In 2003, Romero joined Midway Games as the project lead on Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (2005), and left shortly before its release.

In 2016, Romero and another former id employee, Adrian Carmack, announced a new FPS, Blackroom, but it was canceled after it failed to gain funding.

After Alfonso and Ginny married, they headed in a 1948 Chrysler with three hundred dollars to Colorado, hoping their interracial relationship would thrive in more tolerant surroundings.

[5] His first published game, Scout Search, appeared as a type-in program in the June 1984 issue of Apple II magazine inCider.

During this time, Romero was asked if he would be interested in joining Paul's soon-to-start company Blue Sky Productions, eventually renamed Looking Glass Technologies.

During this short time, Romero did the artwork for the Apple IIGS version of Dark Castle, a port from the Macintosh.

Their last collaboration was an Apple II disk operating system (InfoDOS) for Infocom's games Zork Zero, Arthur, Shogun and Journey.

Romero moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, in March 1989 and joined Softdisk as a programmer in its Special Projects division.

[13] There it was, the familiar milieu of Super Mario Brothers 3: pale blue sky, the puffy white clouds, the bushy green shrubs, the animated tiles with little question marks rolling over their sides and, strangely, his character Dangerous Dave standing ready on the bottom of the screen.

In his keynote speech at WeAreDevelopers Conference 2017, Romero named this period Turbo Mode, in which he emphasizes having created 28 games, in 5.5 years with a team consisting of fewer than 10 developers.

[4] In level 30 of Doom II, "Icon of Sin", the boss is supposed to be a giant demon head with a fragment missing from its forehead.

The player defeats the boss (without the noclip cheat) by shooting rockets into its exposed brain after activating a lift and riding it.

Romero's head functions as its hit detection point; when he "dies", the boss is killed and the game is finished.

"[16] In 2022, during a conversation with podcaster Lex Fridman, Carmack stated that, in hindsight, he regrets the way he dealt with the firing of Romero, citing immaturity and lack of understanding of corporate structure as the primary causal factors.

At the end of June 2005, Romero left Midway Games mere months before the completion of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows.

[23] On August 31, 2005, Romero confirmed[24] that he was working on a yet-to-be-announced MMOG at his newly opened development studio, Slipgate Ironworks.

[27] Romero departed Gazillion Entertainment in November 2010 to form a social game company called Loot Drop alongside Brenda Brathwaite.

In October 2009, Angel Munoz, founder of the CPL stated that Severity was no longer being produced because they were not able "to convince game publishers of its value".

[citation needed] On 2017, Romero won the Bizkaia Award at the Fun & Serious Game Festival, which takes place in the Spanish city of Bilbao.

[citation needed] In March 2022, in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Romero created a new level of Doom II which was subsequently listed for sale through his personal website.

Romero stated that all proceeds would be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.

They also founded social game development company Loot Drop in November 2010, and worked on Cloudforest Expedition and Ghost Recon Commander together.

John guest-answered Planet Quake's "Dear Mynx" column, in which a female fan asked for hair care tips.

On January 11, 2022, Romero gave a statement via Twitter on the subject of his hair, to coincide with the 120th anniversary of William Arthur Jones' "Indian haircut order" of 1902.

[45][46] In the statement, Romero said: "I wear my hair long as a proud Yaqui and Cherokee man, and will continue to do so until the day I die.

[53] He also claimed that everyone involved at working on the original Doom was an atheist (although game designer Sandy Petersen is a Mormon).