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Game Designer and Programmer, I've done it all over the past 28 years of making games. Currently, I'm the co-founder and Executive Vice-President of Game Development for a new MMORPG we're making at Slipgate Ironworks in the Bay area.

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The Archives : Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

Updated: Sep 08, 2008 11:22pm PST

Cars, Houses & Things : Here's where I put pictures of my past and current houses, cars and whatever else doesn't fit in the other sections. It's more personal!

Cars, Houses & Things

Here's where I put pictures of my past and current houses, cars and wh ...

Updated: Sep 19, 2007 11:04am PST

Rhaluka : Pictures of my wonderful wife Rhaluka Romero

Pictures of my wonderful wife Rhaluka Romero

Updated: Aug 17, 2007 10:22pm PST

Posters You Can Print : Here are some hi-res posters I made. I actually have these on the walls in my office and they look great. Go ahead and order yourself some (click on buy: this photo)

Posters You Can Print

Here are some hi-res posters I made. I actually have these on the wal ...

Updated: Apr 03, 2007 11:10pm PST

Most Popular Photos

In Spear of Destiny (1992), I put a secret screen in the game that could only be reached by a secret keypress in the menu system. The original screen (320x200) is in the upper right-hand corner and it had the subtitle "We're Not Wearing Any Pants!". This picture was taken in the Mesquite, TX id apartment during the same session and was a "crazy shot" we didn't use.

This picture was taken during DOOM development in 1993. Adrian's in his room (which he shared with Kevin Cloud)
and you can see here that he was modeling the Baron of Hell out of clay himself, based on his own sketch of the Baron.

At this stage, he wasn't called the Baron of Hell, but rather, a Bruiser Brother (since there were two of them at the end
of the first episode of DOOM.

Here's Greg's model of the Revenant for DOOM II. He's a favorite of mine because I just LOVE the punching sound - it makes me laugh every time! Yes, I made sure the sound made me laugh. :)

Yes, this is the clay model of the DoomGuy that Adriani created! One pose, folks, or it breaks into a silly mess.

Rhaluka in San Diego 2005

This is a picture of the Shreveport lakehouse that id Software started in. Tom took this pic of John Carmack and myself while we were working on the Super Mario 3 demo for Nintendo - so this was sometime in September 1990.

You can see how nice it was outside while we were inside just coding. Heh. The computer setup on the far table was Tom's 386/33 and a TV set hooked up to a VCR that had a videotape of Super Mario 3 freeze-framed so he could duplicate the graphics pixel-by-pixel.

The TV between John and I was hooked up to an NES so we could play SM3 and watch the movement and how things worked so we could duplicate it.

There's a whiteboard propped up with writing on it that detailed all the tasks we needed to do to finish the demo.

During this time there was a lot of summer flooding around the lake and one day I actually waded through a ton of water up to my waist to get to id to keep coding. Lucky for me I didn't run into any snakes!

Here's a closeup of Greg's latex and metal model of the Spiderdemon.

This is my wife Raluca's favorite monster in DOOM II - the Mancubus. This is the model that Greg Punchatz created and we used a video camera to scan it in (8 rotations), clean up the pixels, and put it in the game.

This picture was taken just after the Ion Storm office was built-out at the top of the Chase Tower in downtown Dallas in January 1998. The floor is all terrazzo, with game posters on the walls. The walls next to the elevators and near the doors that lead to both sides of the building were limestone and marble stripes. It was a really, really nice place to work, architecturally speaking.

Both Shawn Green and myself are big heavy metal maniacs! During DOOM we used to listen to lots of Alice in Chains, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Dokken, Metallica, etc. and here we are going crazy outside my office - HEADBANGING!

Yes, this is how nuts it was at id Software. Just a short break between coding, mapping, and insane deathmatch screaming. The rack of CDs are mine and Carmack's and that's my office you can see into. That office door is the one Carmack blasted open with his axe.

