raised a lot of money for their projects. I hope Shadowrun does too. I have such great memories from that world. Books, games, all of it.

- D

Currently Playing: D&D Online

With only eight days to go I felt I had to get the word out about Wasteland 2. A sequel to the predecessor of Fallout, Wasteland was the first Post Apocalyptic Role Playing game I played back in 1988 on a Commodore 64. It has a sand box world, taking four disks at the time, and periodically would face the player with morale dilemmas that forced them into making choices that would impact the game. Highly acclaimed, it has won a number of awards.

Brian Fargo, a founder of Interplay and one of the designers behind Wasteland, has started a Kickstarter Project for Wasteland 2. With his new company inXile he’s creating the long anticipated sequel, and he’s getting the band back together. He has Mike Stackpole, Alan Pavlish, and Ken St. Andre working on the project. Plus he’s picked up Chris Avellone from Obsidian to work on the game. I’ve even read stuff about player mods down the road. That makes me think they might be building it around the Obsidian engine, something like Neverwinter Night 2, but don't worry: the game is going to be isometric and tactical. So it’s almost like an old school Fallout game, man I can wait for this thing. I put money behind it, and I hope that others will too. I want to see the best game these guys can make, and this fan funded gaming seems to be bringing back games that I’ve wanted to play for years. I’m glad Double Fine and inXile are taking a chance on something like this, and October 2013 can’t get here fast enough.

I hope they deliver - D

Currently Playing: D&D Online