John Romero and Adrian Carmack Officially Announce New FPS

[Lizzy Finnegan]

John Romero and Adrian Carmack Officially Announce New FPS

[kickstarter=nightworkgames/blackroom-a-new-fps-from-romero-and-carmack]

John Romero and Adrian Carmack are raising funds for a new FPS, Blackroom.

John Romero and Adrian Carmack, two of id Software's founders, have launched a Kickstarter campaign [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nightworkgames/blackroom-a-new-fps-from-romero-and-carmack?token=07458251] to fund a new FPS, Blackroom. They are asking for $700,000.

The campaign page describes Blackroom as "a visceral, varied and violent shooter that harkens back to classic FPS play with a mixture of exploration, speed, and intense, weaponized combat," and promises "unique multiplayer maps and robust modding support for the community to make diabolical creations of their own design."

Romero and Carmack promise fast movement, intricate weapons, abstract level design with six built-in multiplayer maps as well as "countless maps created by the community."

hinted at a new PC shooter [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/167185-Is-HOXAR-Inc-the-New-John-Romero-PC-Game].

The Kickstarter campaign description confirms the involvement of HOXAR Inc., one of the in-game world's leading tech companies, that has created technology which enables people to be anywhere at any time via "fully-realized holographic worlds that are indistinguishable from reality," all of which take place in - you guessed it - a giant black room.

The game will launch in Winter 2018 for PC.


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[SweetShark]

I saw the kickstarter page. I am trully sorry, but the design of the game isn't appealing to me...
Also seeing the main character being SO generic to a crimilar digree, make me even more sad.
Finally...the name of the game...
BlackRoom
Seeing the game doesn't have to do with Espionage....well, insert a dirt joke here and we are done.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I notice that John Carmack wasn't invited to this party. XD

Figures, considering the core id team's legendary long-time dispute over whether the gameplay should serve the engine or the engine should serve the gameplay.

 

[09philj]

I notice that John Carmack wasn't invited to this party. XD

Figures, considering the core id team's legendary long-time dispute over whether the gameplay should serve the engine or the engine should serve the gameplay.

Thankfully, Carmack won that argument.

"No, John, we can't do that."
"But I want to-"
"No, we're making an FPS."
"But-"
"We have made an FPS engine. We are not making your bloody sideways on adventure game."
"I hate you! I'll make my own studio, with blackjack and hookers and make the audience my *****!"

 

[fix-the-spade]

I notice that John Carmack wasn't invited to this party. XD

Hi, we're the guy that made Daikatana and the Carmack that isn't John, yeah the art guy, no we're not related jeez.

Anyway, we want seven hundred grand of your money to make a video game. STOP LAUGHING!

On a less flippant note. I wish them the best of luck, but the best game either of them has been involved in since Doom 2 has been 2005's Area 51 for Romero. A good game but not especially memorable. Carmack's been involved in health clubs or something for the last ten years.

We'll see how this plays out once they have a playable build.

 

[major_chaos]

Yea I don't see this working. Anyone oldschool enough to A. care about the "SUPER RETRO GUIZE!!" pitch and b. know who the fuck John Romero is also most likely remembers the Dikatana debacle.

Then again people keep throwing money at frauds like Schafer and Molyneux so anything is possible.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

I was browsing their kickstarter page and found this little gem.

Gotta love those guys.

 

[hermes]

I notice that John Carmack wasn't invited to this party. XD

Figures, considering the core id team's legendary long-time dispute over whether the gameplay should serve the engine or the engine should serve the gameplay.

Thankfully, Carmack won that argument.

"No, John, we can't do that."
"But I want to-"
"No, we're making an FPS."
"But-"
"We have made an FPS engine. We are not making your bloody sideways on adventure game."
"I hate you! I'll make my own studio, with blackjack and hookers and make the audience my *****!"

That is still debatable.

