Quick Look: Prison Architect

Patrick Architect

This looks fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.

Maybe now I'll buy this game

Time to "Don't Drop the soap" reference?

Dinner and a quick look, perfect!

Edit: This game has made me really interested in how prisons work.

Interesting

Got into this game early on in Alpha. Really like it.

I love this game. Watched some on YouTube and I had to get in on it. It's a really neat idea which could be great once it's all finished up. Cool to see it getting this much air time, it definitely needs a while to show it off.

Really interesting gameplay.

I seem to remember being confused by the continuous intake even when disabled as well until I noticed you can turn on types of prisoners from the prisoner tab in your reports.

I remember this game! Way back when. I think I played the alpha? It's been forever though.

Did anyone else crack up when Vinny said "Death Alley"? lmao

Bought this game a couple months ago. Still haven't played it because the Mac version is fucking borked. Well well.

For Patrick's first time playing he does a really good job actually.

I want this but the price is ridiculous. This is not worth 30 dollars.

I wonder if any giantbomb users are in prison right now. If you are in prison, what do you think of Patrick's prison, would you like to be in prison there over where you are in prison right now? Prison? You know, to be prison, I really think prisons are so prison.

They should call this a long-look.

That was my first reaction when they mentioned the price too. 30 bucks is way too much.

Also, Patrick is reaching with the whole social commentary angle.

30 bucks for an ALPHA is what got me.

It is pricey but I will play anything IV software makes basically. A lot of people have written about the social commentary not just Patrick. I have been playing this for months and it is pretty good.

Spinoff idea: Swedish Prison Architect

@rcath: But the game doesn't seem to even attempt to put any focus on that part at all. In the same manner you could extrapolate deeper meaning from almost any game. As far as I can tell it's just a skin, nothing more.

@ares42: They have not added the campaign part yet and that would have that emphasized. Check out the tutorial on youtube and you can see better for yourself.

Sounds good to me.
But Anything with 75 minutes of Vinny is.

Patrick constantly building with spaces between everything drove me a little nuts. So much wasted money and material. Not to mention the security issues caused by a DARK NARROW ALLEY IN A PRISON.

I also think this game would be a lot more interesting if the prisoner AI was better. It'd be cool if they were trying to escape in more interesting ways, and if you'd have to build in systems to prevent escapes that are more realistic than a single gate for an entrance into the facility. When I went to jail, there were like 5 different sections you had to move through before you even got to your cell.

In that regard, it was a lot like MEPS, but with a lot less light.

But..but I'M an architect! :(

I immediately purchased this after watching. Seems like a great sim. It also installed in like 30 seconds.

I haven't watched the Quick Look yet, so I don't know how much they showed of the "Introduction" mission, but that mission is very dark and is full of social commentary. Spoilers, obviously:

You are tasked with building an execution chamber. You do so, and then you have to lead the prisoner from his old cell to a new one next to the execution chamber. He is in his cell with a priest and you get a flashback to the murder. You see the prisoner murder his wife and her lover. Then later, when you move the prisoner into the execution room, you get a flashback to him going to a church and confessing to the priest and the priest telling him to turn himself in. Back in the present the priest argues with the guards about how he has been completely cooperative and he's just being made an example of. They lead him to the chair regardless, and after he sits in the chair, the screen goes blank.

It's very dark, very memorable and very much a social commentary. I really enjoyed that aspect and I'm really looking forward to the full version containing more missions along those lines. I wasn't expecting anything like that when I bought the game, but I was incredibly impressed by it.

Grrr.....As an engineer I really can't watch someone else build anything so unorganized! lol.

-Art Vandelay

This looks way better than the 'actual' Prison Tycoon game, if I recall correctly. Very promising and with some cool Dwarf Fortress influences.

Also I did crack a smile every time they randomly identified Clem.

...to stay away from the game just now, which is precisely what the devs wanted, it seems.

Oh damn a Prison Architect quicklook. I've been keeping up with this game and playing it a bit. The last few alpha updates have added a LOT of new features and they're consistent.

I don't expect Patrick to do really well early on as it took me a few times building a prison to get a good "feel" for how to layout the prison well. Anyway I'm super hyped for all the new stuff I want them to add. It's like this well oiled machine that you tweak and tweak until it runs so smoothly you can walk away.

Maximum capacity prison. No fun allowed. No guards to stop fights. Shitty food. No medical or any other services.

Really been looking forward to this. I've had the Alpha for a while now, but I just can't seem to keep up with it at points! It's certainly tough starting out, but once you put the time into it you can make a relatively decent jail.

I'm not sure if it is due to being in Alpha but the Mac version seems to have a number of bugs, once I get my PC fixed hopefully I can spend some more time with it.

Is anyone else having trouble accessing the Wiki?

As an aside, $30 is far too much for an Alpha - They should reconsider their price point and pick up some more sales in the process.

no, because rape isn't funny

This isn't a fucking concentration camp you're running, I really don't get Patrick's "this game is morally questionable"-speech. Still, the QL was A LOT of fun, I loved that Patrick just kept the game going on "cheeta"-speed and stressed completely out as a result. So much fun to watch :D

I don't know. Clowns are funny. What if a clown was doing the raping? What if a Clown was raping a stand up comedian? That would be hilarious!

this looks cool as hell.

He's not saying that the game is morally questionable but that the game makes you question your morals.

Patrick i dont have a problem with what you're saying but sometimes you say it SUPER LOUD

'Want to give him a window'?

NOOOOOOoooooo!!!

This looks very interesting and a nice time sink.

I took it as him acknowledging that there really is no social commentary in this game, except for what you personally think of prisons.

Is it wrong that I really want to play this and try to set up some kind of Running Man situation? It feels wrong, but... also kinda right?

Finally some content. That gap from friday to tuesday where nothing seems to happen sucks.

That's what I got from what he was saying too.

so is the chinese version of this just digger?

The alpha costs more than the finished game will. As I understand it by restricting early access to people who are willing to pay the extra, IV gain the sort of people likely to report bugs and have an interest in seeing the game become all it can be, while avoiding the white noise of having a large open community. I don't know if how it works out financially for them, but IV has enough of a track record that I guess they feel they can experiment with that enthusiast-funded model.

Holy shit. Looking at this game's style that's the last thing I'd expect to see.