This picture was taken during DOOM development in 1993. This is the DOOM chainsaw sitting in a bucket, ready to be scanned by Kevin to create the image of the chainsaw in DOOM. The reason it's in a bucket is because it leaked oil! That's also why there's newspapers all around it. :) Heh heh, yes, the name of the chainsaw was Eager Beaver. The little Post-It Note next to the chainsaw says "Borrowed from Ann Graver Holz". Ann was Tom Hall's girlfriend at the time and since she had a chainsaw (Most of us apartment-dwellers did not own a chainsaw!), she let Tom borrow it. Tom, um, forgot to give it back to her.....so........it's still around. Tom is going to do something with it, probably sometime this year!

Friends & Family

Friends: Don MacAskill • joshpics • Redwood • Squirrel

Family: Raluca Romero (rhaluka)

Photo Communities

Member of: rome.ro

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Galleries

Hyperspace Delivery Boy! : HDB was our first game at Monkeystone Games, written primarily for the PocketPC in 2001. It took 4.5 months from concept to shipping and we worked insanely hard on it but it was a great experience. Eventually, HDB would be released on PC, Mac, and Linux too. A Gameboy Advance version was also finished but never released by Majesco.

Hyperspace Delivery Boy!

HDB was our first game at Monkeystone Games, written primarily for the ...

Updated: Nov 19, 2008 2:54am

Fan Art : Art drawn by ROME.RO fans!

Art drawn by ROME.RO fans!

Updated: Oct 22, 2008 4:58pm

The Archives : Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

Random pictures from my gaming past, present....and FUTURE?

Updated: Sep 09, 2008 5:22am

John : Through time and space

Through time and space

Updated: Aug 28, 2008 6:42pm

Updated: Jul 12, 2008 10:32am

People and Pets

Updated: Jan 03, 2008 1:01am

Family : A nice little gallery with pictures of my family

A nice little gallery with pictures of my family

Updated: Dec 23, 2007 10:35pm

Cars, Houses & Things : Here's where I put pictures of my past and current houses, cars and whatever else doesn't fit in the other sections. It's more personal!

Cars, Houses & Things

Here's where I put pictures of my past and current houses, cars and wh ...

Updated: Sep 19, 2007 5:04pm

Rhaluka : Pictures of my wonderful wife Rhaluka Romero

Pictures of my wonderful wife Rhaluka Romero

Updated: Aug 18, 2007 4:22am

Daikatana : Eventually this will hold all Daikatana materials, pictures, etc. that I have! Daikatana is an FPS game I developed during the Ion Storm/Dallas era (1996-2001).

Eventually this will hold all Daikatana materials, pictures, etc. that ...

Updated: May 23, 2007 5:44am

Commander Keen : Commander Keen, the game that put id Software on the map. Few people remember that when Commander Keen appeared it was a watershed moment for PC gaming: the very first smooth scrolling game, duplicating a hardware feature of the Nintendo, arrived and it was shareware. The press rejoiced and many knew there was no looking back.

Commander Keen, the game that put id Software on the map. Few people ...

Updated: May 22, 2007 3:58am

ROME.RO member photos : This is where all our GAMETALK member photos go so you can put a face behind the evil words!

ROME.RO member photos

This is where all our GAMETALK member photos go so you can put a face ...

Updated: May 18, 2007 1:33am

DOOM : For all things DOOM-related

For all things DOOM-related

Updated: May 18, 2007 12:44am

Posters You Can Print : Here are some hi-res posters I made. I actually have these on the walls in my office and they look great. Go ahead and order yourself some (click on buy: this photo)

Posters You Can Print

Here are some hi-res posters I made. I actually have these on the wal ...

Updated: Apr 04, 2007 5:10am

Daikatana SNES : Here are the pictures of Djedditt's custom European Super Nintendo that he themed after Daikatana. Awesome job! He sent me a piece of it so I could sign it.

Here are the pictures of Djedditt's custom European Super Nintendo tha ...

