All Articles: Blackroom

Even though the Kickstarter campaign for John Romero’s Blackroom was going pretty well, the Doom developer has decided to suspend it for now to work on a gameplay demo for potential backers. Here’s what Romero had to say about pressing Blackroom’s “PAUSE” button:

The team is at work on a demo which demonstrates the kind of gameplay, look and innovative, cool features that make Blackroom truly unique — the things we’ve waited years to put into an FPS and which make us incredibly excited about this game.

There’s a hitch here, a hitch that’s making us do something that’s right for the game, the team, and the community: we’re pressing “PAUSE” on the fundraising campaign for Blackroom to complete this gameplay demo. Simply put, this will take more time than the Kickstarter has left, so we’ve decided to suspend the campaign and launch a new one when the gameplay demo is ready. We believe, however, it is the right choice. We know you do, too. Thanks to your feedback, we know we should have included it at launch.

Romero’s original goal for Blackroom was $700,000, and at the time of its cancellation, backers had pledged $131,052 towards the project. According to Kicktraq, Blackroom was on pace to reach its goal before the cancellation, so Romero, and the rest of Night Work Games, probably do want to do right by their fans.

John Romero’s about make make you his… sorry, force of habit. The Doom co-creator has done more for the image of the “rock star game developer” than almost anybody, and he’s back with Blackroom, a “visceral, action-packed first person shooter set in a holographic simulation gone rogue.”

Blackroom is in development at Romero’s new studio, Night Work Games, and it’ll follow a near-future engineer as he investigates anomalies in his company’s holographic simulator. Because of the ever-changing nature of the Blackroom, players will be able to visit a variety of locales including “military sims, hellish infernos, and interstellar space” in both single-player and co-op campaigns.

Romero launched a Kickstarter campaign and also enlisted fellow id co-founder Adrian Carmack to handle the art design. The developers have already raised $100,000 in pledged funds and they’re seeking a total of only $700,000. After spending millions on the development of Daikatana, Romero has cut way back for Blackroom, but he’s also partnered with an unnamed publisher who will provide addition monetary support if the campaign is fully funded.

Blackroom is still early in development, but Romero already has a vision for how he wants the final game to look and that includes support for online multiplayer, dedicated servers, mods, map creation, and a single-player Challenge Mode. Romero has also promised to spearhead the level design personally and he’s hired guitarist George Lynch to provide a metal-influenced soundtrack.

There is a lot more information about Blackroom’s story and Romero’s plan for the future of the game on the Kickstarter page. And if all goes well, Romero wants to launch Blackroom in Winter 2018 exclusively for the PC. So let’s see if this rock star has one last encore in him.

John Romero, the co-creator of Doom and Quake, has decided to return to the first person shooter arena. The famed developer walked away from first person shooters in 2000, after the over-ambitious Daikatna was met with a poor reception by the gaming public.

Romero enlisted Adrian Carmack, another original member of id Software, to help him spread the news with an excellent parody of the final scene from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. With his graying hair and hoodie, Romero certainly looks the part of a former first-person Jedi. And if nothing else, the video proves he’s learned quite a bit about how to craft an effective advertisement in the last two decades.

According to the video, Romero’s new shooter is in development at Night Work Games, and the public will get their first look at what he’s been up to on Monday, April 25. Located in Galway, Ireland, Night Work is said to be “the dark and violent subsidiary of Romero Games.”

Romero has been hinting at his return to the genre that made him famous for some time now. Back in January, the developer created a new map for Doom, his first in 21 years. Referred to as “a warm-up” by Romero at the time, we’ll all get to see what he’s been working towards in just a few days.