Introversion Software have been in the Indie community since 2001 and was one of the first Indie studios to not adhere to making just one type of game. Their previous games of Uplink, Darwinia, Multiwinia and Defcon couldn’t be further from each other in terms of design. But their latest game: Prison Architect looks to take inspiration from one of my favorite genres and go in a very different direction.
(The following spotlight is based on Alpha 14 of Prison Architect. About every month, Introversion releases a new Alpha with new features and additions to the game. Meaning that the comments and concerns I have will most likely not reflect the final product or even later Alphas.)
Lockdown:
If you haven’t guessed by the name, Prison Architect is about running and managing a prison. The developers talked about being inspired by the Bullfrog games of the 90s.
Bullfrog was I believe Peter Molyneux’s first studio; they built a variety of management games like Theme Park and Theme Hospital. While the games were cartoony, they were based around the actual running of those respective businesses.
Prison Architect follows the same mold: With an unrealistic cartoony art style, to mask the fact that your job is about incarceration.
You have complete control of your prison: From design, managing prisoner schedules and more. Your first job is to build the basic facilities needed to house and provide for your prisoners.
Prisoners arrive daily with their own backgrounds, needs and of course, why they’re in prison in the first place. The more prisoners you have, the more money you’ll receive daily from the government and you can currently take on grants to get the initial investment needed to build up.
The game is an interesting mix between the lighthearted tone of the visuals and the setting of the game.
Prisoners and guards can be managed to try to get your prison to run as efficiently as possible. You can set up the daily regiment for prisoners and through upgrades, set up patrol patterns for your guards.
But it wouldn’t be a prison without having to deal with unruly prisoners. If you don’t provide the basic needs for your prisoners, you could have a riot on your hands. And prisoners may try to pocket items to be used as contraband or as a means to help them escape.
The art style of Prison Architect is very interesting, as the developers went with a completely unrealistic style, in my opinion to help balance out the very grim scenario that you’re working in. People are going to get hurt and possibly killed, but the simple legless figures help establish the style and keep things on the lighter side… well light as in dealing with murderers, executions and riots.
Even with the game still considered Alpha, I can see the hallmarks of a good sim game, as there is something very compelling even at this stage of getting all the moving parts to work, so to speak.
But before you head over to Steam or the Prison Architect site to jump in, it’s important to remember that the game still has a ways to go before being finished. There are objects and research options that currently don’t do anything while I ran into some issues with workers not doing their jobs.
While the sandbox gameplay is engrossing, there is still much to add before the game is considered complete.
Characters will sometimes move through objects and while the game has a lot going for it, there are still plenty of features currently not in the game.
For instance, there really isn’t what could be considered a late game or arguably a mid game. Right now, your only option for playing Prison Architect is the sandbox and you’ll soon run out of objects and buildings to tinker around with.
But even with that said I enjoyed my time with Prison Architect and looking forward to see how far they can take things.