Updated: Feb 23, 2007 6:20pm

Monkeystone : Monkeystone product and company pictures. Monkeystone Games was co-founded by John Romero, Tom Hall, Stevie Case and Brian Moon in July 2001. The company was in operation until January 2005 and published 15 products among several platforms in its first 2 years (PocketPC, PC, Mac, Linux, GBA, J2ME, BREW, N-Gage). The time between Oct 2003 and Jan 2005 was spent developing Chronicles of Riddick (N-Gage) and the multiplayer part of Area-51 (PS2) for Midway.

Monkeystone product and company pictures. Monkeystone Games was co-fo ...

Updated: Feb 19, 2007 7:46am

Pyramids of Egypt : I wanted to make a big maze game with lots of levels ala Lode Runner so I created this crazy thing in Jan-Feb 1985. It was eventually published on UpTime Disk Monthly in 1987. I actually made a PC and Commodore 64 version of this game! The PC version was published but the C64 version never made it (I didn't finish polishing it) and the disk has crumbled into plastic particles (not really, I just lost it).

Pyramids of Egypt

I wanted to make a big maze game with lots of levels ala Lode Runner s ...

Updated: Dec 12, 2006 6:01am

Major Mayhem : Major Mayhem was a quick little game I wrote in 1985 while I was living with my Dad in Salt Lake City, Utah. It took me about 2 weeks to polish up and I eventually sent it in to Nibble Magazine and they published it in their December 1987 issue (over 2 years after I wrote it!)

Major Mayhem was a quick little game I wrote in 1985 while I was livin ...

Updated: Dec 03, 2006 7:22am

Subnodule : An Apple II side-scrolling shooter that I wrote in December 1984 and eventually published in 1987 through Keypunch Software. Yes, this game saw retail store shelves!

An Apple II side-scrolling shooter that I wrote in December 1984 and e ...

Updated: Dec 03, 2006 6:07am

Friends : These are pictures of my friends and usually myself and Rhaluka as well.

These are pictures of my friends and usually myself and Rhaluka as wel ...

Updated: Nov 06, 2006 2:37am

Cavern Crusader : I created this game to enter the A+ Programming Contest they had during their first year. The game is a side-scrolling shooter where you just shoot down the aliens coming at you - and there's a lot of em. Mow them all down and get to the next cave full of em. It's infitnite fun!

There was a grand prize given for the best submission overall and the grand prize winner was a spreadsheet program called Invisicalc. :(

Cavern Crusader

I created this game to enter the A+ Programming Contest they had d ...

Updated: Apr 09, 2006 10:49pm

Cartoon Network Block Party : This is a GBA-only game that we did (Monkeystone) for Majesco using several Cartoon Network licenses. Lucas Davis was the main coder and this was his first game. What's really cool is that Majesco kept us all out of the credits in the game and manual! So classy.

This game was the hump on the back of Monkeystone for 3 years. When we finally just gave the entire thing back to Majesco it was like slicing open the hump and having three sick fifty-eyed butterflies fluttering away...

Cartoon Network Block Party

This is a GBA-only game that we did (Monkeystone) for Majesco using se ...

Updated: Mar 26, 2006 8:17am

Dark Castle - Apple //gs

This was a classic on the Mac and most definitely not on the //gs. I ...

Updated: Mar 07, 2006 6:57am

Alfredo's Stupendous Surprise : Alfredo was a little stick-figure guy who was always getting himself destroyed in hilarious choose-your-path adventure mishaps. Tom Hall and I decided we should do one together so we did. As I recall, we slammed this thing together in a night or so very quickly. It was pure 6502 assembly language but was very quick to code because i made a ton of macros to get animation done quickly.

I should mention that the entire story is Tom Hall's idea. :)

Alfredo's Stupendous Surprise

Alfredo was a little stick-figure guy who was always getting himself d ...

