Writer Neal Stephenson recently reached his $500,000 Kickstarter target for upcoming swordfighting game Clang.
Author of some pretty stunning books, including Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon (read them if you haven’t already, read them now!). While his novels are often chock full of speculative future tech (Snow Crash practically defined the net and experiences like Second Life before they were popular or existed, respectively) but it’s an olde-worlde theme that Stephenson has his company Subutai focused on in upcoming game Clang: swordfighting.
Stephenson expressed his dissatisfaction with the way swordfighting is currently handled in computer games on his Clang Kickstarter page. The page was looking to raise $500,000 and just managed to do so with less than a day left. Phew!
Nine people pledged (at least) $10,000 each, with eight opting for a steel longsword made by “noted sword-smith and Foreworld contributor, Angus”, while the other big spender went for a war knife, “a Gotlandic war knife based on a design by bladesmith Jeff Pringle (a wootz and pattern welding specialist).” They also get a tour of the Subutai offices along with lunch with Stephenson and the gang and the entire list of other lesser (but fantastic) rewards.
At the time of writing there’s less than an hour left. If you want to donate then get on it now!
Clang will be controlled by Razer’s Hydra motion sensing PC peripheral. It’s aiming to be as realistic as possible while using real techniques from swordplay schools of old.
Stephenson intends to encourage and facilitate user-generated content in Clang, which will be set in various arenas, though a more open-world setting may at some point be developed.
When it will see a release we don’t know, the latest update from Stephenson is featured below (I’d recommend watching them all, they’re pretty funny).
