Prison Architect

[imitationleather]

Oh, there were grants in the version I played too but eventually they ran out and then you were left with nothing to do and only money from prisoners to keep you going.

Is there even a tentative release date for this yet? I know why they've done the crowdsourcing and alpha-releasing and why it was the only way to get the thing made, but imagine how blown away everyone would have been if a full game had been suddenly released without anyone having played it before... Coooor. Would have rocked the gaming world to it's Coooor!

[Bored of Canada]

Monthly update is out.

New features are much more contraband stuff. So if a prisoner has a need for specific contraband, they can and will go to a payphone/family visit and arrange for them to theow contraband over any of the walls. A bit like how they sometimes do with tennis balls.

Also, the trucks bringining in ingredients for the kitchen and such also will have contraband smuggled in like Orange id the New Black. So people working in kitchens and shit will be able to steal from there.

They've also made it so that doors can be automated, which is ace as that's been needed for a while. Requires you to build a door control in your security room and stick servos on them. Most cool is that it also has Gunpoint's wiring mechanic, so you manually click between the control panel and the doors you want and they're all controlled by a single guard. But like gunpoint, you can also domino effect stuff. So you can have a hallway with ten doors, and wire it so that each door opens the next automatically.

The practical effects of the scope of that simple wiring mechanic are pretty low. Easier to just directly open it up with the one control panel automatically. But the fact that you CAN do that means that people are going to create pretty awesome automated prisons.

That said, if the control panel breaks, all wired doors automatically open. And in the case of misconduct, prisoners will place smashing that control panel on a higher priority obviously.

Also included timed door controls. So you can wire specific areas to the timer, like the kitchen or showers, and make it so it's permanently locked at certain hours and automatically slides open when you want it.

Also they've just fixed the CCTV stuff a lot now with the wiring stuff. You can constantly control up to 8 cameras per panel, but you can actually select more than 8, and it just cycles through your coverage, which is really useful and cost effective.

Going to have to hop back in this weekend.

[Big Jack McBastard]

My initial idea was to do an OZ style set-up with a common area in the middle and cells all around, all too quickly that became too small and expensive so I cheated in some cash by editing my save (cos I'd wasted tons on cock-eyed placements earlier on), things trundled on, troubled with drugs and shivs but not insurmountable. The sounds of vomiting and tazers going off was a constant background melody.

Loaded up yesterday and had a stonker of a fire right in the common room which spread out killing about 12 people, then it occurred to me that earlier on I'd locked the only door into the prison to prevent herbets from trying to do a runner, thereby stopping the firemen at the gate.

4 riots later, in that session and I snapped, got the armed guards in to lay down some civility, by the end there were 42 prisoners (down from 68) and cells for 28 of them, half of them sporting battle wounds or still carrying weapons, I wasn't feeding them terribly well and only just cracked out the Yard and set up visitation so most were going mental anyway.

Shall try again shortly.

[mook]

My initial idea was to do an OZ style set-up with a common area in the middle and cells all around...

that seems the best way of stopping contraband getting lobbed in over the fence, from the video BoC posted it seems the gear can only be chucked 10 blocks in, all my cell blocks are 12 wide to allow for two 2x3 cells facing each other and a 2 block wide corridor (i believe in cramming the bastards in) and go around the perimeter of the original site. i think i've expanded too quickly though, i'm stuck on the nutrition grant, where you have to feed the crims 1 poor meal for two days and then 3 top drawer ones for two day, the shitters go treadlight halfway through the second day and start fucking my shit up. i wish i'd have taken that grant much earlier when i only had a dozen or so prisoners, with over a hundred it seems almost impossible. i really must get back into playing PA again, but i've become sidetracked with that fortresscraft : evolved game and the bloody pool one.

[Bored of Canada]

Newest Monthly Update is out.

Announces that they'll be completing the alpha this year. Which would be feature complete, but then maintain monthly updates for the beta, likely patching, tweaking, such and such. Also potentially looking at iPad/Android and Console. The former two I can see working, the latter, I don't know. I'm just trying to imagine the UI for that.

In terms of features, prisoners have new needs and there's three new facilities in the prison.
Roughly a third of the population are going to have Spirituality, and due to the mixture of faiths and the penny pinching kind of nature of your prison, you can create a Multi-Faith Prayer Room, which you fill with pews, prayer mats and altars, where a cross section of your prisoners will go to pray. You can organise for spiritual leaders from the community to come in and give spiritual talks and the people who adhere to these faiths who attend these are calmed and pacified for a 12 hour period, and if someone else is trying to kick off and stab a snitch to death with a piece of glass, they'll try and calm them down too with their holier than thou 'tude.

There's also prison libraries, and a need for Literacy that certain prisoners will want, where you get boxes of donated charity shop books sent in boxes, and you employ prisoners to arduously sort through them all and stack the shelves, and prisoners can hire them out and can take them with them. Read them in the canteen or whatever. It's also another good place for contraband to be spread throughout the prison.

And most importantly, there's also now Parole, where prisoners who've served 50 and 70 percent of their sentence will now go to a parole meeting in a new parole room. This requires a meeting with your Warden, your Chief of Security, the prisoner and their lawyer. And in the Reform tab, you select what potential re-offending rate is acceptable to let free, which they've always had in the game but never really had any effect previously.

