Paratopic

The game is presented as short gameplay segments with stories that connect vaguely to each other that frequently and abruptly shift. The narrative is shown out of order in-game. The following is a summarization of the order as the story segments appear.

In a hallway-like building, an unnamed Smuggler is interrogated about possessing undeclared videotapes by a security guard. The guard goes into a room to watch some of the tapes. The room becomes enveloped in a blinding white light. The game abruptly shifts to a diner.

Paratopic was developed with a very low budget by Arbitrary Metric, a team of three - Doc Burford, Jessica Harvey, and Lazzie Brown. Harvey describes their tool set of Unity, Visual Studio, GIMP and Blender as the "no money special". The script was written in Twine before imported into Unity. Brown, who was responsible for the audio, used Reason and Audacity.

Burford described the design of the game as partly a response to weaknesses he saw in the walking simulator genre, he wanted to introduce more player actions, and populate the world with more life compared to the empty environments of Dear Esther and Gone Home. During development, poverty became a main theme of the game; with characters worried about debt and the faltering economy, and the environment reflecting the slow decline of Burford's home town. Every facet of the game was designed to invoke a feeling of dread using a "show, don't tell" style.

Paratopic was positively received on its initial 2018 release. Rock, Paper, Shotgun listed it as one of their twenty-four best games of 2018, and their writer Nic Reuben had it in his personal top five. Bloody Disgusting writer Andrew King featured the game in a Best of 2018 editorial. At the 2019 Independent Games Festival, it was shortlisted for the Nuovo Award, and won the award for Excellence in Audio. Fact magazine listed Paratopic as having one of the 10 best video game soundtracks of 2018, comprising "industrial compositions full of smudgy beats and corroding '80s synths" that match the game's "visual and narrative dread ".

In 2019, Burford said that while proceeds from Paratopic's sales allowed him to move out of the family home, and exposed him to more video games freelancing opportunities, he still could not afford medical insurance.