Over the weekend, John Romero held a Twitch stream in celebration of Doom 1993’s 29th birthday, where he offered a glimpse into the development of his episodic mod Sigil 2.
The stream clocks in at a little over five hours, and offers a look at how mods can be built using a game’s pre-established tools, since he’s using the game’s “Doom Builder” level editor.
Sigil 2 and its predecessor, both made using Doom Editor, are a pair of mods released on significant birthdays for id Software’s now iconic shooter franchise. The original Sigil released in 2018 (the 25th anniversary of Doom), and its sequel is intended to hit in 2023 for the series’ 30th.
For Romero, his process with creating levels for Sigil has been to create a sketch after his initial level idea, then bring that to life using Doom’s in-game map maker.
Making a level is iterative, he continued, and he conducts live gameplay tests to verify how it would feel from the player’s perspective.
“The way I design levels is I do a little bit of work and then I run it. A little bit more work and then I run it again. I just test it and test it and test it,” he said.
John Romero never really left shooters
Romero and fellow game designer Brenda Romero (his wife) opened their own game development studio in 2015, fittingly called Romero Games. After releasing the strategy title Empire of Sin in 2020, the studio is returning to its co-founder’s shooter heritage.
During the summer, it was revealed that Romero Games was hiring for a new shooter IP made in partnership with an undisclosed “major publisher.”
Additionally, Romero formed the subsidiary studio Night Work Games with fellow ex-id developer Adrian Carmack. Night Work’s debut game is a shooter called Blackroom, though information on that game has been nonexistent for two years.
Update: This story previously incorrectly referred to Sigil 2 as a mod for Doom II. It is a mod for 1993’s Doom.