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BLACKROOM announced (new game by John Romero, Kickstarter)

S

Sibylus

Banned
I think you've got problems when more work is going into securing endorsements like you're running for POTUS and working on maps for a 20 year old game than into building the project you're pitching.
 
P

Pathfinder

Member
Sibylus said:
I think you've got problems when more work is going into securing endorsements like you're running for POTUS and working on maps for a 20 year old game than into building the project you're pitching.
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In his defense, his maps are pretty great. And I bet you after all the experience he's had building them, it doesn't take him all that long to make a really good one.
 
S

Sibylus

Banned
Pathfinder said:
In his defense, his maps are pretty great. And I bet you after all the experience he's had building them, it doesn't take him all that long to make a really good one.
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I don't doubt it, but it's revealing to the extreme. If you have more than Doom wads you show them.
 
8

8 X 11 Printer Paper

Member
A quick comparison to three other high profile Kickstarters that succeeded by not much (less then 110% funded total).
Jpz210D.png

As you can see Blackroom has dropped quite hard for its second and third day being live when compared to even these three "struggling" KS campaigns.
 
G

Guerrilla

Member
The cringe of that video is unbearable, and 700k to make a modern shooter? Did they mention some other funding coming in as soon as that 700k is reached?
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
Flying Toaster said:
People seem to be getting fed up with pitches and no show... The video was quite simple and not in a good way.
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Yeah... the Force Awakens parody video was a great way to get me excited, and of course so were the new Doom levels made by Romero. But this campaign is a disappointment. Even a 1 level proof of concept built in UE4 would have been enough to draw more excitement. But this is a lot of promises and no show. I honestly believe that this is a project that Romero and the other Carmack can deliver on, but this is a poorly conceived pitch that needs a proof of concept to spark some interest.
 
M

Mr. Tibbs

Member
MrCunningham said:
Yeah... the Force Awakens parody video was a great way to get me excited, and of course so were the new Doom levels made by Romero. But this campaign is a disappointment. Even a 1 level proof of concept built in UE4 would have been enough to draw more excitement. But this is a lot of promises and no show. I honestly believe that this is a project that Romero and the other Carmack can deliver on, but this is a poorly conceived pitch that needs a proof of concept to spark some interest.
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I feel the same way. I assumed given how poorly received his wife and Tom Hall's 2012 Kickstarter was (even the creators described it as a failure), Romero would at least avoid making the same mistakes in his Blackroom pitch

I think Romero and Carmack should cancel the campaign, build a prototype then return to KS or Fig when they have something to show. It's not going to happen if they slick with what they have.
 
D

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Guerrilla said:
The cringe of that video is unbearable, and 700k to make a modern shooter? Did they mention some other funding coming in as soon as that 700k is reached?
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They say it right at the beginning, Kickstarter is there to gauge interest for big funding afterwards.
 
@

@MUWANdo

Banned
Pathfinder said:
In his defense, his maps are pretty great. And I bet you after all the experience he's had building them, it doesn't take him all that long to make a really good one.
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Let's be honest, he doesn't really have a ton of experience in real terms--he made quite a few excellent maps 20+ years ago but he's spent the last 15+ years working on social games or just putzing around doing nothing.

Putting aside the fact that level design is merely one piece of the broader picture, he had issues with work ethic/attention span even during the id days, let alone the shitshow that was Daikatana. He can't and shouldn't expect people to trust him to deliver on something he hasn't even started.
 
O

One Foul Note

Member
Well, I can only really repeat what everyone else is saying here. Although what's really killing it for me is that buy in price. 30 dollars isn't nothing and it certainly isn't a value I want to lose if the KS goes tits up during development or the final product ends up being a bit rubbish. The final product of Blackroom might be worth 30 dollars, but as a vague pitch and concept art I can't find any desire to throw that level of money at that level of development risk.
 
F

FrontalMonk

Banned
entremet said:
Why is this struggling?

This should be blazing given the names.
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Even if there was something more solid to go on, Romero's name is just as conflated with Doom as it is with Daikatana. It's not all sunshine and roses, or he wouldn't have fallen off the planet for the last 20 years.
 
O

OBias

Member
crazygambit said:
Not offended, but he did feel the need to categorically clarify he has nothing to do with this game. Which can't be a good sign.
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He could have been receiving a lot of confused mentions in tweets related to Blackroom setting his notifications on fire, and that could be his move to stop it. It doesn't have to be a bad sign either.
 
Ü

Übersandvich

Member
More_Badass said:
Names alone don't equal KS success anymore. Case in point
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Indeed. I think that these days kickstarters cannot just trade on nostalgia anymore. The people who would have backed this game out of nostalgia will probably have already backed a few games like it and are probably less likely to impulsively do so now.

You can still trade on nostalgia, but it has to be nostalgia relatively untapped before (like platformers, for example).

I find the development of the crowdfunding platform to be an interesting parallel. Hopefully someone will write a book about it five years from now.
 
A

avens

Neo Member
In the first three days this campaign failed to reach 20% of its goal. One could say it's bound to fail, or doomed.

TBH, I think Romero overestimated how much he is appreciated by the gaming community. These days his name alone is not enough to sell a game.
 
O

One Foul Note

Member
This kickstarter is making a lot of mistakes, but I got to give them credit for the regularity of the updates. Their are a fair few KSers that I've observed that have gone radio silent on the update front for like the first six to seven days, only to get panicky updates once it becomes clear that they might not make it (and often by then the damage is done.) That said, it is getting a lot of other things wrong but it is nice that they at least got the one thing right. Although it is highlighting how odd the Blackroom campaign is as a whole, it is weirdly well organised for a campaign that is severely lacking in vital content and information.
 
J

JackDT

Member
Yeah given that they are so early on the game itself it seems about as well as you could have expected. Though I think some people aren't necessarily clicking with the holo/cyber theme. It's pretty clear that's just an excuse so they can make levels take in all different kinds of wacky environments though, pirate ships, castles, whatever.
 
F

Fallout-NL

Member
JackDT said:
Yeah given that they are so early on the game itself it seems about as well as you could have expected. Though I think some people aren't necessarily clicking with the holo/cyber theme. It's pretty clear that's just an excuse so they can make levels take in all different kinds of wacky environments though, pirate ships, castles, whatever.
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Yup, that's exactly what I don't really like about. Would have liked a more consistent theme.
 
N

NoFaceNico

Member
If these legends of the industry are so experienced and so sure they can pull off a game like this, then why is it so hard to make a demo of the game?

I would much rather see something like Overload where you had the people who helped build the game pitching it. I think (hope) people are growing impatient with these 'idea man' Kickstarter projects.
 
K

kinaesthete

Member
Here's hoping the demo is something that was made before hand and never mentioned for some reason. Otherwise all they have time to make is babby's first UE4 FPS which will look worse than having nothing to show at all.
 
DirtyLarry

DirtyLarry

Member
So does everyone know they cancelled the Kickstarter so they can start it again but with a demo? They listened...

After listening to the gaming community since we've launched the campaign, we've decided to give you what you've asked for: a gameplay demo of BLACKROOM. 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. Thanks to the community feedback, we know we should have included it at launch.

Your support for our game and our vision has been incredible and valuable. You've already proved you want this campaign to succeed, and we believe a gameplay demo will get the rest of the gaming community just as excited for this game as you already are. We will, of course, honor backer achievements in the next campaign. We’ll add an extra something for those of you who continue to support us and we will be in touch to collect your information to reward your support in the next campaign.
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