PARANOIA STORY
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¾The Paranoia Story
¢By²:¹ Ken Pierce
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²Because   of   the  large  amounts  of
personal  email  I've  been  receiving
asking  what is going on with the game
Paranoia,  AGE Entertainment Software,
DEM   Software   and  myself,  I  have
decided to go public with the complete
story  of  Paranoia  from day one.  In
May   of  1993,  Jim  Georgeadis  (the
Paranoia  head  programmer) and myself
were  working  together  at a computer
store  (Ace-Tech Computers in Calgary,
Alberta)  and  had been for some time.
We  had  bantered  back  and forth the
idea  of  doing  a game together for a
while,  and  we  were  sort of playing
with  a  beat-em-up  concept  as  a PD
release.  This game was to be released
at  AmiJam'93  in  Calgary,  and was a
TRUE  example of the troubles we would
face  in  the  future.   The  game was
delayed  and delayed, until AmiJam was
upon  us,  and Jim was quite literally
working  on  the  game in the Ace-Tech
booth.   I  had done some cheezy Ren &
Stimpy  graphics, and we had added R&S
sound  effects  to  the  game as well.
The   engine,  though,  was  far  from
complete (although the game was fun to
play).   Eric  Schwartz was one of the
guest   speakers  at  that  show,  and
re-did  the graphics for the game (his
were much nicer than mine, I must say)
but  alas the game was never finished,
and   thus  never  released  into  the
public domain as we intended (although
¶²we  did  show it AmiJam and it did get
quite  a  response).   Still, at least
Jim  and I knew we could work together
on  a  project, and we started talking
about sitting down and doing something
/serious/.  We discussed the different
possibilities,  and Jim seemed to have
a  burning  desire  to  do  a  serious
beat-em  up.  I didn't think there was
much of a market for it, though, so we
scrapped  it.   From  there  we had to
decide  where  to  go.  Jim also had a
desire  to a 3-D RPG of some kind, and
I  thought  there  may be a market for
*good* RPG since there had been so few
lately.    Thus  began  work  on  "the
game",  and  tests  to  see  if it was
possible.   After  about  a month, Jim
had  a  working  copy of the engine up
and  running,  and  we  could see this
thing had some potential.  It had crap
graphics,  no name, no plot, no theme,
no  sounds,  but it did have some line
drawn  walls  (filled  with  a  really
grotesque shade of orange) and a stick
man  with  a  big red head that chased
you  arouund  (Mr.   Stickman, who may
still  be  in  Paranoia  to this day).
The  game  worked  in  a step-mode way
(like  Dungeon Master), and we thought
we could get away with that if we just
made  sure the game reeked of suspense
and atmosphere.  Work continued on the
engine,  and  we started talking about
possible  plots.   We  thought  of the
standby  D&D style plots, but scrapped
those  because  it  had  been  done to
death,  and eventually stuck on a game
which  would  be  like  "playing"  the
movie  Aliens.   We wanted to have the
player  feel  helpless  and distraught
while  running  through  a  maze,  not
¶²knowing  what's around the next corner
and  being  chased by vicious critters
all  the way through.  At this time, a
demo  came out called "DWAGA".  It was
an  AGA  based  dungeon  walking demo,
which  had smooth scrolling walls.  We
looked  at  the  way the programmer of
that  game  had done his engine (which
we  had  mentioned,  but  written  off
because  we  thought  it  would be too
slow)  and  decided  that maybe smooth
scrolling  walls  were  the way to go.
Jim began work on the next revision of
the  game  engine.   As he did that, I
began  to think of plot possibilities,
keeping  the  Aliens  theme  in  mind.
