First teased, then teased again and finally Kickstarted, John Romero and Adrian Carmack’s BLACKROOM has already hit a snag… and a big one at that. After collecting $US131,000 of its $US700,000 goal, the two developers have put the brakes on the campaign in order to work on a demo.
If you’re not a backer, then it simply looks like the project has been cancelled. However, for those that did pitch in, the following update is available (courtesy of Blue’s News):
You asked for it, and you’re getting it: 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. We know you do, too. Thanks to your feedback, we know we should have included it at launch.
Perhaps the pair wasn’t confident of raising the funds required and decided this was a good way of relaunching without accepting defeat.
A demo would certainly help their case, though who knows how long it will take to put together?
BLACKROOM: A New FPS from Romero & Carmack (Canceled) [Kickstarter, via Blue’s News]
Comments
2 responses to “John Romero’s BLACKROOM Kickstarter ‘Paused’ For Playable Demo”
I think this is a good idea.
I backed STRIFE because I really enjoyed their little demo.
The rule of thumb with Kickstarter campaigns is the 40-48 rule; which means that you need to reach 40% of your funding in the first 48 hours or your project won’t be able to succeed. I didn’t see how long their project was up for, but at 130K they were only at about 20% funding in what I would assume is 3 or so days, so it was basically doomed.
The demo is definitely a good idea as Romero has a bit of a history with talking a big game and then failing to deliver…
Hopefully it all works out for them though.