If you're a fan of cyberpunk novels then surely you're a fan of author Neal Stephenson, the man behind "Snow Crash," "The Diamond Age" and "Cryptonomicon."
As it turns out, Stephenson doesn't just make use of the mighty pen. He's a pretty big fan of wielding the (reportedly less-mighty) sword as well.
And so it has come to pass that Stephenson -- a self-described "swordsmanship geek" -- has just launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the making of a sword-fighting video game called "Clang."
Stephenson has already pulled in more than $240,000 of the $500,000 he's looking for just to get the game under way. But why is this novelist jumping into the game development business in the first place?
"I'm dissatisfied with how swordfighting is portrayed in existing video games," he writes in his Kickstarter pitch. "These could be so much more fun than they are. Time for a revolution."
But what will that $500,000 be used for? Well, says Stephenson, "It takes a lot of people to make a sword game that doesn't suck." (In fact, they just want to raise enough money to hire a team to help them get started with "a simple, playable game that we can build on to.")
I think his pitch -- in which he takes us into his "top-secret sword lab" -- is worth a donation alone. For the full video follow this link.
More to the point, here is Stephenson's detailed look at precisely how sword-fighting games could be better and what he plans to do about it. I, for one, am sold:
- Via VentureBeat
Winda Benedetti writes about video games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things on Twitter here @WindaBenedetti and you follow her on Google+ right here. Meanwhile, be sure to check out the In-Game Facebook page to discuss the day's gaming news and reviews.
