Prison Architect Review

Ever wanted to run your own prison? If yes, then check out Prison Architect by Introversion Software as part of the Game Preview program on Xbox One. Prison Architect is a Construction and Management game that is available for PC, Xbox One and will soon be available on Playstation 4 .

Prison Architect takes advantage of a simple, top down art style that is visually pleasing and easy on the eye. The sprites used for each of the objects in the game are very well made and are easily recognisable which makes the game much nicer to look at, especially when your Prison starts to develop. Watching your prison develop and grow is definitely one of the most satisfying feelings as the creation feels natural and looks fantastic, even more so when you can see each of your sections working well and smoothly.

Prison Architect shines through its excellent Construction and management systems as well as the events that happen as you play the game. Construction is a three step process. First you start by building the room you wish to build in, next you mar what you want that room to be. Then you build the interiors by placing the items required for that room. For example, a prison cell requires a bed whilst a office requires a desk, some rooms require more items than others but each can be built unique to each other which will appeal to the creative players a lot. The management system is very in depth and very well made. You can organise everything from budgets of different parts of the prison to the daily routine for the prisoners. I spent a long time just looking through menus and changing things, Maximum free time for prisoners? Sure why not?

Prison Architect truly shows itself as a great game when events start to happen throughout your prison. Random fights, counterfeit goods and full prison riots are all such things that can happen in your prison and all of them require you to quickly react to what is going on. When a fight starts, make sure you have guards and Solitary ready to stop it happening in the future otherwise a simple fight can turn into an all out riot. Each prisoner in your prison is an individual. This means they have needs and you must make sure to keep your prisoners happy. One unhappy prisoner is enough to topple your whole prison if you don’t keep him in check. That is the beauty of Prison Architect, the best moments are the ones that you don’t create and that keeps the otherwise slow experience exciting.

Sound is not a major part of Prison Architect and mostly involves ambient music and construction sounds which definitely add to the atmosphere. The sounds of the Prison are nice to listen to as you hear gates opening and alarms sounding, I did however find that when your prison gets larger and there are many more gates it can get quite annoying.

Prison Architect is currently priced at £19.99 on the Game Preview Program which I would say is a fair price for the game in its current state especially since they are constantly adding new content to the game on all platforms.