warning before vanishing. The rest of the story is spent investigating the events leading to Jake's shooting, learning the identity of the shapeshifter who saved him, as well the person who ordered his assassination, a mysterious crime lord named "Drake". Most of the information is found by piecing together snippets of data found by hacking various protected computer systems. Along the way, he has encounters with gangs, criminals, and magically awakened creatures while under constant threat of attack from contract killers. Jake also discovers and develops his own latent magical abilities. Apart from his totem spirit, his only allies are the hired services of shadowrunners. It is eventually revealed that Jake is a data courier who was carrying a program in a computer built inside his brain. The program was designed to destroy a malevolent artificial intelligence, which the Aneki Corporation is trying to protect. The company is being aided by Drake, who turns out to be a dragon and the mastermind behind the plot. Development The work to develop an adaptation of Shadowrun for the Super NES by the Australian developer Beam Software began when Adam Lanceman, part of the company's management team, acquired the license for FASA's 1989 tabletop RPG. The project was initially headed by Gregg Barnett until he abruptly left Beam midway through the game's development to start Perfect Entertainment in the United Kingdom. The game's production was halted by Beam, but eventually resumed before its set deadline. Having been hired by Beam's parent company Melbourne House, fantasy and sci-fi writer Paul Kidd quickly took Barnett's place as lead designer. According to Kidd, the given timeframe for finishing Shadowrun for publisher Data East was very short, forcing the team to complete production in a tumultuous five and a half to six months. An avid role-player, Kidd was already familiar with the Shadowrun license, but had to utilize the storyline that his predecessor had already gotten approved. Aspects of Beam's earlier action-adventure game Nightshade, of which Kidd was the writer, director and lead designer, were used as a basis for Shadowrun; specific film noir components such as "dark cityscapes, dialogue-heavy exchanges, and touches of humor" were adapted directly from the former to the latter. To coincide with the last of these qualities, Kidd and programmer Jeff Kamenek altered the original "serious" tone of Shadowrun by replacing portions of the script and artwork with more comedic elements. According