Hello Space City Nerds! My name is Hansel Moreno and I am a guest columnist here to talk to you about Jacob Janerka and his wonderful and hilarious point and click game Paradigm.
Paradigm has a demo available now and is currently fundraising on Kickstarter. You can play your way through two short scenes and meet some of the not-so-sane cast of this game to learn the basic mechanics and the deluxe-sized comedy Mr. Janerka is brewin’ up.
In the game you play as a horribly mutated test tube baby that was dumped in the woods and somehow survived… and then grew up to make the sickest beats anyone has ever heard.
While messing around one day on his computer (located in a nuclear facility) he learns that it has malfunctioned and will need new parts if he wants to make new jams and not let a whole bunch of land become even more radioactive.
I had the pleasure of a short interview with Jacob. Below is our Q&A about gaming and game making.
Hansel Moreno: Where does your love of games come from?
Jacob Janerka: My love for games started from a very young age. I can’t pin point the first game I ever played, but like a lot of people, Monkey Island was the first game to blow my mind. At that age you can’t really explain it, you just love it. If I were to describe why I love it now, it would be to quote Phil Fish that it’s every art form together, but interactive. It’s cheesy but completely true.
HM: How did Paradigm burst forth from your brain meats?
JJ: Paradigm actually exploded out of my brain meats initially as a 2d sidescroller concept made for a university project. Indie games was still a new thing to me, and I think I recently watched ‘Indie Game the Movie”. So for fun I decided to flesh out my own world. A lot of the core story is still in the game, but it’s setting and obviously genre changed drastically. The way I actually come up with ideas is that I get a ream of A3 sheets and just write for hours of just completely ridiculous stuff. First words that come into my head, nonsense sentences, I just let my brain go crazy. I then pick and choose stuff I find is funny or interesting and build it from there. Paradigm was initially going to be “The Cone” from the trailer. Obviously I changed it, but I knew he had to be in the world some how.
HM: Do you have an estimate of how many hours you have poured into this game already?
JJ: I try to not think about how much of my younger years I’ve spent making the game haha. When I first started I was quite slow in comparison to now, it’s hard to say but it’s definitely in the 1000’s.
HM: What is the toughest part of putting this game together that you have accomplished?
JJ: I’d say it’s to making the game fun and funny. I know I can make something look pretty or look cool, but who cares if the game sucks? Especially for an adventure game when the characters and story are crucial. It initially gave me a lot of anxiety, but when I finally showed it to people, they loved it and I was relieved. Since this Kickstarter I’ve been getting a lot of great feedback. However of course it didn’t start this way, that’s why you need to play test as early as you can to polish those rough edges.
HM: What is the toughest part of putting this game together that you have yet to accomplished?
JJ: I think the toughest part of putting together the game will be polish, polish, polish. It’s that last five percent which takes the longest. I think a lot of people underestimate this, so I’ve made sure to take into account how much time it will take into my time schedule for development. Thanks for the awesome interview!
HM: Thank you Jacob!
At this time Jacob is over 100% funded but it is not too late to get in one the ground floor of this project and be part of history*!
*Writer’s note: Video Games will only make your waist line a part of history.