Updated: Mar 07, 2006 6:51am

Sub Stalker : While working at Softdisk I wanted to make them their first double-res game so that's what Sub Stalker became! I had written lots of double-res code before that point but never had it published. So that was my chance and I created a milestone marker for Softdisk.

This is a two-player game which was also rare on the Apple II.

While working at Softdisk I wanted to make them their first double-res ...

Updated: Mar 07, 2006 5:36am

Red Faction (N-Gage) : Monkeystone Games got the contract to port Red Faction to the N-Gage. Nokia specifically asked THQ Wireless to have us do it. This was the second port I have done where I had never played the original game - yeah, sounds crazy.

This game took 8 months total with the first 2 months thrown out and we restarted. So it was really 6 months of work start to ship.

Red Faction (N-Gage)

Monkeystone Games got the contract to port Red Faction to the N-Gage. ...

Updated: Mar 06, 2006 2:15am

Lethal Labyrinth : The reason I wrote Lethal Labyrinth was to write my first double-res graphics routines and use them in a game. The game didn't turn out so hot but it was very useful in getting me my Origin Systems job!

You'll see a lot of pages with notes and a comic strip. My friend Christian drew the comics after I told him my idea for the game - you can tell his style distinctly from mine.

This game was published by UpTime in 1987.

Lethal Labyrinth

The reason I wrote Lethal Labyrinth was to write my first double-res g ...

Updated: Mar 06, 2006 1:23am

Even though Hovertank was just one of the many Softdisk games we made, ...

Updated: Mar 06, 2006 1:16am

Missle Defense : The very much misspelled "Missle Defense" was a very early game of mine from 1982, written in Applesoft BASIC. It uses the joystick to control the crosshair and your mission is to shoot down the enemy missiles (ala Missile Command). On higher levels the missiles come in faster and you have turrets on multiple edges of the screen.

Still, it was not fun.

The very much misspelled "Missle Defense" was a very early game of min ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 11:28pm

Twilight Treasures : Twilight Treasures was the original name I gave to this little game I wrote with my friend Rob. When Nibble decided to buy it and publish in 1988 it they renamed it, I guessing, to be more direct and to the point. They ruined my alliterative masterpiece and so when I later ported the game in 1989 to the PC for Softdisk I gave it its rightful name.

The play mechanic in the game is real fun and simple - avoid everything and get the treasure then return back to your boat. It's similar to Pac-Man. But if I had only tweaked the idea a bit I could have ended up with the sensation that became Insaniquarium (17 years later, though).

Twilight Treasures

Twilight Treasures was the original name I gave to this little game I ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 9:21am

Evil Eye : I wanted to write my own twist on Asteroids.....so I wrote this game and named it Objectoids! I wrote this game in 1983 and it was eventually retitled Evil Eye and published in UpTime in 1987.

By the way, in this game you are an eyeball.

I wanted to write my own twist on Asteroids.....so I wrote this game a ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:55am

Jumpster : Jumpster was a crazy little game that I came up with in 1983 while I was just getting ahold of mastering 6502 Assembly Language. Eventually this game was published in UpTime Disk Monthly in 1987!

Jumpster was a crazy little game that I came up with in 1983 while I w ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:45am

Mach-Six : This was one of the games that I wrote purely on paper while I was learning 6502 Assembly Language during 1983 - our Apple II computer was on a 6-month trip on a boat from California to England!

This was one of the games that I wrote purely on paper while I was lea ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:12am

Dodge Em : 1982 Apple II game

One of my earliest games - before I knew how to make a decent one. It's torrific!

1982 Apple II game One of my earliest games - before I knew how to ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 7:02am

Krazy Kobra : I wrote Krazy Kobra in 1983 because I had loved Snake Byte (Chuck Sommerville, 1981) so much that I wanted to write my own clone and have more levels in it. Snake Byte had 28 levels so I made 50 in Krazy Kobra. The game is a pretty good version of the classic Snake game.

UpTime wanted to publish it in 1987 so I said, "Hell yeah! Gimme $250!"

