[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/44914_489503526288_6065428_n.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:John Romero and his famous flowing locks.]]
-> ''"Oremor nhoj, em llik tsum uoy emag eht niw ot."''
-->-- a reversed message in ''VideoGame/DoomII''

Alfonso [[MiddleNameBasis John Romero]] (born October 28, 1967) is an American video game developer born in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

After programming and designing video games for over eight years (and writing 21 year old Jordan Mechner a [[http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2012/03/romero-karateka/ fan letter]] about ''VideoGame/{{Karateka}}''), Romero left Softdisk after two years to form Creator/IdSoftware in 1991. At id, Romero was involved in the production of ''VideoGame/CommanderKeen'', ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'', the first two ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' games, and ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}''. (GamerChick Stevie "killcreek" Case defeated him at Quake and [[DefeatMeansFriendship became his girlfriend]].)

In 1996, following some long-running disputes with the other members of id Software, he, co-worker Tom Hall, along with Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty, formed Creator/IonStorm. Ion Storm's flagship title would have been ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}'', an ambitious first-person shooter set for the holiday season of 1997, a [[DevelopmentHell seven-month development period]] that his former partners at iD, notably Creator/JohnCarmack, saw as patently ludicrous.[[note]]It's worth mentioning, though, that short development times were nothing that unusual during the dawn of first person shooters - iD themselves, with Romero still on board, developed ''Wolfenstein 3D'' in a few months and the first two ''Doom'' releases took about half a year each to complete. ''Quake'' was iD's first project that had a development time of over a year (at least according to ''Masters of Doom'', the iD biography).[[/note]] When he decided to switch to the ''VideoGame/{{Quake}} II'' engine in the middle of development for its advanced graphical effects, company morale had eroded by then, with most of the team either quitting outright, or moving to the studio's Austin branch, spearheaded by Warren Spector of Looking Glass fame. John set another deadline, February 15, 1999, but the game still was not finished by then. It wasn't until April 21, 2000 that ''Daikatana'' was finally released.

''Daikatana'' came with a notorious tagline that stated, "John Romero's About to Make You His Bitch." Aside from that, the game, for lack of a better word, [[Horrible/VideoGames sucked]]. On July 17, 2001, Ion Storm's parent company Eidos Interactive closed its Dallas office. Four years later, Eidos closed the Austin branch. To be fair, many reviews said that Daikatana would have been a good game, just not a ''great'' game, ''if'' it had come out when it was originally supposed to. He has since [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100748-John-Romero-Apologizes-for-Trying-to-Make-You-His-Bitch apologized]] for trying to make players his bitch and is resigned to ''Daikatana''[='=]s status as the punchline of video game jokes.

John then founded Monkeystone Games with Tom Hall. They developed and published about fifteen games for mobile phones. John joined Midway Games as project lead for ''{{VideoGame/Gauntlet}}: Seven Sorrows'', and the Monkeystone team moved to Austin, Texas to work on Midway's ''[[VideoGame/Area51FPS Area 51]]''.

He and his wife, Brenda, [[BadassTeacher helped to train game designers]] at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They later founded a studio, Romero Games, in 2015. The first game was a remaster of ''Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate's Hideout'', followed by ''Gunman Taco Truck''. In 2019, Romero released a megawad called ''VideoGame/{{Sigil}}'', which serves as the unofficial fifth episode for the original ''Doom''. In E3 2019, Romero Games revealed ''VideoGame/EmpireOfSin'', a mafia strategy game published by Creator/ParadoxInteractive.

