Humour, it's pretty subjective. I have a strange sense of humour, and a lot of so-called comedy leaves me cold; it's often too anodyne. Paradigm had me in stitches. It's immensely silly, occasionally stupid, but frequently hilarious. This is the game's currency, a surreal journey through a zany world, but there is an underlying story to it, and it's told with genuine heart. Paradigm is set in a vaguely eastern European world of late 70s / early 80s futurism, computers are tape-based, music is played on LPs and cassettes, games come on cartridges. The main character sports several large tumours on his head, but you quickly learn to love him. Literally every single thing that can be interacted with (and there are plenty in each scene) will elicit a dry or witty response from the character. Not all of these hit the mark, but a great many had me laughing out loud. This is the game's strength, it's incessant and ridiculous silliness. Underneath all this, the game's DNA is obvously derived from the classic Sierra and LucasArts adventures of the 90s. It's not a particularly puzzle-heavy game, relying more on exploration, story-telling and humour, but that's not to say there aren't any puzzles. The inventory is there, you'll be combining things and using them on the environment in clever ways, and several of the later puzzles are moderately challenging. You can expect it to take around 6 hours to finish if you breeze through it, or closer to double that if you click on literally everything and complete the optional minigames (where you can, for example, take a toaster on a blind date). The voice acting is of a high standard, and music by Wrench is excellent, evoking the early retroism of Boards of Canada more than anything else. Overall then, Paradigm is a fine piece of work that feels like a labour of love by its lone developer, and will end up being one of my favourite games of 2017.
I'm not sure why everyone compares this to Homeworld unfavourably. While there's nothing wrong with Homeworld of course, I always preferred the depth and "feel" of Haegemonia. It really felt like sitting at the command station of the fleet, developing technologies and base defences alongside the tactical "meat" of the game. This lends it an epic feel, a vast stellar field full of movie-like effects and atmosphere. If you ask me the representation of space combat has never been surpassed, from the intertia of the ships to the incredible explosions, all candy but it really helps to make Haegemonia one of the best games of its type ever released. I'm so glad GoG is offering this one with the Solon Heritage, which was virtually impossible to find in stores at the time.