I wrote Krazy Kobra in 1983 because I had loved Snake Byte (Chuck Somm ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 6:49am

City Centurian : City Centurian was the second game that Nibble Magazine published of mine. I wrote the game in 1985 while living in Salt Lake City, Utah and submitted it to Nibble. They eventually published the game in 1988, three years later! The reason is because they only publish long game listings in December of the year.

City Centurian was my Defender clone with some twists. I purposefully misspelled Centurion because I wanted to create my own word.....as if the future spelling of Centurion would change the 'a' at the end and be cooler somehow....

City Centurian was the second game that Nibble Magazine published of m ...

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 4:28am

QTEST : QTEST was the Quake Test version we released on February 24, 1996 to the internet. But we had 7 hardcore DOOMers at the id offices to get their feedback on our latest creation. Here you see pictures taken and annotated by Wendigo during that day!

QTEST was the Quake Test version we released on February 24, 1996 to t ...

Updated: Feb 28, 2006 12:37am

Ion Storm : My Castle in the Sky, at least for a while. The office was pretty swank and we had lots of parties there. The amount of stories of things that happened at Ion are so numerous that no single person knows them all.

My Castle in the Sky, at least for a while. The office was pretty swa ...

Updated: Feb 27, 2006 12:07am

Might & Magic II (C64) : Back in 1988 I left Origin Systems to co-found a new game company named Inside Out Software. Our first projects were ports and we slowly started getting into original games. Might & Magic II was our first port (IBM, C64, Amiga).

I worked on the port of Might & Magic II from the Apple II (128K, 16-color double-res) to the Commodore 64 (64K, 4-color mixed-mode). It was a pretty interesting experience and I learned a lot from it. The full story is on ROME.RO.

Might & Magic II (C64)

Back in 1988 I left Origin Systems to co-found a new game company name ...

Updated: Feb 26, 2006 11:41pm

Phazzar : Hardcore dumb! This was my first lame Missile Command clone. I followed it up with Missle Defense [sic]. Hand-crafted in 1982!

Hardcore dumb! This was my first lame Missile Command clone. I follo ...

Updated: Nov 03, 2005 7:04am

Congo Cube : Congo Cube is the only puzzle game I've ever made. It was a really great development experience and the game turned out to be very good!

Congo Cube was made for PC, Pocket PC, BREW and J2ME platforms.

Congo Cube is the only puzzle game I've ever made. It was a really gr ...

Updated: Sep 09, 2005 4:20pm

Bongo's Bash : 1984 Apple II game
Published on inCider "HotCider" disk
Published in Cauzin Softstrip advertisements
Published on UpTime Disk Monthly
A fine little Pac-Man clone!

1984 Apple II game Published on inCider "HotCider" disk Published in ...

Updated: Sep 07, 2005 9:01am

Dangerous Dave : The legend of Dangerous Dave is an interesting one that began back in 1988 on the Apple II. Nine versions of Dave later and still no decent sequel to Dave II in sight!

The legend of Dangerous Dave is an interesting one that began back in ...

Updated: Sep 06, 2005 10:58am

Dangerous Dave II: The Haunted Mansion

The beautiful sequel to Dangerous Dave - all four of us at id Software ...

Updated: Sep 06, 2005 9:48am

Scout Search : 1984 Apple II game

My first published game, it was printed in inCider magazine in June 1984.
It's in lo-res so it's no awesome feat of coding. But the program listing is on one page and shows a nice blend of AppleSoft BASIC and machine language for a small type-in size.
My favorite part? The little screams, of course!

1984 Apple II game My first published game, it was printed in inCid ...

Updated: Jul 04, 2005 6:43am

Current Projects :

Current Projects

Updated: Jun 04, 2005 4:52am

Trip to Romania - October 2004 :

Trip to Romania - October 2004

Updated: Jan 29, 2005 8:07am

Trip to Romania - early 2004 :

Trip to Romania - early 2004

Updated: Nov 16, 2004 5:02am

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