SolidSnakeUS
Member
He also has a much more recent track record of actual good games.
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BLACKROOM announced (new game by John Romero, Kickstarter)
- Thread starter Nibel
- Start date
He also has a much more recent track record of actual good games.
It's a lot easier to put your faith in IGA, considering he was making quality metroidvanias for years until Konami threw him in the dungeon. John Romero's last noteworthy title came out 16 years ago, and it was complete dogshit.
A lot of people (not myself, personally) were really upset that the game didn't look as good as the concept art provided during the campaign. With that said, the game just looks terrible overall, and seems to have been made with the lowest common denominator in mind, which soured a lot of people. As well, they announced a television show for the game, which some people speculate used up some of the campaign funds and may be why the game is as bad as it is.
On top of that, Keiji Inafune launched 2 MORE Kickstarter projects (Red Ash and the Red Ash anime) before releasing Mighty No. 9! As these were failing spectacularly, Inafune came out and said Red Ash was already funded by a no-name Chinese company, and that any additional Kickstarter funds would go towards unnamed stretch goals.
Now Mighty No. 9 has been delayed a few times due to problems with the online structure, despite the game being finished over a year ago.
It's a gigantic mess, and now a lot of the backers from that are worried about Kickstarter projects like Mighty No. 9, where a developer will use their good name and pedigree, just to end with fucking the whole thing up.
Stevey
Member
Romero and Carmack
More_Badass
Member
That's the problem with backing a campaign with only concept art. It doesn't matter if the devs have a pedigree. You have no idea if the finished game can match that. Game design is so fluid that it's crazy to get hyped about a game because of concept art. At least with early prealpha footage, you can get some idea of controls or gameplay
The exception is if a developer has proven they can match concept art with a finished game. That's the main reason I backed Battletech despite it being only art. They proved that they can translate their art to gameplay
So name and pedigree?
I think you'll find a lot of people like myself will disagree with this sentiment (and that's fine to not see eye-to-eye on that). If that's what it takes to get you backing the project, that's cool. I'll just wish you good luck and hope the project doesn't end up burning people like crowd-funded projects before it.
Yeah, I also agree that there are certain exceptions that can be made where developers have wonderfully delivered on previous crowd-funded projects.
I backed it because I have a lot of good-will for Romero and Carmack. I think the premise is pretty cool. Sadly, I don't think Blackroom is going to make its goal. There have only been a handful of expensive Kickstarter's that have raised less than half their goal on day one and managed to get fully funded. Starting the campaign with only a few concept pieces and no gameplay, not even a prototype, wasn't a good move, especially with the high $29 base cost for the game.
Details from the stream:
Details from the stream:
Incorporates level design glitches into story, monsters and gameplay (wall-running)
There will be strafing, strafe-jumping, strafe-running, circle-strafing and all kinds of strafing
Strong air control
"There will be most definitely XTREME gibbage." "More value to gibbage than in other game."
No gameplay because they are in an early stage. "Don't worry there will be gameplay." :/
Mouse/keyboard focus
Destructible walls
Steam / GOG
Level system? They will play around with it.
Open design, multiple paths, secret areas.
Holographic chainsaw.
Speed: high - Romero feels even Quake was slowish. He likes speed.
Ferrari stretch goal not included.
Impossible geometry will "definitely be there". You can go outside the simulation, seeing procedurally generated stuff that looks like simulation gone bad.
No QTEs
Level design: not an open world game, but they are not tiny little levels - you can move quickly, and have the room to do it. The scale is the number one thing to get right. You have to calibrate your whole game around the movement speed / jump length. Complex but basically abstract level design, reuse of space, fun to explore.
Superfly: not in the game.Dopefish: lives. Cyberdemon: They don't own it.
Planned release: December 2018.
Health-packs, no health-regen.
Weapons, weapon mods and alt fire modes galore.
Intentionally high moddability.
The "glitch" enemies are procedurally generated, and take many possible shapes. "It is bad news when they show up".
Want to make sure things look gud, but what matters is the ability to move really fast through the game, and have very high FPS.
Monsters can fight each other. Lots of monsters per level. How many? "Remember classic games? That many."
Teleportals and telefrags: "They are awesome, and I love them, and they have to be in there."
Checkpoint-based saves.
Seems to be universal ammo ("bits"), which you can get by "destroying everything". Bits can be used on weapon mods. If it feels bad, it will be tweaked.
And impressions:
Still too vague, but slightly better. Some more promising gameplay ideas.
"Holograms" sounds like it has potential, but it can also be used to rationalise any bullshit.
Background once more feels like "coolest thing a 15 years old John Romero could imagine", which is par for course.
