Night Work Games, headed up by legendary game designers Adrian Carmack and John Romero, recently pulled their FPS revival from Kickstarter, due to not having a game demo. They plan head back to Kickstarter when they do have a demo.
According to IGN, the co-creators of the original DOOM pulled their Kickstarter for their first-person shooter Blackroom because they wanted to showcase some actual demo footage of the title for potential backers. In a private backer update on the Blackroom >Kickstarter page, Romero notes that the crowd-funding is paused for now as they work on the demo.
The reason they couldn't work on the demo and keep the Kickstarter alive is because they would have run out of time before the demo was completed. Instead, they decided to wisely hold off on the Kickstarter, finish the prototype, and then proceed to relaunch at a later date.
At the time of “pausing” their crowd-funding endeavors the duo had managed to accrue $131,000 out of goal of $700,000. They were moving at a decent pace even with absolutely nothing to show for what they had in mind for the game, other than a few concept art images.
The game Blackroom is supposed to be a revival of the classic first-person shooter genre, but made with today's technology. The game boasted a wide variety of different locations to visit, themed somewhat around the idyllic and historic locations of Ireland, there will be mansions, sci-fi hot spots and even Western towns.
The game is being built on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4, and it will feature a variety of weapons and enemies given that Blackroom will center around trying to fix a fictional corporation's simulation room called the Blackroom. The simulation malfunctions and becomes unstable, endangering the lives of anyone who interacts with it. The players take on the role of an engineer attempting to find out what's causing the malfunction and why the simulation has become deadly.
Conceptually it's very similar to the likes of Half-Life meets Timesplitters. Gameplay wise we have absolutely no idea how the game will play, and that's part of the reason why the Kickstarter was put on hold while Adrian Carmack, John Romero and the rest of Night Game Works hammer out a prototype for the title.
Of course, a prototype could make or break the interest of gamers. If it's under par, then gamers may find themselves turned off, resulting in fewer backers. If the prototype is above par, then gamers may want to spread the word and contribute what they can to see Blackroom become a reality.
Very much like some other titles on Kickstarter, the game is only using the $700,000 as a springboard investment. The rest of the game's financing will come from outside investors who will contribute the rest of the production costs so that Romero and crew will be able to finish working on the game.
They have plans on getting the title up and out to the public by December, 2018, two years from now.
