Worthing students develop drinking card game for young adults - This is how to get your hands on one in Sussex

Declan Bransby and Ashley Nicholls, both aged 20 and from Worthing, have co-founded The Paranoia Game.

They designed it to be a ‘fun party game’, primarily targeted at young adults and students.

The idea was formed during the Covid-19 lockdown, with Adam Malone, 20, Jasper Fitzgerald, 21, Maximus Isaac, 20 and Fredrick Van Buer, 20 completing the team of six.

Declan, who studies Medical Biosciences with Management at Imperial College London, said he grew up playing a card game called Paranoia.

“We thought why not turn it into a real thing,” he said. “We just went for it.”

Explaining how the game works, Declan added: “People sit in a group with cards in the middle. Each person picks up a card and reads the question to themselves. They are only allowed to answer with a name of somebody in the group.

"The named person then flips a counter. It would either land on ‘spill it’, meaning you would drink and find out what you were picked for, or or it lands on ‘bottle it’ and you move on and you never find out what you were picked for.

"We have 200 different questions. Some questions are really good but some are awful. You just never know what you are going to get.

"It’s a good way to have a laugh with friends. We've had some amazing feedback, some really positive reviews."

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After asking friends and work colleagues to test the game, the group decided to proceed with full-scale mass production.

"People really liked it,” Declan said. “When we were confident and happy with the cards, we decided to move forward with it.

"Mass production was really challenging aspect and probably the hardest part of the business.

"We spoke to so many different people and got in contact with manufacturers. It's a very heavy product so extremely expensive.

“Eventually we settled on one we really liked and got a prototype. We had to wait about three or four months for it to arrive.”

The game can be found in five Sussex stores: The Loft Barbershop in Worthing, Maxi's Naked Food and KD Games in Shoreham as well The Play House and Hunky Dory in Brighton.

The group is also using social media to help to ‘get their name out there’.

“So far, we have sold about 270,” Declan said. “We are starting from the ground up and the growth is steady.

"We’ve had about 225,000 views on TikTok. We are celebrating the small wins and growing gradually.

"We are looking to get to as many different distributors as possible.

"As a company, we are confident in our product. We know that people have really enjoyed it.”

The business was officially launched during an event at The Libertine Social in Worthing, in August.

Dozens of people turned out, helping the team to raise money for Alcohol Change UK by donating 25 per cent of sales of the game and £! for every ‘Paranoia on the Beach’ cocktail sold.

To find out more, visit https://theparanoiagame.com/ or search for @theparanoiagame on Instagram and TikTok.

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