Recently I’ve been watching an Australian show called Wentworth, a reimagining of the late 70s/80s Australian soap opera Prisoner Cell Block H. Ignore that it was written by one of the best Doctor Who writers since Chibnall took over. It is much better, grittier, is downright offensive to Americans who can’t stand a lot of swearing (for an Australian standard), and has not only nudity, but lots of lesbians. I might be in lesbians with the second and third season, but there is a reason I’m talking about that and not what’s in the title. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve had a sudden urge to go play Prison Architect and run a couple of prisons. The first few I left after I was teased for slipping in some vinegar more than once.

In fact, I’ve recently remarked that Prison Architect is the start of this renaissance we’ve been in which is giving us good management games again. It came into Steam’s Early Access around the start of the last decade; which seems to mark the starting point for this wave we’ve been riding of Cities: Skylines, Frostpunk, Planet Coaster, RimWorld, Big Pharma, Two Point Hospital, and a few others. There is a reason it is marked as the uptick, it is a ridiculously good game at the base of it all. Returning to a focused simple concept we can all understand, not line graphs that only the androids among us can understand.

In the most basic of examples, angry humans being corralled into rooms in an effort for you to make more money is like throwing a paper plane at the moon. You can do it, but it is stupid! Nonetheless, you do it because that’s what a for-profit prison is all about, and Norman Stanley Fletcher keeps selling dodgy fork handles. It all starts out nice with the usual stabbing, fraud, and anything else that happens in a usual episode of Desperate Housewives. However, the safe little prison you’ve created turns from the house of clowns and others transferred from that lovely prison in Arkham into a nightmare you can’t get rid of due to debt.

Everyone does it this way. You cut a bit off the garbage and add it on top to center your big jail door, then start your three-hour planning session. Once you’ve broken ground, your administration building and holding cell with amenities are built in the space of three days. That’s all fine, I’m sure Jésus’ dad will want your builders for his next project. It is a couple of days later, once you’ve had everyone locked up a few times with moist Harry, creepy Pete, and stabby Dave. That’s when the inmates start running the… asylum, for want of a better term.

I did try the new-ish DLC of the insane wing, once. It is not all that it is cracked up to be as you’d expect for there to be a lot more to do. Sadly there really isn’t more to do than normal. Sure, they are a little more erratic, and you’ll spend more on repairs than someone with a leather swing and an appreciation for the larger ladies or gentlemen, but that’s it. You need more staff so you’ll spend more on them and try to keep them secure away from everyone else. It doesn’t add more than just a bit of a challenge. Money is already tight, I’ve got stabby Dave shivving every third guard. In short, it’s not worth the time or energy.

Once stabby Dave caused the canteen to be quarantined following his stabbing of three chefs, twelve inmates that looked at him funny, an orderly, and Bob. Sad part is, Bob was out back building a sniper tower so I could keep an eye on Dave. Nevertheless, you keep building more and more secure areas, locking the most dangerous inmates away from the tools, drugs, and everything harmful. Does it work? No! None of it works, as you spiral into a bitter abyss of despondency brought on by one man and his knife collection. You can have all the precautions you want, they will never stop in their effort to make your life a living hell.

I haven’t even mentioned the time I was directing a women’s prison, that was worse somehow. As soon as they come in, they’re pregnant! You make a baby area and keep the male staff out of cells and private areas, but they still end up pregnant and you’ve not made a big enough baby care facility. They are also mental! They will plan and connive, then when the time is right they will burn your world to the ground leaving nothing but crying babies to look after. That’s another nightmare that just doesn’t end. Stabby Dave might lick the blood from his knives, but lighter Linda hoovering up the ashes off the dirty floor with her tongue is worse than Dave’s possible blood-borne illnesses.

I like it more when it is quaint and nice during those first few days. When you give them two minutes in either the Library, the kitchen, or letting them do jobs like metalwork, woodwork, and laundry; it all goes to pot. You might as well sell the drugs yourself and stab anyone you don’t like. I didn’t like the men’s rights activists protesting outside, saying something about straight pride or the male staff being separated from the female prisoners, I wasn’t listening. I was told I couldn’t use my armed guards to parade up and down the street for some reason. They kept saying something about intimidation and being put in prison.

It is when you use the armed guards on everything that it all goes a bit wrong. That’s why one half of my prison is now run by stabby Dave, and I run administration down at the DMV parking lot. It all started when picky Paul caused an argument with an armed guard over a Brussels sprout, who’s ever heard of a picky vegan anyway? One thing led to another, soon enough stabby Dave got the shotgun, bodies were everywhere, and I was the only one the escaped, again. It was a whole palaver.

Genuinely, Prison Architect is a joy of planning, careful consideration, and the prisoners being nothing more than your little brother stomping your sandcastle to dust. I’ve put ungodly hours into hundreds of prisons through the years, every time starting anew when I notice things I an improve on. I keep coming back because of its simple pleasures. It contrasts the business management genre bogging itself down in line graphs and pie charts. Those are good when you want to be boring, but having the gameplay side as the focus restarted the entire genre again, for the better.

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Prison Architect

$29.99 USD

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Reinvigorating the management genre.
• A return back to simple management.
• Many helpful ways to build quickly.

Cons

• Still a few issues logically with AI.