That  was  when  the basic plot of the
game was worked out.  You were on this
ship,  and  it  had  been  attacked by
aliens.   The  aliens  had boarded the
ship,  and  you  had to find a way off
the   thing.    It   was  simple,  but
effective, and offered the opportunity
for lots of puzzles.  Now, Jim had the
next  revision of the engine done, and
it  looked  ugly,  but  effective.  At
this   point,   we  needed  some  real
graphics.   I  contacted  Bryan Ewert,
who  is  a 3-D animator in the Calgary
area.   He  was on a hiatus from work,
and agreed to work on the project with
us.   He did a few test renders for us
so  we could see how his work was, and
we  liked  it,  so  work  began on the
interiors.   At  this point, I figured
one thing that could add atmosphere to
the  game  would  be  several exterior
animations  at  key plot points in the
game.   These  would  have  a  typical
sci-fi flavour to them, and would help
to  keep the different segments of the
game  attached.   They would also help
¶²to  explain  some  key elements of the
plot (like how the aliens got on board
in  the  first place).  I explained my
concept  for  these  animations to Jim
and Bryan, and both were quite excited
by  the  possiblities offered.  Bryan,
though,   didn't   want  the  task  of
designing an alien and terran fleet of
ships,  so I told him I'd come up with
a  rough idea of what I thought things
should look like.  In the meantime, he
continued  work on the interiors which
were  coming along very nicely and Jim
continued  working on the game engine,
which  still needed a lot of tweaking.
This  was  around the same time that I
was  beginning  to  think  we may have
something  very  special  here, and it
may  be  something  that  could really
leave its mark on the Amiga community.
This  is when I began posting messages
into  Fido  AmigaGames  describing the
game,  and  when  I  started receiving
mail  asking  me for more information.
Slowly,  the walls were being finished
and Jim was implementing them into the
game.    At  this  point,  though,  we
started  to  realize how limiting Chip
RAM  can  be  when  working with these
types   of  graphics.   We  made  some
design changes to the engine, and work
continued   again.    The  new  engine
wasn't  as  smooth as the old one, but
it  took  a  lot less RAM (it would've
barely  worked  in 2MB of Chip RAM the
old  way).   I  wasn't happy about the
trade-off  in performance, though, and
asked  Jim to try to find a way around
it.   With the new engine, though, Jim
told me that the game could be done in
"4-6  weeks", assuming of course, that
Bryan  could  keep up his current pace
¶²with  the  graphics.  I finished up my
drawings (in DPaint) of what I thought
the  alien  and  terran  crafts should
look like, except the freighter (which
will come later), and Bryan had a look
at  them and, for the most part, liked
them.    I  also  wrote  up  technical
documents  explaining  how  the  ships
"worked",  and this is the point where
I  began  to  think  a  bible  may  be
necessary  to keep us from screwing up
continuity  in  the game.  Besides, it
could  be  quite a help in writing the
manual  later  on.  It was also around
this   time   that   I  approached  my
girlfriend,  Lisa  Priebe,  to  do the
music for the game.  She received some
quick  training  in OctaMED, and began
work.   Somewhere  in this time frame,
we   showed  the  early  demo  (called
AlphaTeaser)  to  the  Amiga  Users of
Calgary  at  a  meeting.  It went over
well,  and I still get asked about the
game from local people because of that
meeting.   Eventually  we  were coming
into  December of 1993, and the public
was  getting  kind  of impatient while
waiting  for  the game.  Still, I kept
adamant  in  my  posts, saying that it
wouldn't  be  released  "until  it was
done".   I was still disappointed that
we   had   missed  our  September  and
October    deadlines,    though.    In
December,  I  lost  my job at Ace-Tech
(which  is  an  even longer story than
this  one),  but  wasn't too concerned
about  it.   I figured I would be able
to  hold  out long enough for the game
to  be  ready,  and then with any luck
we'd  be  on  our  way  to success and
stardom  in  the  Amiga  games market.
Then  came  January.   In  January  of
¶²1994,  Lisa  and  I  broke  up.   This
stalled   the   music   (which,  quite
frankly,   hadn't   gotten  far),  and
stalled  me.  I went into a deep, dark
depression,    and   at   that   point
development  (except for some tweaking
on  Jim's  part)  pretty much stopped.
