

It’s the same gameplay loop that we’ve been enjoying since SimCity first arrived in 1989, and which has fed everything from Theme Hospital to Rollercoaster Tycoon. You build a prison, you keep adding rooms, you hire more and more staff and you take in extra prisoners – the more you have, the greater your income. All part of the learning process.Īs you become more competent, the experience gives way to the usual slight repetitiveness of the sim genre. After planning properly, I was able to build what I thought was an impenetrable prison. To help you out, the game provides an ingenious planning tool with three elements – walls, objects and pathways – allowing you to essentially design the fundaments of your structure before laying a single slab of concrete. You need to protect the garbage area with barbed wire fences as this is an obvious escape point for crafty inmates. Then you need an army of employees to run it properly. It takes a while to start organising the range of buildings – from cells to laundries, to canteens – in a quick and secure way.


When the prisoners arrived they ran straight into the wilderness, lost forever. I hired a warden, who wandered around the fields, and a chef who went off to the lake and never came back. In my first three hours with the game all I managed to build were some fences and foundations. However, many newcomers will find that when the prisoners arrive 24 hours after construction begins (24 minutes in real-time) what they’ve actually built is a minimum security facility, which leaks prisoners like a sieve. Designer Chris Delay came up with the idea after visiting Alcatraz, but then spent months analysing the current systemĪfter finishing the tutorial players are given their own plot of land and told to start building their own maximum security prison. Designer Chris Delay came up with the idea after visiting Alcatraz, but then spent months analysing the current US system, looking into how the buildings are run, but how elements such as race, gang affinity and assault play into the process. The studio has scrupulously researched the US prison system, talking to both wardens and prisoners and reading up on the theory of prison architecture. It’s an introduction that makes two things clear: that the prison system is effectively a business, and that it’s a business that involves death.
HELL ARCHITECT TRAILER HOW TO
You’re also shown how to escort the non-playable characters around the prison. It is through this rather macabre tutorial that you’re shown the basics of prison architecture, creating foundations, building walls and adding power and water utilities. The current CEO wants you to build an execution facility for a double murderer, known simply as Edward. On first loading the game you’re tasked with taking over an existing prison. Prison Architect is a simulation in which players take on the design and running of a major US correctional facility.

Maybe keeping them all locked up in tiny pitch black cells for 23 hours a day isn’t the best solution? Photograph: Introversion It’s not just about keeping the prisoners locked up, you also have to manage their physical and mental wellbeing.
