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Paradise

Platform(s): PC
Genre: Adventure
Developer: White Birds Productions

About Rainier

PC gamer, WorthPlaying EIC, globe-trotting couch potato, patriot, '80s headbanger, movie watcher, music lover, foodie and man in black -- squirrel!

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'Paradise' World Update #3 - Screens & Trailer

by Rainier on April 21, 2006 @ 1:18 a.m. PDT

Paradise is an adventure game which immerses the player in the heart of Africa, at once eternal and terribly contemporary. A young woman, the daughter of a fierce dictator, crosses the continent in the company of a leopard, to take him to the place of his birth, the peaks of Kilimanjaro.

Get the Paradise trailer off WP (6mb)

Zamarat is the third playable world in Paradise. In this world in I wished to introduce a notion of “real” politics and economy into Maurania’s global picture. I’ve used Zamarat as the backdrop to describe a country in which the natural richness of the land has been over-exploited and embezzled to the profit of a few. I also imagined a man, Harambee, for whom the idea of work is more important than the work itself. For him, “idleness is the Mother of all vices”. He does not care if there is nothing to dig for, as long as workers are still digging away. To some this is a very absurd way of thinking, but is not far off from the thinking of Stoic philosophers. It is however, far from my own way of thinking. ?

When doing research for Zamarat, I visited some of the oldest and deepest coal mines in the North of France. I discovered that the wagons used in the mines were towed by horses, resulting in a very sad life for them. The horses were brought down into the mines using special elevators and harnesses, and would then spend all of their remaining days there until their death, never seeing day light again. The horses would often become blind from life-long exposure to darkness and lack of natural light. I imagine that in an African mine, they might have used elephants for the same job…

When I started working on world 1, I did not look back to my holidays pictures ?. In fact, I tried to re-create an “ideal” Moroccan/North African city from scratch, using only my imagination. I also bought a lot of Art and Travel books. And, lastly, I looked into the works of a painter from whom I learned a lot during my Art studies: Delacroix and his views from Morocco.

Key Features

  • Paradise presents a unique blend of a semi-realistic sub-Saharan world and an ethereal fantasy. Africa comes to life as a breathtaking visual experience. Both the cinematics and over 350 backgrounds include Sokal’s unique and visionary artistic direction.
  • Ann Smith, a college student from Geneva, loses her identity and must journey through uncharted corners of Africa to unravel her past. How has Ann come to be in a place so wrought with turmoil? Why is her fate tied to that of a black leopard? Is Ann the daughter of a fierce dictator? Unlock those secrets and more as the story unfolds.
  • Puzzle solutions are seamlessly embedded into the story as players must interact with their environment and other characters to gain insight into clues that will help reveal Ann’s true identity and answer why she’s in this strange African land.
  • Adding a new “action” element to the traditional slideshow style of play, the real-time 3D graphics take over as the player becomes the leopard, searching for a way home.


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