There     was    little,    if    any,
communication  between  Bryan, Jim and
myself,   and   Paranoia   was  at  an
effective    standstill.     In    the
beginning  of  February, I came out of
my   depression,  and  work  began  on
Paranoia   again.   Still,  Bryan  had
started  doing  some very serious, and
very   time   consuming   work  on  an
animation  with  JW Lees Developments,
and  eventually  had  to  drop  out of
Paranoia.   Still,  though,  even with
Bryan  gone, the game progressed at an
amazing rate.  Jim had managed to pull
off  some astronomical acheivements in
the   game  engine,  and  things  were
looking   good.   At  this  point,  we
started to discuss sequels to the game
more   seriously,  and  worked  out  a
plotline   which   would  cover  three
games.   In the first game, the player
would simply escape from the ship.  At
the  end of the game, he would be seen
landing  on  a  nearby planet.  In the
second  game, the player would be on a
colony  on  the  planet,  and everyone
would  be dead.  The player would have
to  figure  out  the  mystery  of what
happened on the colony while trying to
find all the parts to repair a damaged
communications   array   and   send  a
distress signal to someone so he could
be  rescued.  At the end of the second
game,  he  would be rescued, and taken
back  to  Earth.   In  the third game,
¶²he'd have to go to the alien homeworld
where  he'd be part of an attack squad
which  would  be  out  to  destroy the
alien  civilization.   This  last game
contained  lots  of moral dilemmas for
the  character  to  go through.  After
discussing  these  sequel possiblities
with  Jim,  I sent out another message
on  the  nets discussing Paranoia, and
its   future   sequels  (assuming,  of
course,  that Paranoia was a success).
This   was  when  things  on  the  net
*really*  began  to  buzz.   There was
still  a  lot  of  stuff  to do on the
Paranoia engine, though, so we figured
we'd finish what was on the plate, and
then  deal  with  the  other  problems
later.   This was around the same time
that Don Kittle came into the picture.
Initially,   Don   and   I  were  just
friends.   Don  had broken up with his
girlfriend  around  the  same time I'd
broken up with mine, and the two of us
hanging  around together had helped us
each  to  work  our  way  out  of  our
depressions.   I  knew  Don  was  into
rendering,  so  I asked him to pick up
where   Bryan  had  left  off  in  the
graphics  department.   At  this time,
just  about  all  that  was left to do
were  the  exterior  animations, and I
already  had  diagrams  for  what they
were  all  supposed to look like done.
Don  began  working on some stuff that
night,  and by the next day, I had the
first  render of a Hoarder Infestation
Pod  sitting  on my hard drive.  I was
happy  with the results, and he seemed
happy  with  the  project,  so  he was
officially  "on  the  team".  We still
didn't   have   any  music,  but  Brad
Lazaruk  (another friend) had heard us
¶²mumbling  about  sound  effects on the
Paranoia  mailing  list.   He  sampled
some gunshots and sent them to us, and
they made it into the game in no time.
There   were  also  some  other  sound
effects  from  sources  all  over  the
place  which  were  being put into the
game.   They were inconsistent, and at
times,  simply poor, but it was better
than  nothing.  And besides, they were
just  for  testing.  We'd resample all
the  sounds  we needed later on.  Also
at  this point, Lorne Laliberte paid a
visit  to  Calgary from Manitoba.  Him
and  I  had sent mass volumes of email
back  and  forth  about  Paranoia, and
knowing that he was a writer, I wanted
him  involved.   I  decided that Lorne
was  the  person  who  would write the
background   story   and   manual  for
Paranoia.   As  soon as I let him know
that I wanted him to do it, he started
work,  and the email REALLY started to
flow.  By this time, though, money had
started  to  run  a  little low (I had
been  out  of  steady  work  for  some
months...I  had  managed  to get a few
temp   jobs   in  there,  but  nothing
steady),  and  I  had  to  give  up my
apartment.  I had the option of moving
back  to British Columbia, which would
have    really    hampered    Paranoia
development,  but  reduced  my  living
costs   substantially,  or  finding  a
place   to  stay  for  less  money  in
Calgary (actually, no money).  I asked
Don if I could crash at his place, and
he  said yes.  I didn't realize at the
time  what  a strain this would put on
both  our  personal  and  professional
relationships.  There were still a few
weeks  before I was set to move out of
¶²my    apartment,    though,   and   so
development on Paranoia continued at a
breakneck  pace.   The  final  control
panel  (or next to final control panel
in the end) was in place, buttons were
working  properly, and the game engine
was still running at a good speed on a
stock  1200  by  the time I was making
the  move.   I moved into Don's place,
and  for  the  first  few days, things
were  fine.   Work was getting done on
Paranoia,   and   I   had  managed  to
re-establish  my  email  feeds and had
caught  up  on  my  mail.  Work on the
bible       continued,       including
technologies,    and    the   Paranoia
universe  was  coming together nicely.