Other than "the *****" episode (for which Romero has apologized repeatedly and argues that it was used out of context by their marketing team), I would say game design has a lot more in common with Romero's point of view than Carmack's: just because your engine support colored lighting, it doesn't mean the game needs to have them every few levels just so the public can notice them. Yes, it makes for nice screenshots, but the important part of the game is the gameplay.

After all, Romero is an early game designer, interested in narrative, and level and enemies designs, while Carmack is a lot more interested in the technological challenges, like latency in online games and texture mapping in 3D environment. Carmack is also the one that said: "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."

 

[bladestorm91]

Honestly? I forgive Romero for everything, just give us that REAL old school design FPS and save us from these soulless, bleak and creatively bankrupt AAA FPS that are being crapped out. DOOM 4 is a mockery of classic FPS design, it's a slow, piss filtered mess with QTE animations.

 

[Quellist]

Yeah yeah, get stuffed Romero. That Daikatana advert and the sack of shit that game turned out to be pretty much killed your reputation as far as i'm concerned

Go suck it down John

 

[JCAll]

Yeah yeah, get stuffed Romero. That Daikatana advert and the sack of shit that game turned out to be pretty much killed your reputation as far as i'm concerned

Go suck it down John

If he had brain one, he'd be playing up that advert. It's the one thing people know about him anymore.

"For the low low price of 700K, YOU can make John Romero YOUR *****!"

 

[Major_Tom]

Oh no! Not weaponized combat! I thought combat can only be used for peaceful purposes.

 

[sXeth]

Yeah, nothing in that leaped out at me as some super-innovative interesting thing.

The premise just sounds cribbed off Half-life, but with a holodeck so they don't have to bother with aesthetic consistency and can just insert random theme arenas.

If they get it off the ground to some sort of actual gameplay demo, I'd take another look, but the pitch isn't selling me even if it wasn't Mr Daikatana

 

[Daymo]

I'm getting a timesplitters sort of vibe from the game, with the levels and weapons being able to completely change depending on the stage. 700k is a steep goal though for a guy people still remember for daikatana.

 

[Coach Morrison]

I think they hurt themselves by thinking they could get this funded only with their names, if the video had any kind of tech or gameplay footage I might not be so hesitant about giving them money.

 

[SmugFrog]

Yeah yeah, get stuffed Romero. That Daikatana advert and the sack of shit that game turned out to be pretty much killed your reputation as far as i'm concerned

Go suck it down John

If he had brain one, he'd be playing up that advert. It's the one thing people know about him anymore.

"For the low low price of 700K, YOU can make John Romero YOUR *****!"

The last part at the bottom of the FAQ:

Are you going to make us your ***** again?

How about we just make you all a game.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Arnoxthe1]

The premise just sounds cribbed off Half-life, but with a holodeck so they don't have to bother with aesthetic consistency and can just insert random theme arenas.

...

Annddd... That's a bad thing?

 

[Sol_HSA]

Other than "the *****" episode (for which Romero has apologized repeatedly and argues that it was used out of context by their marketing team)

If nothing else, Romero is good at one thing, and that's marketing himself. After my career and his made a brief near-miss, I followed his PR output for a while, and he did stuff like this:

Context: Consider yourself working on a game, and then the higher-ups go and hire a rockstar who promptly posts..

"It's all true: Tom [Hall] and I are en-route right now to Midway," said the post. Romero went on to explain the move; "The main reason we came to Midway [is] to help make them HARDCORE developers and make some awesome games."

..so I guess you weren't HARDCORE before, I guess?
Source of quote: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/romero-confirms-midway-deal/1100-6076747/

 

[MHR]

This sounds like VR. I heard they left the Doom team under Bethesda to make Virtual Reality-focused games.

I'm not convinced at the idea of the sustainability of VR, its usefulness for shooters, nor am I going to ever get one for hundreds of dollars.

The trailer sounds like a direct shot at the complaints people had during the DOOM beta, but I'm not buying anything based on the names of these 2 guys alone and an opportunistic jab at recent events. The trailer doesn't inspire confidence honestly.