He's gone on record saying his all-time favourite video game is ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' and he likes heavy metal music. He is also a very well-known [=MacHead=][[note]]Somewhat ironically, this means he's unfamiliar with modern developments the shooter genre that made him famous because few have been released on Mac and he refuses to play shooters on consoles.[[/note]] and only got his first Windows computer late in the 2010s. For more information about Romero's history and influence on video game culture, read all about it in David Kushner's ''Masters Of Doom''. If you have any questions you want to ask him about his games (even ''Daikatana''), there's a good chance he'll answer them on [[https://twitter.com/romero his Twitter]].
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!! Tropes about John Romero and his work include:
* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: After the runaway success of ''Doom'', Romero became one of the biggest names in the gaming industry virtually overnight, in addition to becoming the "face" of id Software. He took to his newfound fame very quickly, and his coworkers at id became annoyed that he seemed more interested in "being a rock star" and playing deathmatch than working on ''Quake''. After his departure from id Software, Romero would often speak as though he was the man completely responsible for ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Doom'', and ''Quake.'' He seems to have become more humble since then and acknowledges that the games were team efforts.
* AttentionDeficitCreatorDisorder: Romero's output as a programmer and game designer slowed down significantly once he became more interested in playing deathmatch than actually creating games. This trope eventually became a major factor in his breakup with John Carmack, who claimed in a 1997 interview that "once John got rich and famous, the drive to work just wasn't there anymore". This remark didn't help Romero's public image during ''Daikatana'''s protracted development.
* AuteurLicense: This was the philosophy behind Ion Storm. "Design is Law" meant that the designer had control of the game and would not be subjected to ExecutiveMeddling. ''Daikatana'' got this license revoked.
* CatchPhrase: While perhaps best known for "Suck it down", "Design is Law" was the founding philosophy of Ion Storm in a nutshell.
* CreatorCameo: The final level of ''Doom II'' required players to fire rockets into a secret room and hit John Romero's disembodied head with splash damage. It was originally intended as an EasterEgg TakeThat at Romero from his co-workers, but when he found it, [[ActuallyPrettyFunny he became enamored of it]] and recorded the backwards message (quoted at the top of the page) that plays just before it starts tossing out monsters.
** He later reprises the role of the Icon of Sin for WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd episode on Doom, disembodied head and all.
* CreatorCouple: During the ''Daikatana'' era, John Romero and Stevie "Killcreek" Case. John Romero is currently married to Brenda Romero (nee Braithwaite), a prolific game designer in her own right (having worked on, among other things, the ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' series and ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'').
* CreatorKiller: ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}''.
* DevelopmentHell: Most of Romero's games after ''Doom'' tended to suffer from this, either due to overly ambitious visions, poor management, or both.
* GenreShift: He gave up on FPS games after ''Daikatana'', with the exceptions of ''VideoGame/RedFaction'' and ''VideoGame/{{Area 51|FPS}}''.
* GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply: In a rare non-drug example, one of the many problem John had during the TroubledProduction of ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' was that he spent too much time playing ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' deathmatch instead of working.
* ItsWhatIDo: During [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csa2dkKFle0 a 2019 interview]] with [[Creator/BenCroshaw Benjamin "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], Romero admitted that he'd keep creating games even if he wasn't selling them, because he simply enjoys doing it so much that he just ''has'' to make them.
* LighterAndSofter: ''VideoGame/CartoonNetworkBlockParty'' and ''VideoGame/RavenwoodFair''.
* ThePeterPrinciple: Romero's admittedly high skill as a programmer and designer did not translate to any skill whatsoever as a project leader, manager or administrator. Painfully evident throughout the ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}'' debacle, as the game launched several years late, several million dollars over-budget, and with several design decisions that hampered gameplay because he didn't have anyone to rein in his weirder ideas like at id Software.
* PreAssKickingOneLiner: The infamous advertisement for ''Daikatana'' was, "John Romero's About to Make You His Bitch."
* ThePreciousPreciousCar: Like his collaborator John Carmack, Romero spent the fortune he made at Creator/IdSoftware on exotic sports cars, particularly Ferraris.
* PrimaDonnaDirector: A longtime tenet of Romero's design philosophy. It's not a coincidence that the credo for his company, Ion Storm, was "Design is Law."
* ProtectionFromEditors: {{Invoked}} in Ion Storm's motto, "Design is Law."
* TrashTalk: Romero all but invented FPS trash-talking, as friends and colleagues will testify. He then took that invention and used it in the ''VideoGame/{{Daikatana}}'' ad campaign.
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