Lorne's  work  on the story was coming
together  well,  too.   Shortly  after
moving   into   Don's  place,  though,
something  changed.  Don wasn't around
for  long  periods  of time, and quite
frankly,  I  saw  him  less when I was
living  with  him  than before I moved
in.  It didn't take a genius to figure
out that he was uncomfortable with the
situation.  Also, he had been going to
meet with Jim regularly to work on the
game.   That,  to me, was fine, though
because at least something was getting
done  on  Paranoia.   Around  here was
when  the  teaser  demo  was (finally)
finished,  and  sent out.  That teaser
demo  refused  to  work on 68000 based
machines.    Some  weeks  passed,  and
eventually the tension got so bad that
I   started   spending  nights  at  my
girlfriend's house, and only went back
to  Don's  place during the days to do
the work I needed to do.  Still, after
about  a  week  of  this, I decided to
spend  another  night  at Don's in the
¶²hopes of being able to accomplish more
(four  or five hours a day isn't a lot
of  time)  the  day  after  that.  Jen
dropped  me  off  in  front  of  Don's
building,  and  I went in.  I unlocked
the  door,  but  when I tried to enter
the  deadbolt  was  locked.   I didn't
have a key to the deadbolt, so I tried
ringing  the  doorbell  and banging on
the  window.   There  was no response.
Eventually  I gave up, and started the
long  (and cold, since I didn't have a
jacket  with  me)  walk over to Brad's
place,   where   I  spent  that  night
fighting  off  my allergic reaction to
his  cat.   The  next day, I went into
Don's  place and did the work I needed
to  do.   I  left  before he came home
that  day.   For  the next while after
that,  I spent the nights at Jen's and
the   days   at   Don's,   which   was
inconvenient, but helped alleviate the
stress.   One  day, I wasn't gone when
Don  got  home  from work.  After that
day,  he  started locking the deadbolt
during  the  day.   That meant that my
clothes,   computer,  close  to  every
possession I own, was locked away from
me.   I went in one night when Don and
Jim were there, and grabbed my clothes
and  took them to Jen's.  I didn't say
a word to him in the time I was there,
and  he didn't say a word to me.  That
was  when  things  got  really bad.  I
also  saw the work they had been doing
on  the  game  at  that point, and had
some  problems  with some of the stuff
that  had  been done.  I let them know
the  problems  I  had  with the things
they   had   done,  and  got  into  an
argument  with Jim.  He said something
to the effect of "well, why didn't you
¶²say  something  earlier",  to  which I
responded  that  I needed to know what
was  going on before I could tell them
what I thought of it.  Afterwards, Jen
showed  up,  and I left with her.  The
argument   was   never   resolved.   I
couldn't  call Don, because I couldn't
bear  to  talk  to him with everything
that  was  going  on,  but  I  had to,
because  he  had all my possessions at
his  place.  I called Jim one day, and
talked  to  him,  and Jim told me that
there was no doubt that I was going to
have  to  move out of Don's.  I wasn't
surprised  at that.  That was the same
day that another mutual friend told me
how  Don  was  telling  him that I was
using  his  place as a "garbage dump".
