Indiana Brown ✧ University Blog

PREMISE:

In PARANOIA, players take control of a faceless avatar trapped inside a panopticon tower. In order to be free, you must escape.

Game Narrative

PARANOIA’s story is linear, with 1 defined ending, which is driven by player exploration, environmental storytelling, and a couple of cutscenes. The player begins emerging from a strange solution tank in a labratory, and with limited information must find out what to do, let alone why they’re here. Clues around the room (the “tutorial level”) will lead them to think they have to kill the one at the helm of the Panopticon. However, when they reach the top, they discover too late that the person in the Watcher’s chair looks… exactly like them. They are wearing the same clothes and have the same skin shade. They were a previous occupant of the solution tank room, and you have just fallen into the same trap they did.

The rest of the game hinges on the player realising this information and instead trying to escape the Panopticon while simultaneously keeping the other people away, as they are also being led to believe they must kill the Watcher.

Meta Narrative:

The reason why the player is in this Panopticon is because they are being selectively bred for technological compatability and survellience capabilities. The one who manages to survive the “Panopticon test” will then have their genes taken and remodified to create an even better generation of “Watchers” every few years.

Because of this approach to storytelling, much of the narrative will be extrapolated through the world design as environmental storytelling. Posters around the facility allude to being monitored on the cameras, however instead of being targeted at the player, it’s targeted at employees who used to work in the facility – a hint to this society’s obsession with surveillence. Additionally, leftover research around the building allude to cloning research.

PHASE ONE NARRATIVE:

Cutscene: You emerge, slowly and alone, from a solution tank bolted to the wall. The room is dark, and the lights that are supposed to be on spark intermittently. Gameplay is engaged, with environmental storytelling leading the player to draw their own conclusions.

Environmental Storytelling:

• The tank you emerged from is in the middle of a row of identical others: to the right filled with liquid (too viscous to see inside), and to the left empty.
  • Player conclusion: you are not the first to emerge here, and you probably aren’t the last.
• The room has scientific equipment and machinary.
  • Player conclusion: this place is used for experimentation.
• The machinary and equipment is not functioning, and the lights above occassionally spark.
  • Player conclusion: the power is out.
• There is a camera in the corner of the room, also appearing to have no power. Underneath in the camera’s blindspot are the words scrawled in chalk: DON’T LET HIM SEE YOU
  • Player conclusion: this place is monitored, and when the power comes back on, you will be watched.
• Among places where the camera can’t see, such as under the table and between the gaps in solution tanks, are more notes about the importance of not being seen, and a secret map.
  • Player conclusion: you are in great danger, you are not the first to have been here, you can destroy cameras, and you must eliminate the Watcher.
• Beyond the room is a hallway pockmarked with cameras – all down for now.
  • Player conclusion: this entire facility is heavily monitored, and if the cameras come back on you will need to be careful.
• There is a vent in the solution room you can crawl inside
  • Player conclusion: you can take alternative routes to not be seen

On completion of leaving the solution tank room, the power will come back on, and the player will then have to navigate their way up five levels to the very top of the tower while on the way strategically taking out cameras/power sources. If they have the map, they will notice that the layout of the facility changes more easily; without the map they may not. When they ascend to the top, they are able to sneak up on the one watching the screens in the Control Panel from behind. When they reach far enough, a cutscene of them strangling the Watcher to death takes over, concluding Phase 1 of gameplay.

PHASE 2 NARRATIVE:

As they die, the Control Panel plunges into haywire, shorting and sparking electricity. The chair swivels to reveal the person at the helm had been fused to the computer; wires plugged into their neck and a lens for an eye. The TV screens blink out one by one, and replace themselves with feedback of this room, all from angles behind yourself so you can’t see your face. There is a crash from above, the player looks up: one of the monitors tethered to the ceiling comes loose and crashes onto your head. The Control Panel begins to reject the old host and fuse with you; a vision you can only see from behind while watching the monitors.

When the Control Panel calms down, you are fully fused to it and unable to escape. The monitors blink back to their regular feed. If you did not destroy the camera in the Solution Room, you will notice that the next person out of the tank has left and is on their way; if not you will have to catch them on one of the cameras. You have now become the Watcher, and the next phase of gameplay will be to prevent them getting to your tower, while simultaneously unfusing yourself from the Control Panel and creating your own escape route.

Environmental Storytelling:

• Through flicking the cameras, you can find an exit door that leads out of the building
  • Player conclusion: that is how you can escape
• By clicking on certain equipment, some of it can come loose and aide you getting unfused from the control panel. However, it will limit the amount of control you have to keep people away
  • Player conclusion: leaving is possible, but comes with a consequence.

PHASE 3 NARRATIVE

When you fully unfuse from the Control Panel, the power goes out again. You must escape using your exit route as fast as you can, before another can take advantage of the power outage.

Environmental Storytelling:

• On your way to the exit, the building will light back up.
  • Player conclusion: the cameras are operating; you are being hunted again

As you reach the exit and twist the handle, you enter another cutscene – this one more positive. The harsh electric lights turn to a natural sunlight. You step out to reveal the tower was built inside of a mountain with a beautiful view, a futuristic city far off in the distance. As the player character runs, the camera pans back to the exit door, whose double doors slam shut to reveal an eye symbol. The game ends.