Game News Cyanide and Black Shamrock's Paranoia RPG revealed as Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

[Infinitron]

Tags: Bigben Interactive; Black Shamrock; Cyanide Studio; Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

A year ago, we learned that the well-known French developer Cyanide Studio and the less well-known Dublin-based studio Black Shamrock were working on an RPG based on the satirical science fiction tabletop game Paranoia. Today the game was formally revealed as Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, an isometric RPG with real-time with pause combat. It's being published by Bigben Interactive and is scheduled to come out later this year. The game's reveal trailer serves as a good introduction to the Paranoia setting. Here it is along with the announcement post:

In a show of benevolence, Friend Computer has declared that it is authorising BIGBEN to be part of a project that will make life more perfect for you and your fellow citizens! The company has just joined the ranks of willing servants of Friend Computer alongside Cyanide and Black Shamrock, and together they are announcing the development of Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory: a darkly humorous CRPG, adapted from the tabletop role-playing game created by Dan Gelber, Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg.

If you are reading this, Citizen, then you are a person Friend Computer officially trusts. In fact, you must be one of its favourites. And it wants to show you how much it cares – by officially appointing you Troubleshooter with Red clearance! Your mission is to unearth traitors of Alpha Complex and to neutralise them. Friend Computer will definitely maybe reward you for your loyalty!

Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy because Alpha Complex is not an entirely safe place, despite Friend Computer's unquestionable kindness. During your missions, you will be tasked with fighting Terrorists, treasonous Mutants and Secret Societies.

You must deceive and scheme to survive because even members of your own team can be a threat! Be warned, you are constantly being watched and it may be proved necessary to terminate you without notice at any moment. But don't worry! If that happens, at least you have clones available to try your luck again. Just don't expect the new clone to be completely the same as the original...

Despite everything you've just heard, be assured that Alpha Complex is and always will be a utopia. Thanks to Friend Computer, you will be happy every day. What's that look? Do I detect some doubt? Are you happy, Citizen? Be warned, not agreeing with Friend Computer is tantamount to treason, and treasonous actions are punishable by death...

The game will be released on PC and consoles in 2019, when Friend Computer feels like it.​

Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory doesn't have an official website but you can find more details about it on the game's Steam page. Hopefully we'll learn more soon. By the way, you might recall that Black Shamrock are the same guys who just recently announced that they were working on a RuneQuest RPG. Presumably, that game will be using the same tech they developed for Paranoia.

 

[Roguey]

More interesting cinematic trailer than the Outer Shapes, though obviously lacking its budget.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

an isometric RPG with real-time with pause combat.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

 

[buffalo bill]

I cannot imagine how this will successfully translate from pen and paper to cRPG. The pnp game is about having fun while losing, and unless this is a revolutionary game where you cannot win (wouldn't that be great!), I doubt it'll come across.

Maybe more important, the entire pnp game is basically about being suspicious of other human beings and them being suspicious of you—can a single player RPG possibly convey that?

Maybe the important elements could be translated into a single-player cRPG format somehow, but I'm skeptical that this dev will pull it off.

 

[Background Character]

I LOVE THE COMPUTER

 

[LeStryfe79]

Tchaikovsky?

 

[DeepOcean]

It would be cool but only if they use the Paranoia setting strengths, if this is just a straightforward combat romp RPG or a adventure game with light RPG elements, I don't see the fun in it, Paranoia strengths is you know... the sense of paranoia, it isn't a setting where you defeat the big baddy and win the day. There is the old Blade Runner adventure where you didn't know who was the replicant and the replicants were randomly chosen each time you started the game, it was of very limited used on Blade Runner but it could be put to good use here with the game choosing who will betray you or not on the beginning of the game and keeping you on the dark.

I think some random generation and rogue like elements could make this good, I think the emphasis should be on how far you can go before you are terminated, that would be fun as you can't know if the person you are talking to will fuck you if you say the wrong thing and contrary to other RPGs, being heavily punished by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person is okay here. It would be cool if they added some Paper's Please elements to it with the computer demanding you things that are progressively insane and harder to accomplish and it getting suspicious if you let a suspected traitor go on his merry way and decide to randomly test your loyalty making you even more paranoid of to whom you talk to. Is this guy that is asking for help, some guy that could give me some pretty useful information or is he just doing a loyalty check for the computer?

If it is just, "hey, lets kill some dudes until the end" or "lets click and hear NPC BS until the plot moves forward" then I'm not interested. After Call of Cuthullu, however, Cyanide had all the chances and did a fucking mediocre walking simulator, so I'm not optimist about this, probably will be a mediocre creatively bankrupt shovelware product as always.

 

[Forest Dweller]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

Tchaikovsky?

Lol. I'm a composer and I don't know who it is. Now I want to know.

(I feel like I should know.)

I'd place it at least late-Romantic onwards, but beyond that, I can't tell. Tchaikovsky's not a bad bet.

Orchestration sounds Impressionistic.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

That's probably why it was used, to emphasize the conformist and dystopic feel.

Never heard of this game, but it certainly looks intriguing, hopefuly it's not just a combat-heavy game.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

Tchaikovsky?

Lol. I'm a composer and I don't know who it is. Now I want to know.