I  called  Don  at  work, and told him
that  I had to talk to him.  I met him
at  his  place  that night.  We talked
for   a   while   about   the  various
goings-on   with   the   deadbolt  and
everything  else,  and  then we talked
about  the  game.  He told me that him
and  Jim  had  decided  that  I wasn't
fulfilling    their    needs    as   a
"publisher"  for  the  game,  and that
they  had  decided  to  form their own
company  to produce the game.  He said
they   had   already  sent  out  press
releases  and  made an announcement on
the  nets to the effect that I was out
and  they  were  in.  They had already
formed  the  company (called DEM), and
had  already  contacted  the  european
press  about  the  game.  He said they
didn't  "slam" AGE, but when he showed
me  the press release they had sent, I
didn't  see  how  he  could  say that.
Still,  at  that point, the friendship
was  more  important  to  me  than the
¶²game,   and   I  told  Don  that.   He
explained  to  me  that  it was "never
their intention to screw me over", and
that  I  would  be receiving a royalty
from  the  game.  The amount was never
(and  has  never  been)  discussed.  I
moved  my  essentials  (especially the
computer)  out of Don's place and into
Jen's.   I  was  still  confused about
what   was   going  on,  in  terms  of
Paranoia  and Don's and my friendship.
I  still  haven't  heard anything from
Jim  to  this  day,  aside from little
bits  of chit chat here and there when
we've  run  into  each other.  At this
point  I  had  to  leave  town  for my
brother's  wedding,  but  my  suit was
locked  in Don's apartment.  I stopped
at  the  airport (where Don works) and
asked  him if I could get a key to the
deadbolt  at  his place so I could get
in to get my suit.  He told me that he
didn't  feel  he could "trust me", and
that  his  computer  was sitting there
with  Paranoia.   He told me he didn't
want me there without him being there.
This  not  only  hurt me, but insulted
me,  because I had thought I'd made my
position  pretty  clear  to him during
our  face  to  face conversation a few
weeks  prior.   That  night, I went to
Don's,  and got the suit.  He asked me
when  I'd  be  getting  the rest of my
stuff out of his place, and I told him
I'd do it as soon as possible.  Then I
went  to  my brother's wedding.  I was
gone  for  a  week.   The  rest  of my
belongings  were  still at Don's place
through this time.  When I got back, I
saw Don briefly when Jen and I stopped
by his place to drop off an invitation
to  a  Halloween party at Jen's place.
¶²I  was friendly, Jen was friendly, and
Samantha,  another friend who was with
us   was   friendly.    Don  took  the
invitation,   thanked  us,  and  never
showed  up  for  the  party.   Don not
showing  at  the party wasn't a shock,
but  the  email  I received a few days
later was.  I'll quote it here:

¾ DK> Hey;
 DK>
 DK> I think it's kinda shitty the way
     you've basically
 DK> assumed me to be a warehouse for
     your stuff.  Please
 
 DK> remove   it  all  by  Thursday,
     November 3, 1994 or I'll
 
 DK> have to dump it in the yard...

²At  this  point, I finally snapped and
sent back a long reply telling him how
I   felt  about  everything  that  had
happened.   Jen  borrowed her father's
truck,   and  we  went  there  on  the
evening  of  Wednesday,  November 2nd.
He  turned us away, giving us a feeble
excuse that he was about to go to bed,
so we came back the next day.  Another
friend  of his was there that day, and
I never set foot in his apartment.  He
put  it in the hallway, and my friends
and myself loaded it into the vehicles
and  left.  I haven't seen, spoken to,
or  emailed  Don  since.   From what I
understand,  Jim has been out of town,
although I haven't heard anything from
him   in   quite  some  time,  either.