This is important because you get financial bonus for letting people out on parole and they don't re-offend. But gain a $10,000 fine for letting people out who do re-offend.
So if you run that risk, then maybe you might not want to allow people out on parole, which IS an option.

But if you start denying every single prisoner parole, then tensions going to go right up as people start losing hope.

And hey, as soon as a prisoner is denied parole, and realises they're going to have to serve another 15 years, and maybe doesn't have the power of religious faith on their side to calm them down, and the guy who's been denying everyone in the prison their parole is sitting right across the table from them...and maybe...just maybe...this hypothetical prisoner has a pair of scissors on them...they might not be too happy and attack your warden right then and there.

If three wardens die in your prison, you're immediately fired, and you'll be back in your own prison again as a prisoner.

I really love this game so much.

[Bored of Canada]

The entire infrastructure dealing with Death Row has finally been fully implemented and is understandably grim. Simulates the entire appeals process and a lot of means have been put into it to reflect somewhat realistic systems, especially in order to show the lengthy and detatched beauracratic reality of it all, and not really allowing people to make abbatoirs and concentration camps.

I mean I'm sure with the huge amount of steam workshop and mod support it has that someone will eventually do that, which would be sad, but still, I think they've done it as best they could, trying to put you in the mindset and teach about the reality of these systems.

[Rev]

Should I get into this game?

The dabbles I've had haven't been too impressive, but they're probably coloured by my belief that it being in 'early access' for so long is twatty.  It really is, by the way:  do that when you're pre-selling in an open test, fuck off if you intend to just keep rolling with the cover of it 'not being finished'.  You've been selling it for years at this point, that isn't how that's supposed to work.

I last tried it about six months ago and my problem was that it was a bit too predictable.  It's a game with rules and limits, obviously, but generally with this kind of thing I like being able to experiment with outcomes rather than having to hit a hard 'correct' point.  I suppose what I'm asking is - is this more of a puzzle game than a 'sim' in the traditional sense?

[Bored of Canada]

I think it's a Sim and the longer development goes on, the more organic it becomes. The more systems that interlock, the more it becomes less linear and puzzle like. Like Dwarf Fortress, the only way to create this kind of simulation is to keep working on it for an incredibly long time. I don't understand what the issue is in supporting a fostering a community. They're clearly not in it for the money, as working on a game with huge monthly updates for what may be over two years shows they're incredibly dedicated to creating their vision.

It's officially being released in October, and it should come with its campaign and actual full tutorial, so I'd recommend waiting for those.

Now the newest update video is fantastic. I absolutely love these guys videos.

https://youtu.be/n18NBSRegP0

This is the second part update introducing the prison gang systems. It's optional because it creates a problem that can't really be solved but I'd say it provides the mounting tension and end game that Prison Architect had always needed. It's the final test to see if your prison can work and how can you keep it going. If you select the option, there can be up to three gangs in your prison that will slowly build. It creates a hierarchy as it goes, with lieutenants and one big leader, which will always be one of those legendary prisoners that you'll sometimes get. The leaders delegate and make plays, capturing areas of the prison as their own turf, making sure that rivals stay out of it, and any non gang members who uses facilities in those areas must pay a fee.

So you start to organically get areas of your prison splitting off into different gang territories. You can evict them, but they won't give it up without a fight and as always, if too many prisoners consistently die over a 29 hour period, it's game over, you're fired and then you're placed in your own prison. It's a fantastic system. I think as always, it's important to watch the update video, as it makes clear the systems, because this game is very difficult to understand at a glance as there still isn't a proper full tutorial.

There's at least one more update before it leaves Alpha. He hints that there's going to be more objectives for gangs being out in place, more powerplays and vendettas and such working under the hood. Not sure what else it'd have. Just more user friendly changes to the UI and small tweaks are all I can think of to be honest.

[Thursday]

Every time I come back to this game, I never get in to any of the new updated features because I have to start again, and when I'm finished with all the basics I feel like I've had my fun with it.

I know it's supposed to be part of the game, and I know there's an easy way around it if you don't want it to be a challenge. But I just want to finish building my prison and have everything in place, so I can then switch into managing everything, but it ends up just meaning the prisoners have already started killing each other and not eating for some unknown reason while I'm busy connecting pipes.

[Bhazor]

Have construction workers stopped locking themselves in when they build cell doors yet?

[Ignatius_S]

Launch date confirmed for 6 October - yay! https://twitter.com/IVSoftware/status/645945660093657088

[imitationleather]

That's my birthday! I guess I could buy it for myself. Which is what I'd be doing anyway, to be fair.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Launch date confirmed for 6 October - yay! https://twitter.com/IVSoftware/status/645945660093657088

All this crowd beta testing has really fucked my enthusiasm down the drain.

Please can we just release games when they're ready in future? (No we can't shoulders fuck off mate)

[Thursday]

Why do they have to keep mucking about with everything?

Non-Snarky Respone: I do think they've taken slightly too long in this case, but surely the idea is that for certain types of games the additional funding and testing allows for a better game in the long run, so I think they were right to use this development model.