The 'boxel" and the environmental control still seems gravity gun kinda gimmicky - I don't know what its place will be in a really fast-paced FPS.
Doesn't seem like a Daikatana-style ego-driven meltdown this time.
Joseph Merrick
Member
worried about that glitch stuff. it sounds like a completely story related thing that will trigger epic scripted moments. what I would want from this is for it to be a completely open level exploration fps like quake.
StrategyFan
Member
i understand why people don't want to fund concepts, but give us some credit. this isn't a 15-year-old with some concept art for an ambitious MMO.
it's not a huge leap of faith to see how veteran developers can use unreal engine 4 to make a standard FPS.
More_Badass
Member
If you're so early into development that you don't even have gameplay to show yet, you're launching your Kickstarter too early
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Backed it, quite excited about the ideas they have for the game and the focus on user mods as well.
In 2016, that's definitely the case. That said, I backed Project Eternity (Pillars) and Wasteland 2 and all they had was concepts and a general broad pitch about returning to the golden era of RPGs. I'm really happy with how they turned out. Torment's shaping up well, too, and that's a similar situation.
Iga was heading up games for three semi-recent generations up until he got put on janitor duty at Konami.
Which incidentally, probably helped him a ton since there was an underdog narrative of IGA finally being able to make one of "those" Castlevania games after being held back by Konami. His last Castlevania also wasn't released so long ago that you'd have to question whether he still has to chops to make a good new one.
Romero, on the other hand, was a self made millionaire in the 90s that just fucking ghosted from the enthusiast mindshare for the past decade and a half because he was busy on mobile/facebook stuff and maintaining his luscious hair. Outside of that Doom wad he released, no one knows how sharp Romero is on this stuff anymore.
It's sitting at 72k right now with 30+ days to go. I thknk you might be throwing in the towel a bit early
Alex_Mexico
Member
Why isn't Romero behind Doom 4? Did he sold the right? Did he never owned them in the first place? Who is he kickstarting an indie game instead of being involved with the new Doom?
When he left id, he didn't take any IP rights with him. I also don't think he left id under the best circumstances
Doom is owned by id Software (now Bethesda/Zenimax). Romero never owned Doom and he hasn't worked at id in 20 years and there's no way in hell they'd hire him back.
He's kickstarting his new game because no publisher in their right mind would front up for another Romero FPS after Daikatana, one of the mostly poorly-budgeted and highly-publicised flops in history.
Most successful kickstarters get a higher proportion of the goal in the first day than that though. I think it will have some staying power with Romero's name, at the very least that will get people to talk about it, so I think it very well might get over the finish line. But it won't be an easy race.
I would love for it to be anomaly but the precedent set by other Kickstarter campaigns show it's not going to clear its goal.
Mate, Doom 4 was announced 8 years ago! In no universe can either id's current staff or Doom 4's biggest supporters be smug towards Romero. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, etc...
The infamous Dallas Observer's story about the heady days at Ion Storm Dallas are nothing compared with the shit that went down with nu-Doom. id lost their independence, had years of work scrapped, transitioned from a two-project studio to a one project company, lost the mobile division, farmed out id tech to former Cryengine devs in Frankfurt, 5 external studios are handling major components of the game, and bleed talent for years. It's one of the most troubled projects in the history of the games industry. It's only rival is the king of vaporware, DNF.
Daikatana is a bad game that took three years to make. It had an obnoxious ad campaign and saw 8 team members leave to start their own studio to make GOD Games' bizarre Kiss FPS. It only sold 200,000 copies and it cost $10 million to make. However, it's worth remembering without Romero's absurd ambition we wouldn't have Deus Ex, Heretic, Hexen, or Anachronox. Those games happened because of him.
Yeah, I've been thinking this about almost every FPS that was hyped as an old-school revival since Serious Sam. It's great that some games can be about the joy of shooting and or stabbing things again (Painkiller, Shadow Warrior Redux, etc.) but the level design has not been very interesting in them.
I'd love for Romero to knock out some god tier levels in this, but the pitch does nothing to excite me beyond that.
AntiFacebook
Member
Bloodstaimed and shenmu 3 also only had a concept on their campaigns and they are the most successful video game campaigns on KS, so...
BumblebeeCody
Member
"To see the game, you must fund me, John Romero"
More_Badass
Member
Unfortunately, but even still there's a marked difference between the presentation and writing of those and this one. Shenmue had some early WIP screenshots and at least Bloodstained gave an idea of what gameplay and combat would look like, with a distinct style
Or even Battletech
Here, the details are vague and barely give any details about the gameplay, and the concept art is generic and not indicative of the kind of game they're promising
Joyful
Member
did you play the shadow warrior remake its pretty good
Spiral Insanity
Banned
And Hard Reset, also by Flying Wild Hog!
