The Monday Post: Clang, thud?

I just saw a post reminding me about the Kickstarter campaign by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. The elevator pitch is he's going to create a game and framework for sword fighting games the way that racing games have their own peripherals. Fine controlled motion capture and swords. How can that go wrong?



Well, look at the numbers. Even if this makes the last $100k to reach the goal it won't be taking advantage of what makes KS great: Your ability to have more money than you imagined. The goal you set (should) be the  bare minimum, which means Clang could be running at a loss, depending on what kind of extra money from selling the game that comes with the real API they're creating.

In my opinion I think Clang did two things here to shoot themselves in the foot, and I don't think they could have been corrected. The first problem, which couldn't be corrected at all given the nature of the project, is the genre. I know fantasy might be hip and all but it's just that: fantasy. Real fights of the era (and I mean things that don't include my D&D campaign) were a bloody affair. Heavy armor, sharps words, lots of fester wounds kind of bloody.

The second problem is the idea of making a sword controller, and a sixaxis one at that. As much as I love seeing sword fights playing one with a controller would get tiring fast. You may as well take lessons in sword fighting and do it for real. The bigger problem, however, is the choice of sixaxis, owned by Sony and used exclusively for the PS3, means a lot of people are going to have to buy hardware just to play this game. Guess what, Neal? If you have to go down that route you are looking at a niche audience. You program and plan, however, as if this will take off like a fucking rocket.


This project may get the funding goal, but I'll be damned if it even works half as good as he wants it to be.


[Edit] Someone today pointed out to me that I'm was off in what I thought the controller for this game was to be. It won't be the PS3 controller, but the $139 one from Razer. Even more reason for me to point and wonder what the hell were they thinking.