Prison Architect – Review by Dark Princess

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Hello Enthusiacs!

I unfortunately spent the last week laid out on the couch. A bug had bitten the Dark Princess and she did not enjoy it. There’s nothing worse than being sick in the summer! However, I tried to look on the bright side and, of course, I turned to gaming. While I didn’t have much energy to continue my Deus Ex: Human Revolution non-lethal run, I did have enough to mastermind my very own prison. Yes, I ventured into Prison Architect and boy did I have a blast. This “city builder” of sorts is a fantastic game that at first glance may seem like it’ll only be good for a few hours, but it pulls you in with its many aspects and details. Before you know it, you’re building more cells, showers, common rooms, canteens, and debating whether these little orange and red blob criminals deserve a TV or not.

There is a sort of god complex that comes along with any sandbox sim where you create worlds for little fictional people, but Prison Architect adds a whole new depth to this. You’re the one who decides the lives (and fate) of your prisoners. But the way you end up treating these men (or women, you can have either) is interesting, and you may surprise yourself with what you choose. This game not only lets you build and design your own prison, it also lets you decide how harshly you’ll punish the inmates. You can assign any inmate at any time to solitary confinement, just because you feel like it. You can have any inmate, their cell, or entire cell blocks searched at any time you want. You can give them a common room or weight benches. You can give them a TV in every cell, or radiators if you choose to have weather toggled on. You can create spacious, lavish cells for everyone, or you can create tiny concrete boxes with just a bed and toilet.

You may go into this game thinking all you want to do is create a successful prison by building the bare necessities and housing as many convicted criminals as possible, but Prison Architect rewards you for considering more than that. The tools you’ll utilize the most are the bureaucracy screen, and the reports. I’ll explain a bit more on each.

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First, let’s talk about bureaucracy, as this is where you can unlock basics such as health, additional means of security, cleaning, prison labor, and micromanagement. This tree branches off in many directions, but nothing locks you out of anything else, and they all require a pretty small fee, so nothing feels too far out of reach. You can unlock more and more, which really gets you into the meat of the game. You’ll want to unlock the psychiatrist early on, because with him comes the ability to look at each individual inmate and their needs. This also unlocks the ability to look at the entire prison’s needs as a whole, which is extremely helpful in keeping the peace… if you want to, that is. Want guards with dogs to help sniff out any contraband? Then you’ll need to unlock dogs under security and build a kennel. Dogs are also very helpful in sniffing out tunnels that have been dug by sneaky prisoners. You can even unlock guard towers for any escapees that the dogs miss.

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The reports menu is very helpful in keeping an eye on the overall prison’s quality. This is where you can look at everything. The finance report is where you look at how much you’re earning a day, and on what you’re spending money. Regime is where you set the hours for the prison as a whole, or separately by security type. Do they get one hour of free time or more? Do your prisoners get time to shower? Maybe you just keep the maximum security locked up permanently and sit back, awaiting the impeding riot that is, no doubt, brewing. Of course the worse you treat the prisoners, the more they are inclined to riot. In the 17 hours I’ve spent playing this game I’ve created three prisons. The first failed miserably, but it was more of a learning process. The second prison went well, but I treated my inmates horribly and they rioted a couple of times, leaving a bloody mess of guards and inmates in the wake. On my third I seem to have found a much better balance and haven’t had to deal with many uproars. This isn’t to say that you’ll never have to call in the riot police, but there is a benefit to keeping the place somewhat bearable.

The Needs tab is the one that I probably look at the most, as I find it helpful in making sure I don’t miss something major without realizing it. This is where you can look at a graph of every need the prison has, and how well they’re being met. I’ve also made great use of the Intake tab. This is something that I didn’t notice until recently when my prison was being flooded with more and more inmates every day, and I couldn’t keep up. You can control how many new inmates you take in each day, and you can change the ratio as well. Whether you want all minimum, medium, or max security, some of each, or half and half of whichever two you choose, the choice is up to you. If you need a break, you can also completely close the prison off to any new inmates.

The Grants tab is something that is very important and not to be overlooked. When I first started the game I didn’t know why I was so poor, just from building the necessities. The game would tell me I needed solitary cells, or an infirmary, but I was simply out of money. However, once you look at the available grants, which cover many different needs the prison will have anyway, you see that most of these tasks will give you an advance. For example, you may get $10,000 in advance to build a medical ward, and then get another $10,000 upon completion. I have found that all of the grants I have taken on gave me more money than I needed to spend, so this process is a very effective way to earn money. You can only have two ongoing grants at a time, but can unlock an additional slot under bureaucracy.

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As I said before, this game is a lot more detailed than you’d expect, and I love being able to zoom in and watch these prisoners go about their day. I love being able to look at their names and past convictions. It gives such a realistic background to these little characters. What I love even more is looking at a prisoner, seeing their recent statuses/offenses such as being drunk or being found with drugs, and sending them off to solitary. Whether you ever utilize the death penalty or not is completely up to you, but being able to inflict punishments for the rule-breakers is quite fun in an admittedly sadistic way.

It’s also worth noting that Prison Architect does have a story mode, which is broken into five different parts. I recommend playing at least a few of these before you create your own prison, as the story definitely acts as a tutorial as well. I honestly can’t say enough about this game. I have lost hours playing it without realizing I wasn’t eating or drinking. It’s a slippery slope, but oh, so fun, the more you play. Definitely make use of this wiki if you want a bit more information or need a little help.

Prison Architect is available on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One.

Xoxo,
Dark Princess

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