Wow, it's been a long time!

Over the past year or so, Paranoia has undergone a near reset. I've gone back and done a full redesign of the gameplay mechanics and a re-evaluation of the story, and I'm happy to say that it's all coming together!

In the last announcement I mentioned a super abstract framework that would solve everyone's problems and make development super efficient. Well, after going back and learning a little more about data-oriented design, I can actually happily say I've thrown that in the trash. The game is being made on its own now, nothing superfluous, no side projects that have to be done first - at least until the demo drops.

Here's a few more things that we're looking into:


I do PLAN on dropping a demo in time for upcoming events, but I won't make any promises, I already broke one (well, maybe two if you count the framework) and that's enough as it is. If there's anything you should know about me, it's that I'm a young guy who tends to get way too far ahead of myself!

The demo right now is looking to be a short segment from the first act of the game, intended to feature almost all of the game's core mechanics, most prominently the close-quarters unarmed combat that I hope will really push innovation in the survival-horror space. The closest to what we're doing that I'm aware of is some hour-long (and mildly overpriced) DLC (which, by the way, I did play) for a game from 2017. Not bad, just not very long, so I think what we're up to is going to be a big deal.


Currently, we're building the demo with Unreal Engine 5. It's likely that this will remain our engine for the game's full and finished development, but it's also just as likely that we'll be switching to an in-house game engine. We have a few reasons, but the most important one is performance. Note that if this happens there will be a fairly larger delay between the demo and the full release, because I'm writing the engine by myself, but in any case, it shouldn't be too awful. If I'm correct, the most time-consuming parts will probably be rebuilding all of the development tools and porting the content.

While we do plan to go proprietary for future games, it's unlikely this specific engine will be used for them (the current working name is the Shadow Engine, but I'm not fully set on it yet), since I'll probably do a separate project for that.

That's all for now! Catch you in the next update!

Hello folks!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, we, or rather I, owe you an update. It's been over three months since our last communication in the form of a rather depressing announcement that nobody asked for.

Perhaps most importantly, yes, good news! I'm still alive and working on the project. This is what happens when you make the store page well before you even know what's going on with the game's framework.

There's nothing quite embarrassing like having a game built and then suddenly realizing way too late into building your short pre-alpha that the framework you made intially is about as stable as a nuclear reactor built by a five-year-old. Which is to say, that it was not stable at all. It was basically glued together like an elementary schooler's first art project, because it was written a little over a year ago when I had no idea what I was doing.

I've been working on the framework I mentioned at the end of the last update, trying to get that out and ready to go. In that year since I had duct-taped together the previous framework, I actually learned C++ and software structuring, and figured out everything I had done wrong. This new framework fixes all of those issues, and as I (believe I had) mentioned, this framework takes the form of a plugin for the engine, so it's reusable across multiple projects. Despite that, it's very abstract and low-level, so you're likely to not even notice we're using it. Don't worry, you won't be seeing any copy-pasting!

So far it's actually coming along really well! I can't wait to show it off when I move to replace the current game build, which has basically sat stagnant since September, with this new framework. I'm sure you'll all love it! (Mainly because we'll actually be able to use it in a finished product...)



Thanks for your patience and I'll see you all soon,

Will Pimentel
Rapidfire Computer Entertainment