Another  friend  was  telling me about
how Don had said I, "never contributed
anything" to the game.  Quite frankly,
¶²I  don't  know if Don believes that or
not,  because Don wasn't around in the
early  stages  where  I did most of my
work.   I will admit, that I wasn't as
involved  in  those  later stages, but
full  blame  for that can't lie on me.
I was never told what was happening at
any  point  in  late  development even
when  I  directly  asked.  I'd receive
runaround  answers  which didn't solve
anything.   That  was  when I made the
decision  to  go public.  Royalties or
no  royalties  (and  I  *can*  use the
money),  I  was tired of being slammed
both publically and privately by these
guys  when they had no right at all to
do  that.   Don tried explaining to me
how  I  legally  don't  have  a leg to
stand  on  because  copyright  law  in
Canada  is  so vague, but what I don't
think  Don or Jim realize is that if I
did  decide  to  go to the courts with
it,  Paranoia would probably die there
because   the  work  (and  copyrights)
would  be  split  into chunks.  I have
friends  in  the  legal  profession as
well,  and they're very well versed in
Canadian  copyrights.  I don't plan on
going  to  the  courts with this story
unless  I  absolutely have to, because
quite  frankly  I can't afford it, and
neither   can   they.    I'm   not   a
vindictive  person, and I am moving on
with  new AGE developments.  I do feel
I've  spent  a  year  and a half of my
life  devoted to Paranoia, though, and
that  I  do  deserve  compensation for
that  time.   This  game  has been the
destruction   of   two   of   my  best
friendships  (or what I *thought* were
my  best  friendships),  and  I'm  not
writing  this  article  simply  out of
¶²spite.   I'm  writing  it,  because my
name has been attached to all the hype
and  anticipation  which  Paranoia has
received.  Quite frankly, Paranoia, as
it sits right now is incomplete.  It's
probably  around 70% done, and I don't
want  people  to  get  the idea that I
"approved"  this product as being done
in  its  current state.  I was told by
Don  and  Jim  that they wanted to get
the  game  out to market by Christmas,
at  all  costs  (including the release
version being buggy...and never having
been  playtested by anyone outside the
development team), and I don't want to
be  the  one  blamed  for  its  shoddy
construction.   I've also been told by
both Don and Jim consider the Amiga to
be  a dead platform, and that Paranoia
will   be   their  only  game  on  the
machine.   They  like the machine, but
they  don't want to support it because
there  isn't enough money in it.  They
also  scrapped  the  ideas for the two
sequels  for  the game, they said they
had  no  interest  in  tying  the game
together  with a big plot (or taking a
chunk  out of their profits with a big
storybook) and they had no interest in
doing   a   CD32  or  AGA  version  of
Paranoia.   These are all things which
were  put  a  little  more politely in
their  press release (which I would've
included  had  I  still  had  it), but
which  are all in there if you read it
(it  was  posted  to  Fido  AmigaGames
sometime  ago, perhaps some reader has
a  copy  of it in their archives?).  I
just   wanted   to   set   the  record
straight,  and  give  my  side  of the
story.   I welcome an equivalent diary
of  events  from  Jim and/or Don.  I'm
¶²sure  that  I've  probably forgotten a
lot  of  things  in  this story, but I
think  everything major is in here.  A
lot  of  things  can be done in a year
and  a  half,  but apparently Paranoia
wasn't  one  of them.  AGE is going to
stay  in  the  Amiga market, and their
will be future AGE products.  The next
one  is  already in early development,
and  I  hope  to  go  public with some
details  as  to  what  it'll be in the
near  future.   I'll keep this promise
to  the  Amiga public, always.  A game
will   not  be  released  through  AGE
Entertainment  Software  unless  it is
something  that  I  as  a  game player
would  play.   The  last  time  I  saw
Paranoia, it was not something I would
play.  It was something I would fiddle
with,  but  not  something  that would
absorb  me the way a good game should.
Stay  tuned,  folks,  because this one
isn't   over  yet.   Thanks  for  your
support,  and  keep  listening  on the
nets  because  I'll be back with a new
announcement soon.