(I feel like I should know.)

I'd place it at least late-Romantic onwards, but beyond that, I can't tell. Tchaikovsky's not a bad bet.

Orchestration sounds Impressionistic.

Lyric Suite will love this post

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Real Time with Pause.

Hope wanes as despair reigns

 

[Darth Roxor]

check these goyim who think tactical turnbased combat is an important part of paranoia

 

[aratuk]

What they most emphasize in their reveal trailer is that they rely heavily on dystopian clichés. They could not have colored more safely within the lines, if they'd tried.

No idea how much of that is drawn from their PnP source material, & of course, it's possible to have fun within the confines of genre tropes, if there's an interesting twist to them or the gameplay is just really well-executed. But there's no indication of any twist, and they don't say shit about gameplay.

Not encouraging.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'll give this a 90% likelihood of being a complete flop.

I had tremendous fun playing PnP Paranoia but the fun was all about finding creative ways to fuck each other over, and I can't see how that would work in a cRPG. They'll have to find something else. It is possible someone will, but not all that likely.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

Tchaikovsky?

Lol. I'm a composer and I don't know who it is. Now I want to know.

(I feel like I should know.)

I'd place it at least late-Romantic onwards, but beyond that, I can't tell. Tchaikovsky's not a bad bet.

Orchestration sounds Impressionistic.

You are no composer boy, you are an illiterate loser

 

[Van-d-all]

I'll give this an 90% likelihood of being a complete flop.

I had tremendous fun playing PnP Paranoia but the fun was all about finding creative ways to fuck each other over, and I can't see how that would work in a cRPG. They'll have to find something else. It is possible someone will, but not all that likely.

Just what I was about to say. P&P Paranoia is a very unique experience in absurdity, to a point where I'm seriously doubtful that same level of ridiculous outcomes is even possible in something as restrictive as cRPG. Especially modern railroaded cRPG.

 

[Prime Junta]

Actual real proper classical music is way underused in cRPGs. They could do grand things with more Grieg, or Mussorgsky, or Smetana, or Sibelius, or Khachaturian, or Prokofiev, or any number of others. Game composers ape it but very rarely manage to get anywhere much.



edit: damn it I'd been ignoring most of these since decades and I'd forgotten just how awesome most of them are, if Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite doesn't make you want to dance around the room waving a sword you have no soul, he makes every dance a sabre dance

 

[Prime Junta]

What they most emphasize in their reveal trailer is that they rely heavily on dystopian clichés. They could not have colored more safely within the lines, if they'd tried.

No idea how much of that is drawn from their PnP source material, & of course, it's possible to have fun within the confines of genre tropes, if there's an interesting twist to them or the gameplay is just really well-executed. But there's no indication of any twist, and they don't say shit about gameplay.

It's all drawn from the PnP source material. The trailer presents the premise of Paranoia, the PnP game, nothing more, nothing less.

Only difference of note is that in the edition I played, the place was infested by Communists rather than terrorists. (Nobody remembered exactly what Communism was though.)

 

[Spectacle]

Actual real proper classical music is way underused in cRPGs. They could do grand things with more Grieg, or Mussorgsky, or Smetana, or Sibelius, or Khachaturian, or Prokofiev, or any number of others. Game composers ape it but very rarely manage to get anywhere much.



edit: damn it I'd been ignoring most of these since decades and I'd forgotten just how awesome most of them are, if Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite doesn't make you want to dance around the room waving a sword you have no soul, he makes every dance a sabre dance

Grieg's "In the hall of the Mountain King" is basically a tune about a dungeon crawl.

 

[Forest Dweller]

The most overused music ever. Liked the trailer, through.

Tchaikovsky?

Lol. I'm a composer and I don't know who it is. Now I want to know.

(I feel like I should know.)

I'd place it at least late-Romantic onwards, but beyond that, I can't tell. Tchaikovsky's not a bad bet.

Orchestration sounds Impressionistic.

You are no composer boy, you are an illiterate loser

I correctly guessed the time period.

 

[Glaucon]

Paranoia: RTWP is Mandatory

 

[LeStryfe79]

After watching the trailer again, I'm pretty sure the music is a John Williams piece from Star Wars: Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Sammy]

>Everyone harping on the music choice
Honestly if they hadn't chosen something hokey and overused I think it wouldn't fit the theme. Its the exact kind of thing that would be piped through the rusted, worn down hallways of Alpha Complex, some light piece of orchestral music The Computer thinks helps keep people relaxed but was relegated to white noise status 40 years ago, especially if its royalty free. Paying royalties makes people unhappy, unhappiness is treason, treason is punishable by death. The Computer is looking out for you and has decided to remove royalties by removing all royalty related music and those that create it. If you create music that involves royalties please report yourself to the nearest troubleshooter for a swift shot to the face. Thank you and have a secure day.

Also, I noticed the game's also getting Xbox and PS releases, which means it's mechanics will be simple enough to fit all the functions on 4 face buttons and up to 4 shoulder buttons. Personally I'm okay with this, but it suggests the game won't be a pure cRPG but some kind of hybrid. Hopefully its a little like isometric KOTOR or something.

 

[luj1]

Rolston not on board? Booo