I love Flying Wild Hog but level design is definetely not their strong suit.
Bl@de
Member
I agree. I was very disappointed with the new SW. Level design was mostly straight corridors :/ Most new "old-school" shooters mimic Serious Sam and not Doom or Heretic
And if there is one thing Romero is great at it's level design. A very important trait of old school shooters.maniac-kun
Member
Just recorded a quick video to remind people what it was like to play those old school fps games:
Quake 1 - First couple of maps
Quake 1 - First couple of maps
Triggerhappytel
Member
They need enough for the initial pitch, but also need some decent updates while the campaign is ongoing. I'd say blow out about 75% of the info for the pitch, and then save about 25% to roll out in regular updates while the campaign is ongoing.
Exclusive first gameplay!
Oh, wait, that's STRAFE
That looks really good. Does it have a campaign or is it multiplayer only?
It's purely single-player.
Even back in 2012, when Obsidian had a Kickstarter where Josh Sawyer pretty much has confessed that they described their game as they were designing it (paraphrased: "People thought we were secretive about the story initially, but no, we actually didn't have one yet"), Brenda Romero's "old-school RPG" Kickstarter SHAKER still managed to be less thought out than that
You'd think John would have learned.
You'd think John would have learned.
Fahzgoolin
Banned
I'm looking forward to seeing something, but it was a bit hard to watch.
Showing literally nothing killed most of my hype.
Showing literally nothing killed most of my hype.
Comfort Jones
Banned
I'm not. People are probably a little burned out with really vague kickstarters, plus Romero's name hasn't really been attached to anything that has mattered in a looong time.
Truth be told I think this campaign kinda deserves to fail. I only have the vaguest idea of what this game is gonna be and they expect me to put money behind that?
FairFriend
Member
Honestly I really don't understand how Kickstarter works: the project has received the "project we love" badge, so apparently Kickstarter is fine with their not showing anything concrete. Mmm, really conflicted about this.
To be fair the drawings of the maps the briefly showed in the pitch video looked like just what you would expect from John.
To be fair the drawings of the maps the briefly showed in the pitch video looked like just what you would expect from John.
Fallout-NL
Member
Yeah, I want to give Romero the benefit of the doubt, but that art and the concept do not look very good at all.
Should have gone with something that resembled either Doom or Quake 1 in tone, imho. Something consistent at least, which is much harder to pull off with that simulation 'let's just do everything' contrivance.
Should have gone with something that resembled either Doom or Quake 1 in tone, imho. Something consistent at least, which is much harder to pull off with that simulation 'let's just do everything' contrivance.
Just me?
He looks like a mix of Ethan Hawke and Robert Patrick to me
Frozenprince
Banned
That sure is pretty concept art.
Call me when they actually have a game there.
Call me when they actually have a game there.
Give him what credit? The ability to be a part of failures, the string an idea along for years until nobody cares? To deliver halfway on a concept your pitched many years ago? There are very good reasons why we don't give him more credit.
Romero's been an ideas guy. He's partnered with another ideas guy. That means nothing about whether they can deliver. Sure he "built" a new doom map that people reacted well to. It was free and playable on a platform everybody already owns. It runs on tooling he's used for 20 years and used a texture pack that was from the original set. He better have been able to knock something together quickly. A professional quality game just isn't like that anymore.
8 X 11 Printer Paper
Member
To put simply this is not a good start, it really needs to hit 30% funded (at least) by the third day* of the campaign.
Just look at it compared to other successful campaigns (Note each day is considered over at 12AM EST, so even if the campaign started at 12PM that day those 12 hours are considered the first day).
Just look at it compared to other successful campaigns (Note each day is considered over at 12AM EST, so even if the campaign started at 12PM that day those 12 hours are considered the first day).
I do have more data that I should add into this at some point.
Looks like this will be failing.
I don't think so. These types of kickstarters can be succesful, but they have to be well run. Using your Bloodstained example, they had a huge lead up to the kickstarter, a lot of information on the campaign page, info about the engine they would use, and the development team Iga was partnering with. IGA also had a lot more goodwill than Romero does. If you want crowdfund and don't have actual stuff to show, then you better do a lot of hustling with you campaign before it launches, and during the campaign itself.
I don't think so. These types of kickstarters can be succesful, but they have to be well run. Using your Bloodstained example, they had a huge lead up to the kickstarter, a lot of information on the campaign page, info about the engine they would use, and the development team Iga was partnering with. IGA also had a lot more goodwill than Romero does. If you want crowdfund and don't have actual stuff to show, then you better do a lot of hustling with you campaign before it launches, and during the campaign itself.
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