Prison Architect Review

Introversion Software attempts to take players into the nitty-gritty business of building a prison through a game with bright cartoonish graphics but a dark central topic. A surprisingly in-depth, yet fun to play simulator game that harkens back to the times of building and management simulators pioneered by the likes of Theme Hospital and Rollercoaster Tycoon, and applies a lick of prison-flavoured paint.

Prison Architect is a very strange game that feels at odds with its own subject matter. The game is initially very intimidating; there is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. Most players will opt straight for the sandbox mode of the game and this is probably where the game is at its scariest; gamers are given a blank canvas of grass, a busload of workmen and some basic materials and are tasked with building a prison to house a set of inmates that are set to arrive at 8am the next day.

This intimidation can be paralyzing at first; akin to the terror a writer can feel when looking at a blank word processor document with no ideas, or the feeling of having just too many things to think about. This was my first experience with the game, and it was terrifying.

Of course, such intimidation can be easily fixed; the intake of prisoners can be shut off until you’re ready, and the game has a fairly forgiving grants system that not only offers a tutorial in the form of a to-do list, but it also allows the player extra resources to help them go about their prison building. The game does give you everything you need, but at first, everything you need can seem like a little too much.

I first started with Prison Architect in the middle of its Early Access run thanks to the recommendation of my fiancée, who had already been playing the game for about a hundred hours to this point (much to the detriment of her productivity with university work) and was by and large an addict, playing the game almost out of habit. She had become so obsessed she was even watching the regular update videos made by the game’s development team. Upon playing the game for a few hours, I could easily see why; the game is incredibly creative and innovative, and laudably in-depth with its own systems.

It’s clear that Prison Architect is a labour of love, from the sheer amount of thought and programming genius that its developers had to craft with every single gameplay mechanic; for instance, water flows through pipes in a particular, well-defined way and players must craft their inmate’s plumbing carefully to make sure enough water gets around their prisons. As another example, players can place electric cabling and logic circuits throughout their prison for things such as remote-access doors. These are just a couple of small aspects of the astounding amount of work that must have gone into the game.

There are a mass of systems all working in tandem in Prison Architect, including those involving the prisoner’s own mental state and feelings, and the player must pay attention to these in order to tailor their prison for the right situations. Creating a prison becomes an exact science; a careful balancing act that incorporates psychology and supply-and-demand mechanics where the gamer must balance on a knife-edge of punishment and reform lest their institution falls into chaos. This in parallel with the by-no-means small job of constructing and managing a prison in real life, and the developers are keenly aware of this, in their video documentaries, Introversion Software make it clear that they wanted to present the prison system as it was, warts-and-all. The result is oftentimes brutal and worrying, but this is very much the intention of the game.

Prison Architect does have a story mode, but that is not the point of the game and I would recommend ignoring it, as the sandbox is clearly the biggest and best part of the package. The difficulty curve does act strangely, however, as if you play the game right you can become rich enough to build prisons with no real consequence, but does this not mirror the prison industry of the US in a way?

The way that Prison Architect handles its sometimes-controversial subject matter is surprisingly blunt. Most of the game is very business-like and you realise just how easy it is to see prisoners as mere numbers and money-making devices, and the horror of that thought is not lost on me. Interestingly, the way that the game handles executions is the opposite. The player is put in direct control of the proceedings and makes the final decision, both in going ahead with the execution and pulling the lever on the electric chair. Players are then given a report of whether or not the prisoner was innocent as the game reverts back to its matter-of-fact style. This can be quite unnerving as one plays for the first time, but there is a lesson behind it that I feel is important to learn.

Sound is a little disappointing in that the game is lacking of any true impactful music, but the important part of the package is certainly present; on zooming into the game, players can hear the general ambience of the prison. I think the attention to detail here is also astounding; in prisons where the people are treated worse, the ambient noise is a lot more disturbing and violent, with shouting and swearing from the people you are mistreating as they demand to have their rights respected.

Graphically, the game may be seen as inferior, but I feel that it evokes older Tycoon games well, and the way in which the graphical approach works with the gameplay is of particular merit. Prisoners are easy to discern, the HUD is functional and everything is presented well. There are a few rough edges here and there but overall the presentation does nothing to detract from the game in any significant way.

Overall, Prison Architect is a delight to play, with a high value proposition and unlimited replayability. I have sunk hundreds of hours into the game and the way that it encourages different management styles, and the way that its systems are so well designed that they can handle all of these, is nothing short of genius. As a love letter to Tycoon games long past, and a game of some political interest, I can’t recommend Prison Architect enough.