Prison Architect Alpha Game Review

I got another simulator game off steam this week titled Prison Architect. The basic concept of this game puts the gamer as an owner and manager of a private prison where you take income from housing various prisoners ranging from minimum to maximum security.

First off this game is addictive, and I never understood how prison was a business until now. Prison Architect gives you complete control of constructing the prison from the ground up to creating and managing the infrastructure that helps run the operations of the prison.

Some of the details that this game reveals about how the modern prison's are ran and operated shocked me. I learned to use government grants to help fund projects like researching mental health and wellness initiatives to making hiring decisions on my staff that benefited each business unit such as hiring a warden with a psychology background and education to ensure the mental health of the inmates is satisfactory. Then you have to employ regular and temporary staff like cookers and maintenance to help maintain the prison and prisoners.

What impressed me the most was the social science aspect of pairing certain inmates with each other. Certain inmates will feel more comfortable with other inmates and as a leader or manager having influence over the social interactions can ensure the consequences are satisfactory or unsatisfactory based on if you want that prisoner to make it.  Random shake downs and increasing the security staff are preventative measures that can be taken to ensure less internal crimes occur.

I enjoyed placing metal detectors in the cafeteria and at the holding cells to ensure the prisoners do not steal tools that would help them escape or endanger fellow prisoners. The game allowed me to add workshops to the prison as well as reform programs that reduced the specific prisoner's repeat-offender rate.

One interesting piece I liked about the game were incident reports and the micromanagement of operations the player can utilize in order to increase effectiveness of staff performance. The player tells the prisoners what to do indirectly by setting their schedule.  By setting a schedule you can ensure performance is maintain to optimum levels.  Making prisoners feel comfortable and providing them with the opportunities helped reduced crime and turnover ratio for early release.

After playing Prison Architect, I felt in control of building a corrections system that provided my staff with stable work and prisoners with an education that helped them reform and become productive citizens upon release.  I can't wait for the final version of the game to be released. Right now, I give Prison Architect a 8.5/10.